The IPCC is now damaged goods. Pachauri is toast, and nobody will be able to cite the IPCC AR4 again without this being brought up.
The Daily Mail’s David Rose in the UK broke this story, it is mind boggling fraud to prod “government action” and grants. Emphasis in red mine.
From the Daily Mail
The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.
Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.
‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’
Chilling error: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrongly asserted that glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035
Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.
According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information – IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.
The claim that Himalayan glaciers are set to disappear by 2035 rests on two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which were then recycled without any further investigation in a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF.
It was this report that Dr Lal and his team cited as their source.
The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.
Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’.
Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’
In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air.
h/t to WUWT reader “Konrad”
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Tony Hamilton (14:25:10) :
Please watch this presentation by Dr. Bob Carter:
and read this article from him to get a feeling for what is happening here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/25/bob-carter-with-a-down-under-view-of-climate-science/#more-12137
Oops, there are new dots to connect! added in bold italics:
Connecting the dots:
+ WWF puts out a Global Warming propaganda paper including alarmist claims of Himalayan glacier melting by 2035.
+ Robert Napier, former Chief Executive of WWF-UK, is made Chairman of the Board of the UK Met Office[What are the chances that Pachauri knew Napier long before the appointment?]
+ The draft chapter got a lot of comments and corrections that were dismissed or ignored. Dr Lal, the primary author of the chapter, claimed to have never received some of them. (yeah, right!)[The ludicrous rapid glacial melt claim goes forward.]
+ Glaciologist Syed Hasnain, the telephone interview source of the original melt speculation is hired by Pachauri to work at TERI.
+ Glaciologist Syed Hasnain, working at TERI, does not offer comments, because “I don’t work for the IPCC, I work for TERI”.
+ The 4th IPCC report is released.
+ Government scientists in India decry the glacier section. Lots of glaciologists register complaints.
+ Pachauri declares the complaints “voodoo”
+ The glacial melt scare claim is used to pitch a new Himalayan glacier study. It nets $230K from the Carneghie foundation to study the social impacts of the rapid glacial melt.
+ The European Union grants $4.5 million (3 million euro) to study the retreat of Himalaya glaciers to HCRU, UKMO, and TERI
+ Glaciologist Syed Hasnain, working for Pachauri at TERI, leads that new Himalayan glacial melt study
+ Intrepid reporters tracked the facts and found the “Himalayan glaciers melted by 2035″ claim is pure speculation.
+ Five errors found in one paragraph, including “Himalayan glaciers would shrink from 500,000 km^2 to just 100,000 km^2,” when in fact, Himalayan glaciers currently cover only 33,000 km^2.
+ Initally, Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, lead author of the offending IPCC chapter, defended the IPCC and Pachauri. Lal reports directly to Pachauri.
+ Pachauri is assailed, and when cornered, said “… It was a collective failure by a number of people. I need to consider what action to take… I don’t want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs. Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation…” [I’m innocent, the authors and co-chairs are to blame.]
+ Lal reads the handwriting on the wall, that he is about to be the scapegoat!
+ Hoping for leniency, Lal confesses to the Daily Mail’s David Rose that
:: the glacial melt scare was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders
:: he was well aware the glacial scare statement did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research
:: It related to several countries in this region and their water sources… if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action…
+ + The intrepid reporters break the news how Pachauri (TERI) used the known to be false claim of rapid Himalayan glacier melts, to secure huge grants for CRU, UKMO, and TERI.
I’m just waiting for the 1,000 other shoes to drop.
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: Modeling, Simulation & Analysis
Oh, Boy! This is rich!
Re: Peter Wilson (05:11:43) :
> [The Beeb] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8387737.stm
> … dated 5 December… sought comment from Mr Pachauri:
> When asked how this “error” could have happened,
> RK Pachauri… said: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”
>
> A more recent report in the TimesOnline, dated 23 January, reports
> Dr Pachauri also said he did not learn about the mistakes
> until they were reported in the media about 10 days ago…
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
>
> This is clearly untrue, as he commented on he matter in early December.
= – = – = – = – = – = – =
How FUNNY! A Railroad Engineer who has no clue how clocks, watches, or calendars work! Even Mussolini would have fired Pachauri!
