But…there’s that word again, “robust” used in the context of error admission. Now all we need is an apology from Chairman Dr. Rajenda Pachauri for statements that claims that this error existed were “arrogant” and “voodoo science“. Will he give one? His track record suggests it is doubtful.
UPDATE: It seems Dr. Pachauri is getting a bit miffed over all the attention he’s getting over his ties to TERI and questions raised by Richard North and Christopher Booker in the UK telegraph. He’s threatening a lawsuit:
Angry Pachauri threatens to sue UK daily
This is the best thing that could happen, as it will mean independent discovery.
IPCC statement on the melting of Himalayan glaciers1
The Synthesis Report, the concluding document of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (page 49) stated: “Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources from population growth and economic and land-use change, including urbanisation. On a regional scale, mountain snow pack, glaciers and small ice caps play a crucial role in freshwater availability. Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.”
This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment.
It has, however, recently come to our attention that a paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment2 refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.
The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance. This episode demonstrates that the quality of the assessment depends on absolute adherence to the IPCC standards, including thorough review of “the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source into an IPCC Report” 3. We reaffirm our strong commitment to ensuring this level of performance.
===============================================
1 This statement is from the Chair and Vice-Chairs of the IPCC, and the Co-Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups.
2 The text in question is the second paragraph in section 10.6.2 of the Working Group II contribution and a repeat of part of the paragraph in Box TS.6. of the Working Group II Technical Summary of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
3 This is verbatim text from Annex 2 of Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work.
PDF of the announcement is here
h/t to WUWT reader Nigel Brereton
From the statement:
In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.
In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, consisting of utilization of inappropriate, manipulated, scientifically invalid proxy data massaged with improper, non-verifiable statistical procedures and selectively published in restricted peer-reviewed journals were properly applied.
Fixed!
Tom G(ologist) (12:58:44) :
Peer review with this crowd is rather as it was in old England when a Lord could only be tried by his PEERS (other Lords); e.g., an action was brought against Lord Cardigan (the idiot responsible for the Charge of the light Brigade) who insisted that his right was to be tried by a jury of his peers. So a jury of other Lords was convened and promptly acquited him of all charges, even though he was patently guilty of those charges.
In the interests of accuracy you’re referring to Lord Lucan not Cardigan. The British commander, Raglan, ordered Lucan to tell Cardigan to lead the charge which he did. Since the correct target was not clearly identified to Cardigan the wrong one was attacked! Subsequently Raglan blamed Lucan and Lucan was sent back to England, as a result Lucan demanded a Court Martial to clear himself which was declined, so he used his right to speak in the House of Lords to give his side of the story.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/lucan.html
Your story about a jury of his peers etc. did not happen.
Roger Knights (06:23:21) writes:
Roger Pielke’s, Jr.’s blog points out flaws in that defense. An IPCC insider, Georg Kaser, revealed that:
Pielke’s blog contains much of the Agence France-Presse article. The article is clearly wrong on an important factual point that I raised earlier. The article writes “a prediction of catastrophic loss of Himalayan glaciers… said in 2007 it was “very likely” that the glaciers … would vanish by 2035.”
As I previously stated, the Himalayan glaciers reference (10.6.2) did not — NOT!! — contain an IPCC prediction of “very likely” or any other probability asessement. So the reporter got that wrong, probably mixing up two parts of the report — possibly WG I and WG II. He puts it at the top of his article to make the error look like it covers the IPCC’s assessment of glacier melt. Anyone who has read the IPCC report (I doubt that includes this article’s author) knows that’s not correct.
Later on, the author writes: “The prediction for the Himalayan glaciers was contained in the separately published Working Group II report, which assessed likely impacts of climate change.”
Wrong again. There’s no mention anywhere in WGII of this “prediction” being part of the groups assessment of anything that is “likely.”
1. He [Kaser] had alerted the IPCC staff about the error prior to publication, but they refused to correct it.
“Staff” is your word. Kaser said “I pointed it [the error] out,” but to who and in what forum? He says he went through the comments and found nothing. But then the question is: did he not follow the IPCC process and submit a comment on his own? Or is he saying he submitted a comment and it wasn’t there? I want to know. The difference matters regarding who he pointed out the error to.
As for “refused,” that’s your word — not Kaser’s . Kaser said: “For a reason I do not know, they did not react.” For all we know, an email message could have been deleted by a spam filter.
2. None of the other reviewers pointed out this glaring error.
“Glaring” is your word. Not Kaser’s, not the writer of the Agence France-Presse article. If it is so “glaring,” why did Kaser wait so long to talk about it?
The basic premise of the IPCC report is that ALL global temperature change is due to CO2 and that the temperature of the world would be static and unchanging without the influence of CO2. It is that core belief that is the foundation of the religion of AGW. All climate research is then done to substantiate that core belief, and a little distortion of facts is acceptable.
Investor’s Business Daily wrote this particular subject up in an editorial titled “The IPCC’s Abominable Snowmen “; http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=518615
The editorial closes with “Like the infamous “hockey stick” graph purporting to show sudden and man-induced warming, and the Climate-gate e-mails showing the efforts by researchers associated with Britain’s Climate Research unit to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, the Himalayan glacier claim, like the IPCC report itself, is science fiction and not science fact.”
