IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0.
By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Unquestionably, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to build the scientific case for humanity being the primary cause of global warming. Such a goal is fundamentally unscientific, as it is hostile to alternative hypotheses for the causes of climate change.
The most glaring example of this bias has been the lack of interest on the IPCC’s part in figuring out to what extent climate change is simply the result of natural, internal cycles in the climate system. In Chapter 9 of the latest (4th) IPCC report, entitled “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”, you would think the issue of external versus internal forcing would be thoroughly addressed. But you would be wrong.
The IPCC is totally obsessed with external forcing, that is, energy imbalances imposed upon the climate system that are NOT the result of the natural, internal workings of the system. For instance, a search through Chapter 9 for the phrase “external forcing” yields a total of 91 uses of that term. A search for the phrase “internal forcing” yields…(wait for it)…zero uses. Can we really believe that the IPCC has ruled out natural sources of global warming when such a glaring blind spot exists?
Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean.
Thus, small changes in ocean circulation can lead to small changes in the Earth’s albedo (how much sunlight is reflected back to space), which in turn can lead to global warming or cooling. The IPCC’s view (which is never explicitly stated) that such changes in the climate system do not occur is little more than faith on their part.
The IPCC’s pundits like to claim that the published evidence for humanity causing warming greatly outweighs any published evidence against it. This appeal to majority opinion on their part is pretty selective, though. They had no trouble discarding hundreds of research papers supporting evidence for the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age when they so uncritically embraced the infamous “Hockey Stick” reconstructions of past temperature change.
Despite a wide variety of previous temperature proxies gathered from around the world (see figure below) that so clearly showed that centuries with global warming and cooling are the rule, not the exception, the Hockey Stick was mostly based upon some cherry-picked tree rings combined with the assumption that significant warming is a uniquely modern phenomenon.
As such, they rejected the prevailing “scientific consensus” in favor of a minority view that supported their desired outcome. I suspect that they do not even recognize their own hypocrisy.
As I have discussed before, the IPCC’s neglect of natural variability in the climate system ends up leading to circular reasoning on their part. They ignore the effect of natural cloud variations when trying to diagnose feedback, which then leads to overestimates of climate sensitivity. This, in turn, causes them to conclude that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations alone are sufficient to explain global warming, and so no natural forcings of climate change need be found.
But all they have done is reasoned themselves in a circle. By ignoring natural variability, they can end up claiming that natural variability does not exist. Admittedly, their position is internally consistent. But then, so is all circular reasoning.
Our re-submitted paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research entitled “On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing” will hopefully lead to a little more diversity being permitted in the global warming debate.
I don’t think the IPCC scientists are as opposed to this as are their self-appointed spokespersons, like Al Gore and numerous environmental writers in the media who get to over-simplify the climate issue without ever being corrected by the IPCC. Natural climate change continues to be the 800 lb gorilla in the room, and I suspect that some within the IPCC are slowly becoming aware of its existence.
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Bill Illis (06:08:10) :
Again Bill, you makes things easy to understand.
Re: Bob_L (07:22:52) :
Smokey,
As a point of clarification, RR Kampin is joining an early poster BCC in arm waving about a small part of Dr. Spencers post, otherwise ignoring its main points, most likely because they can’t refute them.
But the post is from BCC not THE BBC
Thank you, Bob_L.
But the main point of Spencer here is the supposed strong bias of the IPCC and that point has been fubarred.
Pamela Gray (06:55:10) :
I would agree that we are dealing with semantics
In comments on the internet we are. But world, in general, is completely unaware of our war on words.
The world sees the UN, Al Gore, Hollywood, etc, blaming humankind for global warming and desiring to punish us with some pretty painful punishments for it.
I hope this got “to the dang point”. 😉
Scott,
Most of the evidence you site is self-referential and highly dubious, when actually examined.
The hockey sticks come to mind.