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow… yadda yadda yadda
The IPCC also included non-reviewed material in its claim about the rising cost of extreme weather events. The Times just had a story on this, which is discussed in this more recent thread on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/for-the-ipcc-ar4-weather-events-are-climate-looks-like-another-retraction-is-needed/
If you churn through the other threads here (I have 12 tabs open to follow them all, but I lose track of what’s where) you’ll find documentation or links of other non-reviewed citations. One site has focused on documenting all the IPCC’s references to WWF articles, of which there are quite a few.
I note your dismay in your first comment about the over-statement here and the willingness to dismiss the IPCC’s reports root and branch, or to claim or imply that these recent bloopers discredit all else. This wildness is an unfortunate but natural tendency in the majority of intense controversialists. We should give the devil his due. (For instance, if we are going to defend Plimer by saying that the bloopers in his book don’t discredit the rest, we should be willing to consider that there’s lots that’s OK in AR4.)
I think, or hope anyway, if a poll were held, the center of gravity on this site would not go too far overboard on the implications of these latest scandals.
Even if they did, try to “take what you can use, and let the rest go by.” There are lots of plums here.
@ur momisugly RichieP (06:04:08) :
Having just read Pielke’s blog on this issue…
“When the IPCC advises world leaders that “climate change is very likely to produce significant impacts on selected marine fish and shellfish (Baker, 2005)” it doesn’t call attention to the fact that the sole authority on which this statement rests is a WWF workshop project report (see the “Baker” document below).”
= – = – = – = – = – = – = – = – =
There are beginning to be enough “smoking guns” to fill an armory.
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: yadda yadda yadda
Here are excerpts an article, just up and linked to by Climate Depot, that bear on your implication that all is or was well in the IPCC’s procedures:
It’s worth noting, for the record, that the notorious Seth Borenstein of the AP is spinning the story this way, in order to characterize the IPCC’s blunder as inadvertent rather than deliberate, as is a reporter for NPR.
Just because the date from the Russian paper wasn’t transposed doesn’t mean that the 2350 date is thereby wrong. It’s truth or falsity is independent of someone else’s misconstruction or misuse of it.
On August 6 2003 Stephan Singer from WWF also showed their bias towards ‘extreme heat events’ and wanted a report by an economist on the European heatwave to show all the negative effects of a warming event.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=350&filename=1060196763.txt
The process is all one way isn’t it? …..a quote…..
…can you advise us on a competent author who is readily
available [can be one of you, of course], to bring together the
conventionally accessible costs of reduced transport loads on rivers, in
railway networks, forest fires, disruption of water supply and
irrigation, closure of hydro power and even nuclear in some locations,
health costs, agricultural failures [if accessible] etc
etcetc…resulting from the heat wave?
Here’s another one:
@ur momisugly Norman (09:09:48) :
> It boggles my mind to read how many of the people
> posting here assert that this single admission of error
> invalidates evrything (sic) the IPCC has written.
> Here is my challenge to WUWT: put together a list of
> what you assert is every single false claim in the
> IPCC 4AR, listed by report reference number
> (this one would be WG2-10.6.2), with a properly
> formatted citation that “proves” your assertion.
> I promise to read it int (sic)its entirety.
Norman
W.r.t. your challenge to WUWT:
* A priori, it is incumbent upon those who proclaim the alarm, the IPCC, to prove their claim. It is not a requirement on us to disprove the unproven claims of those who claim the preposterous, namely the IPCC.
* We skeptics are in the camp of those who believe previous science is still accurate. The IPCC, HCRU, UKMO, and Penn State are in the camp that predicts cataclysmic destruction of the earth if massive economic and 1st-world lifestyle changes are not IMMEDIATELY implemented, namely turning the control of the earth and our “carbon economy” over to a UN appointed panel to govern the world, who will push edicts on all nations, who MUST comply.
Honestly, that control would be tempting, if that UN panel could order Muslim countries to jail all terrorists and allow religious freedom to Jews and Christians, and all others, in their Muslim countries and the world-over. I say that as a Lakota (an American Indian that you will know as “Sioux” like Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Red Cloud), so don’t jump to religious and ethnic conclusions with me.
Now to your post:
(1) Prove to you… Forget it! You are some anonymous “Norman.”
I have nothing to prove to you. I’m a Technical Fellow, using my real name, with a lot of international respect of my peers. I couldn’t care less what some anonymous personage such as yourself thinks about anything. My colleagues here on the blog have nothing to prove to you. You are a twit!