I suppose we can add this bit of IPCC peer reviewed stuff to all the other IPCC peer reviewed stuff..
MBH Hockeystick
Patched up with Briffa Hockeystick
Sea level rise
Hurricane activity
Troph hotspot
Polar Bears (was that peer reviewed?)
……..have I missed any?
I think the point is that the IPCC is so flawed in its mission statement, that the cause of the error is systemic.
The error isn’t a bug in some code, it is more like the error is that the entire feature spec is being driven by marketing rather than practical user needs. IOW, scrap it and start again.
mikef2 (10:25:57) : have I missed any?
Sea Ice
Effect of Clouds/Water Vapour
Positive effects of CO2 increase – more plant growth
Positive effects of a warmer climate – less deaths from cold which is much higher than from heat.
Herman L (09:24:58) :
Just Copied from 10.6.2
“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.”
Herman L (09:24:58) : combine the words “likelihood” and “very high”.
By pure happenstance, I have just read “The Neuroscience of Screwing Up” by Jonah Lehrer at wired.com. He summarizes a four year study on failure in scientific research. I have a few doubts about the absolute accuracy of the Penzias/Wilson story (one commentator has already pointed out one minor error). BUT, there are some real gems in the article about the value of “heated questions” by skeptics, the need to check assumptions and consider whether the Hypothesis being tested is in error, the value of discussion with those in different disciplines and the dangers of preconceptions. Several of the bloggers have made the point that if the main AGW proponents and the IPCC had taken such advice the world of climate science would be better off.
on the BBC website today, “Glaciers in meltdown”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/20/glacier.melt.comparison.climate.change/index.html
The pictures speak for themselves.
“I have found that pictures are powerful and I can virtually step aside from making pronouncements on global warming,” Arnold told CNN.
Carl F (09:54:42) :
The basic premise of the IPCC report is that ALL global temperature change is due to CO2
Incorrect. Read IPCC technical Summary and tell me where it says that.
A C Osborn (10:51:57) :
Just Copied from 10.6.2
“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.”
I stand corrected. I did not check the orginal source prior to my latest post. Yes, it says that, and I was wrong to write as I did without qualifying my language correctly.
The language in 10.6.2 “very likely” was not promoted or cited anywhere else. That is what I implied. Chapter 10 only applies medium confidence to “more rapid melting of glaciers” in Asia and elsewhere only cites 10.6 as “Glaciers in Asia are melting faster in recent years than before.”
pp. 22-23 of the technical summary list “Very likely” as > “90% probability” and “Medium confidence” as “About 5 out of 10 chance.” So the chapter 10 authors overall downgraded 10.6’s 90% to 50% when when combined with all other reports. Does this clarify that?
@ur momisugly Herman L (09:24:58) : I’m not responding to the first part of your criticism, about the “very likely” phase not being in 10.6.2, since A.C. Osborne has done so already.
He was looking in the comments not for his own direct feedback to the staff (see below for more on that) but for comment-criticism by other glaciologists:
It’s very unlikely that it wasn’t made in the proper fashion and to the proper persons, since Kaser was a Very Important Insider and had communicated successfully with other IPCC participants, either directly or via formal comments:
Your suggestion such a VIP in the IPCC might have had his e-mail and/or comment blocked by a spam filter is ludicrous:
1. On its face.
2. Because his other (acted-upon) comments got through. Why should this one have been blocked?
3. Because, if the Asia group had not received his comment, they would have defended themselves by saying, “Show us your e-mail — we never got it.” Or they would have had a IT flunky at the UN dig into archives to show that the spam filter caught it.
4. Most importantly, because if Pachauri could have shifted the blame off the IPCC’s staff and onto a technical or clerical error, he would have done so. Instead, he has conceded that proper procedures were not followed by the IPCC. (I.e., by its staff.)
Kaser was, it should be obvious, being “diplomatic,” as anyone would be (especially a UN-affiliated bigshot) in such a situation. The staff didn’t react because they deliberately disregarded his criticism. That’s synonymous with refusing.
Glaring” is synonymous with “far out of any order of magnitude,” no?:
It’s not because he is a dissimulating dioxide dissenter. He’s a committed warmist and didn’t want to embarrass the IPCC:
Herman L.
Please see Figure SPM.4. of the Summary for Policymakers and fig. TS.32 of the Technical Summary. There are charts of what the IPCC calculates the temperatures would be with and without anthropogenic forcings. I am certain that I read a statement by the IPCC somewhere (maybe an old document) stating flatly that without people, the global average temperatures would not change. It is apparently not so stated in the current report, but the charts say essentially the same thing, showing nearly no change warmer or colder if CO2 remains constant.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/main.html page 79
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf page 11
I was looking at the climateprogress version of this story and noted in the comments that many people were seeing this as a failure of the ‘skeptics’ (or was it deniers?) to point this out – there was much piling on and sayings ‘yes, if those skeptics were so clever, why didn’t they point this out’.