All that has to refuted is for the wildly apocalyptic predictions to be falsified.
That has been done.
Frankly, the lack of OHC and the bad call regarding storms, in a reasonable issue, would be enough to send the proponents back to the drawing board.
But then, AGW is not reasonable.
Gene Nemetz (07:39:54) :
RR Kampen (05:45:30) :
I think you haven’t been paying attention. Is it intentional?
Think? Please know or know not. I read Dr. Spencer’s post and found BCC’s remark quite adequately adressing this part: The IPCC is totally obsessed with external forcing, that is, energy imbalances imposed upon the climate system that are NOT the result of the natural, internal workings of the system. For instance, a search through Chapter 9 for the phrase “external forcing” yields a total of 91 uses of that term. A search for the phrase “internal forcing” yields…(wait for it)…zero uses. Can we really believe that the IPCC has ruled out natural sources of global warming when such a glaring blind spot exists?.
Reading Chapter 9 I found a lot, and I mean a LOT, of references to pre-industrial or ‘natural’ climate.
Obviously the IPCC-report would focus on external forcings because they are the forcings that are a-changing.
Things like EN/SO, PDA et cetera belong to the ‘natural climate’ then and now. Or even: they are the natural climate. So they are also incorporated as well as is possible in climate models.
Anthropogenic forcing is an independent factor adding to this ‘natural climate’. It is a subject of great interest. It apparently is the dominant forcing to recent climate change, which means no climate model can do without it to explain recent climate change.
Looking for certain phrases in a document will not change the truth value of this assertion. It will do nothing but generate chitchat.
Nice truck, the yellow one that is. I miss my Landrover 90, converted V8 4sp auto by myself.
RR Kampen,
“Things like EN/SO, PDA et cetera belong to the ‘natural climate’ then and now. Or even: they are the natural climate. So they are also incorporated as well as is possible in climate models.”
I notice you mention “as well as possible.”
That is the issue. The IPCC spend MOST of their time attributing to Anthropogenic and little time studying the Natural.
If you read ClimateAudit or a couple other blogs regularly, you know that the PaleClimatology work supported by the IPCC is distorted, to say the least, in support of the current Climate being UNPRECENDENTED in history. Other work ignored by the IPCC shows it isn’t.
Virtually no work on understanding the range of Natural Variability. Enormous time, effort, and money spent on Anthropogenic.
What should we take away from these facts????
The butt ugly naked Emperor of the Global Warmist movement is slowly being exposed as the great farce that it is. They can only repeat the same lies, the same old distortions for so long before the overwhelming reality of the actual data can not be ignored. A cooling atmosphere, cooling oceans, a very, very quiet sun, expanding polar ice mass . . . facts that the Warmists certainly cannot explain with their theories, their New Age orthodoxies or their blind beliefs that small changes in a trace atmospheric gas dominate all other climate drivers.
What will happen to the credibility of Science and the legitimate part of the Environmental movement when this stinky putrid public relations mess of a public relations propaganda campaign is exposed ?
Nobody will trust these messengers for a long, long time. History will not be kind to the fools and Profit seeking Prophets, despite their plea of good intentions.
When the trillions of dollars of opportunity cost are eventually calculated, when all the medical and social programs that didn’t happen because of the massive diversion of science research funding away from every Academic discipline expect Climatology are listed, ordinary people will be very upset at Al Gore’s great Global Governmnet Ponzi Scheme.
Very upset.
So I take it the Big truck is hydrogen powered….? lol jk Def think we should take care of the planet better tho.
RRK,
Perhaps the models cannot do without Antropogenic forcings because they are written that way.
The changes that the AGW theory alleges are so trivial as to be indistinguishable from natural variability in the first place.
Bob_L (07:22:52),
“…the post is from BCC not THE BBC”
Thank you bob_L for the correction, and my apologies to RR Kampen. I read “BCC” as “BBC”.