(2) We have been listing the infractions. You want a complete itemized and referenced list given to you as if you were a Lord Judge Inquisitor who could make a decision and cause an effect? If you are a person in authority, I and my mates might put that together for you. Barring that, you aren’t worth the trouble. Until use prove you are someone we might want to impress, why don’t you read the last 6 months of blogs and do your own homework?
(3) This blog is democratic… we are all equals, so you get to research like the rest of us. I learned what I know about AGW, GW and Climate Change–Climate Scientology is more like it–on my own, just like everyone else, so you need to research the following to learn the truth on your own:
(A) rapid glacial melt, Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035, is a complete fraud.
(B) 30% of existing species will become extinct in the near future from AGW is a complete fraud. The IPCC asserts it without prviding the peer-reviewed papers that list the species and thereby determine the 30% number.
(C) Crop failures from drought. Yeah, right! Precipitation is no longer happening, just like the IPCC says. Bullshirt. Why don’t you ask the IPCC to prove their claims instead of asking us to prove our assertion that the earth will continue much like it has for 100s of thousands, even 100s of millions of years?
(D) The bogus claims, even admitted to be bogus by Pachauri, of rapid Himalayan glacier melts were used to seek $$,$$$,$$$ grants to study something that isn’t even happening.
(E) CO2 rise lags the rise in global temperatures. Look up “glacial ice cores” for Greenland and Antarctica, and the gas chromatographic analysis before you look as stupid as the AGW folks. The AGWs claim the CO2 rise forces a rise in temperature. Hence, the 20th century humans were evil, and burned gasoline and coal, and made CO2, and heated the planet, and if we don’t stop, we will scorch the earth to death. Meanwhile, the historic, millions of years of ice core data say that the CO2 rise happens after the temperature rises. So, Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen, et al, all the way to Pachauri want the whole world accept that their claimed effect happens before the cause. How stupid do you, and your AGW cronies think we are?
I forgot… you’re a twit.
And you want us to list the total number of infractions so that you can decide for your little-old-self if the skeptics have a point?
Go back to your little corner and pleasure yourself with your self-delusions of mediocrity. We real folks have important work to do.
If you choose to drop the anonymity, and indeed you are someone of import, I will be glad to assist you in your journey of knowledge and truth.
Until then, shut up and read the blogs, published material, and referenced journal articles. Then, when you know more than a slug, try posting again.
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: Modeling, Simulation & Analysis
@ur momisugly Pamela Gray (09:54:59) :
> Let’s get something straightened out here.
> Glaciers that are in mountain ranges like the Himalayas
> are not affected by climate change (their altitude guarantees
> cold weather that will freeze the brass balls off a monkey)…
> They are affected by weather pattern variation…
> ultra high altitude glacial receding and advancing behavior
> is fully explained by humidity, precipitation and temperature
> directly tied to weather patterns, and these are directly tied
> to oceanic/large water body vicinity affects, jet stream
> position, and regional pressure gradients.
So, glacial phenomenology are more akin to Boyle’s Gass Laws than Mann-made Global Warming Hockey-Sticks?
I’m not surprised!
* Boyle was a classical physicist who worked in a laboratory and derived Natural Law from experiments.
* Michael Mann, Phill Jones, et al, are charlatans who derived attempts at coerced Economic Law out of Invented Models that don’t even track well to their falsified data, and they DESTROYED the original data, which is–in my mind–a crime against humanity.
Pamela, you should be the Chief Scientist of the reconstituted IPCC, under the leadership of Lord Monckton!
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: Modeling Simulation & Analysis
Published mystery author (sold 3 novels to 2 publishers)
Published classical music composer (sold a cantata for double choir and cathedral organ, and working on 2 operas)
Artist (painter, sculptor, and photographer, with a few awards here and there)
Former assistant chef in a 4-star French-Swiss restaurant
“The most famous person nobody has heard of.”
Richard Henry Lee said:
And that’s still correct, right? Can you specify any error there?
Also correct. Are there any contrary data?
It’s also amazing that you think someone checking the facts would have discovered something different. Clifford Irving was a fraud, you know. His book was loosely based on actual events, but it was a fraud. Irving was convicted of a crime and did some jail time.
That doesn’t change the fact that Howard Hughes lived, loved, made oodles of money, and was very bizarre in his later years.
Were it true that everyone involved in the e-mails had hoaxed up all their data — and that’s not even close to a possibility; there’s no allegation that they hoaxed any data — that would not change the facts. Deserts are spreading, ice is melting glaciers are disappearing.
