Last night I pointed out how NASA had quietly purged IPCC AR4 referenced glacier melting claims from its climate.nasa.gov website, especially since they upped the year from 2035 to 2030 on their own. Now Roger Pielke Jr. points out that another curious purge has been spotted:
Excerpts:
There is another important story in involving the Muir-Wood et al. 2006 paper that was misrepresented by the IPCC as showing a linkage between increasing temperatures and rising damages from extreme weather events. The Stern Review Report of the UK government also relied on that paper as the sole basis for its projections of increasing damage from extreme events. In fact as much as 40% of the Stern Reivew projections for the global costs of unmitigated climate change derive from its misuse of the Muir-Wood et al. paper.
…
As I was preparing this post, I accessed the Stern Review Report on the archive site of the UK government to capture an image of Table 5.2. Much to my surprise I learned that since the publication of my paper, Table 5.2 has mysteriously changed! Have a look at the figures below.
The figure immediately below shows Table 5.2 as it was originally published in the Stern Review (from a web archive in PDF), and I have circled in red the order-of-magnitude error in hurricane damage that I document in my paper (the values should instead by 10 times less).
Now, have a look at the figure below which shows Table 5.2 from the Stern Review Report as it now appears on the UK government archive (PDF), look carefully at the numbers circled in red:
There is no note, no acknowledgment, nothing indicating that the estimated damage for hurricanes was modified after publication by an order of magnitude. The report was quietly changed to make the error go away. Of course, even with the Table corrected, now the Stern Review math does not add up, as the total GDP impact from USA, UK and Europe does not come anywhere close to the 1% global total for developed country impacts (based on Muir-Wood), much less the higher values suggested as possible in the report’s text, underscoring a key point of my 2007 paper.
I’m betting that instituions around the world are working fast to distance themselves from some of the IPCC claims. We’ll likely see more of this.
ah, I see the page has been moved… however, it does look as if the Met Office have pulled their page on Climate Change myths http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html to leave material that looks rather more watered down… nothing now visible on debunking “myths”
Now we know (though we certainly suspected) why they were in such a big hurry. Overinflated and counterfeit claims were straining at the leash and couldn’t be proped up forever.
A lot has been revealed lately about how wrong the IPCC has been. Virtually everything they have said has now been shown to be false. Given this is so, Rudd’s CPRS should now be labeled as an illegal document as it relies upon the IPCC and it’s findings for the basis of the legislation. I’m not sure if this has happened before but what is the procedure when a government tries to have a bill passed in the Senate after it has been shown to be based in invalid data? Can the government be summoned to court?
Lucy Skywalker (15:34:42) :
How about these :
http://www2.royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229
http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:RKRTBk0Y_78J:royalsociety.org/page.asp%3Fid%3D6229.+site:http://royalsociety.org+http://royalsociety.org/page.asp%3Fid%3D6229&cd=2&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www2.royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229
The Royal Society is like a lot of other bodies which have climbed aboard the Global Warming bandwagon and are now quietly attempting to patch up the holes opening and carrying on, trying to look casual.
The problem is, too many holes are opening for much more patching and carrying on. It’s far less easy to get away with it with the internet anyway.
I wonder if we are going to see a sudden rush for the exit, with only the first few through the door making it, the others being trampled in the crush?
Here is a detailed study of climate patterns during 2030 till 2060.
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/medreportfinal8july05.pdf
Of course they use cooked numbers and biased models. But the pictures use a lot of red showing heat. None of it can be confirmed.
I had to remind myself they gathered no information but copied the glacier story.
These people are crazy and need to be stopped.
Not a single one predicted the recent artic events. If they were honest and accurate, they would have. It is proof their models are like Panda scat.
Apparently there is still plenty of money to be made in the green-scams:
“Terence Corcoran: Ontario puts $10B in the wind”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/01/22/terence-corcoran-ontario-puts-10b-in-the-wind.aspx
and
“Lawrence Solomon: Winds of change”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/01/22/lawrence-solomon-winds-of-change.aspx
Will all of these windmills end up looking like those Easter Island statues?
LOUISE GRAY writes in the Daily Telegraph with the by-line of Environmental Correspondent.
She always trots out the warmist party line, and never includes any actual science or references to back up her statements. And Heaven forbid any original thought or analysis.
If you fancy a laugh, here’s her latest piece repeating all the propaganda on the apparent success and scary findings of the Pen Haddow expedition:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7053637/Pen-Hadow-admits-battery-was-the-problem-on-Arctic-climate-change-expedition.html
Her colleague GEOFFREY LEAN is also producing great entertainment – at least four side-splitters in the following. He writes:
“Nevertheless, the Himalayan howler is – as I wrote on my Telegraph blog when the story broke – much more serious than the overhyped “Climategate” row, not least because the IPCC’s authority depends on taking a conservative approach, based on meticulously checked science.