I submitted a comment to point out the Roger Pielke Sr. had noted this in his blog some months back, as had many other skeptics, all while the IPCC was standing behind the ‘fact’. Mysteriously my comment awaited moderation and then was deleted – I suppose some sort of glitch with the blog software /sarcasm. I guess I’m on a denier blacklist now.
REPLY: Keep trying, Romm is exceptionally stubborn. Also to shorten links that might otherwise get automatically sent to SPAM, I suggest using tinyurl.com to shorten them. -A
very big mistake ,no one expected IPcc can do it.
http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/but-when-will-the-ipcc-apologise-for-pachauri/
A poster on this site (no 2) points out another error….
“There is another “interesting” error in the same section as the 2035 claim. See table 10.9, line 2. The entry for Pindari glacier shows that its snout has retreated 2840 meters between 1845 and 1966. IPCC then uses some creative math to calculate an average retreat of 135.2 meters/year.
But 135.2 is what one gets when dividing 2840 by 21 years. If you use the correct time span of 121 years between 1845 and 1966 the average retreat is 23.5 m/yr.”
Strong words indeed, from a Government Minister in this mainstream article :-
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/himalayan-glaciers-to-melt-down-pachauri-claim-alarmist-reiterates-ramesh/569313/
which wasn’t the easiest to find.
Or try this version if the link above isn’t working right:-
http://202.138.124.118/latest-news/himalayan-glaciers-to-melt-down-pachauri-claim-alarmist-reiterates-ramesh/569313/
Good day I really impress about your topoc this day I hope you will post a new story every day.. Great..
Roger,
Your post contains so much conjecture I have a difficult time deciding where to begin:
Kaser was a Very Important Insider…
such a VIP in the IPCC…
they would have defended themselves …
Kaser was, it should be obvious, being “diplomatic,” …
He … didn’t want to embarrass the IPCC
Do you have evidence for this up or are you just making it up?
For the record, I did not claim that any emails were removed by a spam filter. I said that, for all we know, that may have happened. We don’t have the facts. And what you wrote has precious few to add.
Carl f,
In response to Carl F (14:55:43) :
You seem to have overlooked Figure TS.5 (p. 32) and Table TS.2 (p. 33) in the 4AR Technical Summary. They detail a significant number of greenhouse gases other than CO2 responsible for climate change (CH4, NO2, Ozone, etc.) . CO2 is the most pronounced (measured by its RF), but it is NOT the only one.
OK, let’s begin here.
I documented those assertions. I quoted, from the AFP article, the fact that Kaser was a “lead author,” which makes him an IPCC VIP, and I boldfaced that key phrase so you wouldn’t miss it:
What’s your excuse for pretending my claim was a mere conjecture?
Next:
This was hardly conjectural on my part. YOU “conjectured” that the Asia group might not received a communication from Kaser.
I applied a logical test to that conjecture: that if they had not received a comment or e-mail from Kaser, members of the Asia group would have said so. (I.e., they’d have denied Kaser’s accusation that they ignored his correction.) Since they failed to make such a denial in the face of worldwide curiosity, the other possibility must be the truth: that by their silence they implicitly conceded Kasor’s claim. This is remorseless logic, not guesswork. There’s no other explanation possible.
This is further supported by Pachurai’s similar failure, in his concession of the IPCC’s error, to deny that Kaser had warned the IPCC about it before publication. Under what conceivable circumstances would he not have issued such a denial if the most damning part of Kaser’s charge had been inaccurate? (Hint: none.)
Those statements also represent only inferring the obvious in a situation where there are only two realistic alternatives, not woolly conjecture. Here’s the context. You had asked,
Your apparent implication was that might have been making up his claim that he’d submitted a comment long ago, for if he had done so and it had been ignored, why hadn’t he made a stink about it then?
My response, in effect, was that that argument would make sense only if Kasor had been a climate skeptic and had wanted to embarrass the IPCC. I therefore pointed out that the facts, and therefore the conclusion to be drawn from them, were the contrary: “He’s a committed warmist and didn’t want to embarrass the IPCC:”
At this point I WILL venture into conjecture and add that he probably wanted to continue working as a lead author at the IPCC in its next report, and also that Kaser might not have come forward spontaneously with his claim. It’s possible (likely, IMO) that the AFP reporter was directed to Kaser when he started asking questions of IPCC insiders (who knew the inside story) about how the absurdly wrong 2035 date had been missed.
Just in case you’re suggesting, with the words “for the record,” that I somehow misrepresented what you said as being a “claim,” let the record show that I did not:
……..
“For all we know”! We know that the Asia team hasn’t denied receiving and ignoring Kaser’s e-mail, nor has Pachauri, despite the worldwide embarrassment and worse that his claim has caused them. Pachauri’s statement, in the face of worldwide curiosity as to whether the IPCC staff was really responsible for such a reckless and arrogant act as trashing a correction of their boner, made no denial.
Are you seriously suggesting that he and/or wouldn’t have denied such a serious and public accusation if possible, and that at this point we must suspend judgment until an explicit confession is proffered?
Get serious! We have all the facts we need.
You wish. Get real.