This is reality. We need to deal in reality.
@ur momisugly Tony Hamilton (14:25:10) :
> Are you all mad?
> Spring is coming earlier, Autumn later, species that
> require warmth are being found further from the
> equator. Glaciers are melting. Climate is being
> disrupted, food production in many countries is
> reduced, etc. etc.
Tony, Tony, Tony,
Your awareness is a decade out of date.
Global temperatures were flat and then declining for the last decade. Google “hide the decline” and learn. The last two years of this decade are among the coldest in a very long while. Even NASA and NOAA admit it.
You and your liberal arts friends didn’t bother with math and science beyond the minimum required for your major. Or perhaps you are one of the Hollywood folks that don’t need to understand science to the level of a hair-dresser (that has to know chemistry to pass the State-Boards). Let me help you out:
Just because the earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age doesn’t mean it will always get warmer. We have millions of years of ice core data that show that the earth has gone through many ice ages and inter-glacial periods. Maybe you’ve heard of them?
Well, most of the inter-glacial periods were about 1 to 2 thousand years long. The one were are in now–all of human civilization since “coming out of the trees”–is just over 12 thousand years long. This current inter-glacial period is an anomaly. It shouldn’t be this long. Statistically speaking, we should already be in another ice age.
Don’t get me wrong, I like warm weather! I love to surf bare-back and sail barefoot in shirt-sleeves. But seriously, the Midaevil Warm Period (MWP)–which your AGW heroes had to delete from their data to get their “Hockey Stick”–really did happen and was much warmer than now. How did those folks in the middle-ages make it so warm without automobiles, trains, aeroplanes and many huge factories burning fossil fuels and coal, and millions of homes using electricity from coal-powered plants. Henry the 8th and his contemporaries must have had some secret CO2 production facility to get it so warm that they could grow oranges and red grapes in England and have grain agriculture in Greenland. But wait, that is improbable.
Then the MWP ended. Henry the 8th and the Pope must have ordered everyone to stop burning fossil fuels, because the Little Ice Age set in. Songs like “Good King Wenceslaus” were written about the freezing cold conditions that were not heard of in living memory. But wait, such an IPCC-like control of greenhouse gasses at the end of the MWP is also very improbable.
Then, after a few hundred years, it started to get warmer, even before the Industrial Revolution got going. Even using Phil Jones’ and Michael Mann’s cooked books data, we see that warming didn’t happen through the industrialization that led up to WWI. Indeed, the 1960s were more about Free Hippy Love-ins than warming earth. Newsweek published reports in 1976 that stated NOAA scientists emphatically promised that we all were about to enter a new ice age, if mankind didn’t stop burning gasoline and coal.
Then, when the sun woke up from a long slumber, the earth started to heat up. I liked it, because in the 1980s, I was a long-haired surf bum, chasing big surf wherever I could find it.
In the 1990s, this warming was seized on by the environmental movement to prove that man was heating the planet. Sadly, real science disproves this, but it doesn’t matter to folks like you.
You remind me of a friend who fell in love with a stripper. We tried to warn him that she was lying, and only after money. He wouldn’t hear it. He was too in love with “how hot she was” to listen to reason. A few years later, she was gone, and he was bankrupt with several venereal diseases, yet he still moaned about how hot she was.
Like the stripper, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, et all up to Pachauri are only really interested in the money (and power). They don’t really care about you and our environmental causes. Otherwise, Pachaury wouldn’t be building coal-powered electric plants in India et cetera and despite the increased CO2, making money of the Carbon-Offset Credit trades. If they were real environmentalists and believed CO2 was bad, they would not build the plants at all.
You, like my friend who loved his stripper, are similarly saturated with the dream, in this case, the nobility of environmentalism. As a Lakota (American Indians called “Sioux”) I too am deeply reverent of EarthMother. Protecting her is among our highest callings.
That does not allow us to embrace lies to accomplish the protection of EarthMother. Using bad science from lying “scientists” attracts negative energy to our environmentalist causes. Please do not dishonor our cause by embracing the lies of Al Gore, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, et cetera, all the way up to Pachauri and the IPCC.
Let’s separate the protection of the environment (and the discussion of the earth’s population, and the impact of the human species) from the subject of global warming, which frankly is DOMINATED by the sun’s energy.