This is the point that has to be made crystal clear to the thousands of scientists and laymen who, while not in on the hoax, blindly rely on the authority of the IPCC to validate the ‘conventional wisdom’ that human-generated CO2 is causing the planet to warm to dangerous levels.
“The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.”
Post this on your office doors, include it in your email signature, and make sure that your colleagues and your representatives in Congress are aware of it. Tell them the IPCC must be investigated for misconduct and fraud.
The entire ‘global warming’ mythos hinges on the credibility of the IPCC. It is time that credibility were destroyed, smashed beyond all hope of resurrection.
/Mr Lynn
RR Kampen (08:05:44
“forcing is an independent factor adding to this ‘natural climate’. It is a subject of great interest. It apparently is the dominant forcing to recent climate change, which means no climate model can do without it to explain recent climate change”
Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13)
“8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years”
It is amazing how people can make these sweeping statements without a shred of evidence. It just shows how their thinking has been so constrained by their reliance on ‘consensus’ or ‘authority’. They cannot see the obvious right under their eyes.
The following shows a thirty year period in the 20th century where temperatures rose at the same rate as the last thirty years and this without any significant CO2 forcing.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1940
So what drove that temperature change rate in that period (get prepared for some serious hand waving) and was that unprecedented in the last 2000 years as well?
Alan
It’s always interested me the way climate science has a strong focus on a single question, namely: what is the average global temperature and is it in a trend due to some simple single cause? There are so many other good questions to ask and wonder about though. There have to be myriad questions to be asked and answered about clouds and cloud cover.
Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13) :
I look forward to his paper that shows how natural mechanisms such as clouds or ocean circulation variability can explain:
7) Consensus of climate models has accurately hindcasted only when considering AGW
The only way models can match the temperature record is by proposing aerosol forcings which reduce the overblown co2 radiative forcing at the right moments in history.
Anderson et al 2003 demonstrated that all the models use this profoundly unscientific self certifying and circular approach. They only use aerosol observations which match this reverse enginered approach.
It’s yet another big fat cherry pie, and you’re sucking it up as usual.
hunter (08:32:55) :
RRK,
Perhaps the models cannot do without Antropogenic forcings because they are written that way.
Or they have been forced to be written that way.
Models at the of the ninetieeneighties started to incorporate increased/increasing CO2, making them in a way predictive. This was my time in two ways: I studied meteorology/climatology/oceanography and worked with those models, while I believed until the end of 2004 ‘it has to be the sun’ – absolutely counter the consensus well established already by then. Could’ve known better back in the eighties when the models already did quite well predict a modulated temperature increase based on increasing CO2.
Smokey, okay, let’s lift a beer (I actually found this misunderstanding rather funny) 🙂
kuhnkat, there are some 100.000 pages in the youngest IPCC report… They include about all the factors in climate change we can think of. We are evaluating merely a kind of summary here. I agree to that summary of the knowledge available and collected in those 100k pages (and others). The conclusion from all that knowledge is forced by the knowledge itself; it is not forged.
I agree there are many unknowns. The dynamics of oscillations being not very well known is not very serious though, because oscillations are rather easy to isolate where they exist. I do admit this makes for uncertainty re the future.
You know what really bothers me? This peculiar declining trend in magnetism of sunspots!
Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13) :
I look forward to his paper that shows how natural mechanisms such as clouds or ocean circulation variability can explain:
8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years
BZZZZZZT. Easy, because the manipulation of the temperature data is unprecedented in the last 2000 years as well. Once you deal with that, you find the rate of warming is no more remarkable than 1920-1940, or 1690-1730 etc etc.
The IPCC passively and actively condones the media distortions so when IPCC scientists come out blaming the press this is pure hypocrisy.