When the sun is cooking, the earth is hot. When the sun slumbers, the earth is cool. No matter how much you want to believe in Santa Claus or man-made global warming via CO2, it isn’t true. No matter how effective the propaganda was at selling AGW, it just isn’t true. As long as you and other environmentalists cling to the false science, you will hurt our cause of protecting the earth.
Don’t you see how, by clinging to this now disproven AGW line, you are opening the door for people to ridicule us as backward idiots who will lie to accomplish our goals. That may cost us in the public arena. We have worked so hard since the 1960s to attract popular support. Don’t ruin that!
Drop the stupid scientists that lied to us. Huddle up and regroup. Rethink the strategy, and try again. Believe me, I am with you on protecting EarthMother, but as a Lakota–an honor culture–I cannot sacrifice my integrity to accomplish a short-term gain. As both a Lakota and a scientist, I must enhance my honor by choosing to embrace the truth, even if the lie is more convenient to use. Choosing the convenient lie was Al Gore’s mistake, and his rapidly waning credibility will soon have him so disgraced that he will not be able to help a public cause again.
So, please do not accuse us WUWT scientists of sticking our heads in the sand, when it is you who are doing so. Four years ago, I began predicting that real science led to a conclusion that we are about to enter a deep cooling cycle. I was proven right, along with Piers Corbyn, a lot of Russian and Norwegian scientists. The next few years will be colder than this year.
You are the one that needs to wake up.
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: Modeling Simulation & Analysis
Published mystery author (sold 3 novels to 2 publishers)
Published classical music composer (sold a cantata for double choir and cathedral organ, and working on 2 operas)
Artist (painter, sculptor, and photographer, with a few awards here and there)
Former assistant chef in a 4-star French-Swiss restaurant
“The most famous person nobody has heard of.”
Off the top of my head (I don’t keep a magazine full of ammo, so I hope others will fill in the details) the ice is melting less quickly in the Arctic in the last three years, so that’s not still correct. I’ve read that the Sahara, at least, has seen significant greening for several years, so it’s hard to believe that more browning than greening is occurring in that continent.
Yesterday I sent an email to De Telegraaf (Holland biggest newspaper) about this post and guess what? It’s on their website today! The headline reads: IPCC-man: We wilden politici beïnvloeden (transl.: IPPC man: we wanted to influence politicians).
The comments below the article speak for themselves. For those who don’t speak Dutch, I can assure you they are far from positive 😉
‘Courage, mes amis..!’
We have an enormous mountain to climb – the politicians and ‘warmists’ are STILL waffling on as if nothing has changed – I am still absolutely astonished that world governments (with the possible exception of China) have proved themselves to be SO naive as to swallow the Emperor’s New Clothes climate story so completely – but then again two words come to mind:
CONTROL
TAX.
We in the UK seem to be one of the worst nations on the planet to be so taken in by this monumental scam – its fashionable, you see, to be riding your bike or taking your hessian shopping bag to the supermarket to ‘save the planet’ – and little Tamsin and Damian have got SUCH an interesting project at school to blackmail Mummy and Daddy into reducing their ‘carbon footprint’ (characterised as a horrible, black sticky splodge across the carpet)… Lets all forget that carbon dioxide is the life-blood of plants…
So – lets keep up the pressure – keep pestering the mainstream press – maybe even the BBC might eventually see the light.
The liars, schemers, and ‘thanks-I’ll-take-the-money-for-showing-the-results-you-want’ brigade have got to be hassled relentlessly – every minute, every hour, every day..!
We can truly say: ‘We owe it to our chidren and grandchildren’…
David (02:19): “taking your hessian shopping bag to the supermarket to ’save the planet’”…
… and usually in a 4×4 in my observation! I am never sure whether to attribute it to hypocrisy or extreme stupidity.
Norman (15:48:52) :
John Galt (10:01:21) : Actually Norman, it’s up to the IPCC to show it’s assertions are correct. The scientific method dictates that.
John, those “assertions” are found in each and every page of the IPCC report as a reference to a peer-reviewed scientific report (the single, non-peer reviewed exception being the WWF reference in WGII ch 10, section 6.2).
Scientists are supposed to be from Missouri (the “Show Me” state) and are not supposed to accept something as correct just because some supposed authority publishes a paper.
If you are not satisfied with the the reference note, you can go directly to the cited publication. The IPCC authors have read and debated their assigned areas. They leave behind as the evidence of that fact their comments:
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/publications/AR4/ar4review.html
If your not satisfied with that, then I suggest you ask one of the IPCC 4AR authors directly how it works.
Norman,
Which part of it’s up to the IPCC to show it’s assertions are correct. The scientific method dictates that. is it that you don’t understand?
The mission of the IPCC and how it operates are both well known. The IPCC is not a scientific body and the majority of it’s members are not scientists. The mission of the IPCC has always been political.
Peer review is just one step on the process and peer review is easily manipulated by controlling who does the peer review.
John Galt (06:09:59) : “Peer review is just one step on the process and peer review is easily manipulated by controlling who does the peer review.”
That manipulation taking place right now. IPCC is accepting nominations for lead authors and reviewers of AR5 from Jan 15th to March 12, 2010. But you can only submit nominations if you are one of the organizations already selected by the IPCC.
Ed Darrell (21:22:20) : quotes
“Processes that have been going on for a long time are accelerating. The ice is melting more rapidly in the Arctic, the desert is spreading more quickly in Africa, the glaciers are shrinking in the Himalayas.”
then Ed sasks “And that’s still correct, right? Can you specify any error there?”
There is much confusion caused by the conflation of 1) global warming 2) climate change 3) anthropogenic global warming 4) anthropogenic climate change 5) Anthropogenic CO2 induced global warming, and 6) anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change.
The statements above about glaciers melting are most likely true. We are still recovering from the last ice age, are we not?
What is erroneous is to show natural or cause-unknown global warming, and then jump to saying that this proves anthropogenic CO2 induced global warming.
Ed — which of the above observed changes (arctic ice, Sahara desertification, glacial melting or the changes in rate of any of these) do you claim are caused by anything other than natural variations in climate?
No. There is no natural cycle we know of to explain the rapid retreat of glaciers on every continent that we experience now.
If you have a natural cause, posit it. Do the research to show the data that the natural cause is, in fact the cause.
I’ve not found any paper to do that, on any of these effects.
Desertification in most areas has human assistance that is well documented, if not wholly human caused (the Aral Desert; cedars of Lebanon; Carthage; Babylon; west Utah). Were natural cycles consistent, we should be in a massive cooling trend now, since at least the middle of the 20th century — but we’re not seeing any significant cooling at all. Air pollution journals during the past 50 years have pondered whether we were not creating unnatural warming. That’s what the evidence tends to show, I think.
Especially with desertification. Think Dust Bowl. Humans have been contributing to desertification in a big way for 5,000 years. We haven’t stoppped suddenly.
Newt Love,
Thanks for saying so eloquently what many of us feel (and with scientific qualifications to boot!). I know it’s a “granfalloon” but part of my Heinz 57 is Choctaw (fairly recent) and – tada haha – Pequot (Temperance Shaler, my 9th great-grandmother!).
Keep it up, in addition to your knowledge, you know what they say about diversity! Anyway, I’ve bookmarked your site to get to know you in your other incarnations (also curious about the Swiss connection – I live in Switzerland).
Thanks again, look forward to seeing your future comments.
Ed Darrell (12:05:36) :
” If you have a natural cause, posit it. ”
Alarmists own the CO2-AGW hypothesis, weak though it ever was. The onus is theirs to prove it. Applying scientific rigour, not politically inspired bias, their own efforts have soundly disproved the hypothesis once and for all.
EXCLUSIVE: UN scientist refutes Daily Mail claim he said Himalayan glacier error was politically motivated « Climate Progress
Lal’s phone number is easy to find online, and I called him myself, even though it was after midnight in India (I hoped he was on travel), but he answered it immediately.
He said these were “the most vilest allegations” and denied that he ever made such assertions. He said “I didn’t put it [the 2035 claim] in to impress policymakers…. We reported the facts about science as we knew them and as was available in the literature.”
He told me:
Our role was to bring out the factual science. The fact is the IPCC has been very conservative.
He’ll be in hot water if the Daily Mail’s David Rose taped his interview with him. If Rose can prove Lal wrong, then it’ll be hard to believe Lal’s claim that he didn’t receive Kaser’s warning about the absurdity of the IPCC’s melted-by-2035 statement.
My guess, if Rose has got him on tape, is that Lal will then spin it by saying that impressing policymakers was only a secondary consideration — hardly worth mentioning, really.