Oh dear, I think Scott A. Mandia has been nodding off at the back of the class if he thinks that the rate of warming in the last 30 years has not been observed in the last 2000 years. I’ll spell it out for him – M.E.D.I.E.V.A.L W.A.R.M P.E.R.I.O.D. Or maybe he is a MWP – denier…
Scott A Mandia,
You erect the same old warmists strawmen that have been dealt with and dismissed so many times before:
“1) Measured increases in the downward flux of LW radiation.”
This is not an argument for catastrophic warming. The fact the CO2 re-emits LW radiation is not an issue, it is the supposed feedbacks.
“2) Measure decreases in the top of atmosphere flux of outgoing LW radiation.
3) Tropospheric warming coupled with stratospheric cooling (and no, ozone does not explain that.”
Points 1 and 2 aren’t even correct. Richard Lindzen’s work with ERBE satellite data has shown the exact opposit – when the surface and troposphere warm, the outgoing radiation into increases.
“4) Warmer overnight temps.”
Any number of reasons including UHI, surface boundary layer dynamics and poor instrument siting with no meta data to make corrections. Roger Pielke sr. has blogged on these issues. In any case, this is not an argument from catastrophic warming as predicted by models.
“5) Polar amplification of temperature increase.”
If you look at the details this in an argument in favour of weather patterns not of CO2. Because the polar regions are so cold with respect to the lower lattitudes, it follows that when a weather system brings in warm air, the result will be a large increase in temperature. NASA have already said the loss of arctic ice in 2007 and 2008 was due to unusual winds.
“6) How the huge increases in CO2 and other GHGs since the 1970s is not causing much of the warming and is just a strange coincidence that these levels have not appeared in hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of years.”
No problem. Radiative physics gives a forcing F = 5.35*ln(384/280)
F = 1.68 watts/meter squared.
Nearly everyone agrees that the temperature sensitivity for a CO2 doubling (3.7 watts/meter squared) is about 1.2C
Taking the proportion 1.2 * (1.68/3.7) you get 0.54C.
Also, twentieth century warming is not unsual. We had higher temperatures in the MWP, Roman warm period, Minoan warm period and Holocene optimum, so the twentieth century can be explained entirely naturally.
“7) Consensus of climate models has accurately hindcasted only when considering AGW.”
Yeah, that is a real oldie. If a priori the modellers remove natural cycles and impute CO2 as the main driver, of course they hindcast. It’s called circular reasoning.
“8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years.”
You can only make a claim like that if you believe in hockey sticks.
So, all of your strawmen are blown to the wind.
Folks, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports have been out for over two years. If these reports were NOT the consensus of climate science where is the huge backlash from all of these scientists that had their work ignored and have been wronged?
Before spouting unsupported conspiracy nonsense, please take a moment to think about this: maybe the IPCC has it right and that is why there is little to no scientific backlash.
Look at how contrasting this is.
Be careful, it’s scary.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/10/trick_or_treat_for_climate_cha.html
Rhys Jaggar says:
What ordinary voters would prefer of course is for the politicians to develop an adult approach to immigration. Nothing to do with skin colour or language. More to do with ‘available places to live’.
Sounds just like what sentient folks think about ‘climate change’. By all means recycle goods, by all means diversify energy supplies, by all means introduce energy efficient construction practices.
But for gawd’s sake, do shut up about this claptrap on carbon dioxide, human footprints and carbon trading. It’s all nonsense.
And the fact that the ecowarriors have targeted youth does make a comparison with the Nazis apposite.
Because the way to change opinion for good is to brainwash the young.
Very well put! And may I add that the situation is worsened by the absolute bias (in favour of ‘…the consensus…’ by the BBC.
I do not say this lightly, I have documentary evidence, under cover of a letter from Director General Mark Thopson, to prove it
Now that’s funny Yertizz
“And may I add that the situation is worsened by the absolute bias (in favour of ‘…the consensus…’ by the BBC”
Over at RC they think the BBC isn’t bias enough.
Imagine that.
I hope this link isn’t too off topic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8317998.stm
Get ’em while they’re young!