In fact, the blunder was exposed by a glaciologist – Prof Graham Cogley of Ontario’s Trent University – who insists that the IPCC report as a whole is still valid, and condemns sceptics for “using the incident for their own purposes” to “shoot down the overall evidence on climate change”. But whatever he says, they’ll give the prizewinners no peace.”
And to cap it all, it’s all George W Bush’s fault. If in doubt, wheel out the old bogeyman.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/7055303/Melting-Himalayan-glaciers-no-peaceful-end-to-the-scandal.html
Peter of Sydney (16:04:59) :
” I’m not sure if this has happened before but what is the procedure when a government tries to have a bill passed in the Senate after it has been shown to be based in invalid data? Can the government be summoned to court?”
I don’t know, but I think you’ll find you’ve effectively elected your dictators, unless there’s a constitutional bar, or maybe a lower legal bar. The sanction you have is to vote them out, or threaten to vote them out. If the opposition takes the same line as the government, or the electorate doesn’t think it’s an important enough issue to sway an election, they can pretty much do as they like.
I see the Australian is now quoting Roger Pielke regarding the Muir-Wood paper:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/united-nations-caught-out-again-on-climate-claims/story-e6frg6n6-1225823075213
But far more astonishingly The Age (part of un-Fairfax) posted a relatively balanced piece (by their standards) on the glacier gaffe:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/glaciers-error-dents-climate-science-20100124-mskv.html
Perhaps they did it today because they knew most Aussies would take the day off to get a four-day weekend – tomorrow is Australia Day (national holiday).
Copenhagen in a coma but still not dead.
More people should visit WUWT.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article93870.ece?homepage=true
This is real 1984 stuff. They are actually changing the history.
On the flipside of the debate, I wonder how things are faring at Real Climate. I go there occasionally to get a bit of a giggle at Gav trying to stick his fingers in the leaks appearing left and right. But I wonder what their exit strategy is… as the sticks are yanked away one by one from the climate science Jenga tower, at some point the whole thing is going to collapse. What are the prominent alarmists going to do then when the government/scientific Lynch mobs start clamoring for their heads?
Lucy Skywalker (15:31:50) :
Regarding what you’re finding on the Royal Society web page: Are you going to have this at your blog?
FAIL
Both images show the same numbers…
daniel h –
here’s a page on nature.com re mason inman with some links u might like to check out….
http://network.nature.com/people/mason/profile
OT but seen this from the UK Daily Telegraph?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7067505/China-has-open-mind-about-cause-of-climate-change.html
China has ‘open mind’ about cause of climate change
China’s most senior climate change official surprised a summit in India when he questioned whether global warming is caused by carbon gas emissions and said Beijing is keeping an “open mind”.
It looks as if the consensus is breaking.
Yeah, and those WWF references are just the tip of a rapidly non-melting iceberg. There are also various statements that cite earlier IPCC Assessment Reports, for example: “See Climate Change 1992, The Supplementary Report”. That is annoying because it’s never clear exactly where in the 160 page 1992 Supplementary Report I’m supposed to find the information. It’s also not entirely clear where I’m supposed to get a copy of the 1992 Supplementary Report when they’ve all been recycled into toilet paper.
Aside from that, there are sketchy citations that say ambiguous things like “Personal correspondence with Dr. T.O. Fouda of Cameroon” and I’m thinking: “Hmmm, and this helps me how? I guess I’ll have to grep through my personal stash of climategate emails to see if I can find it…”
Haha, its worse than they thought!
Yes I know… I’m sorry 🙁
Lucy the royal society web page can still be found at – lot of because the IPCC says so here oh dear – there is a lot of egg and venerable institution maybe about to start wiping faces furiously.
http://www2.royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6230
From same fyi
The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science.
This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming. Instead, the Society – as the UK’s national academy of science – responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies.
Misleading argument 1 : The Earth’s climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans.
Misleading argument 2 : Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
Misleading argument 3 : Rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
Misleading argument 4 : Observations of temperatures taken by weather balloons and satellites do not support the theory of global warming.
Misleading argument 5 : Computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable and based on a series of assumptions.
Misleading argument 6 : It’s all to do with the Sun – for example, there is a strong link between increased temperatures on Earth with the number of sunspots on the Sun.
Misleading argument 7 : The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays.
Misleading argument 8 : The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.
Our scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently sound to make us highly confident that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue. However, none of the current criticisms of climate science, nor the alternative explanations of global warming are well enough founded to make not taking any action the wise choice. The science clearly points to the need for nations to take urgent steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, as much and as fast as possible, to reduce the more severe aspects of climate change. We must also prepare for the impacts of climate change, some of which are already inevitable.
Misleading argument 8: ’the negative effects of climate change are overstated’
The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.
What does the science say?
Under one of its mid-range estimates(*), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the world’s leading authority on climate change – has projected a global average temperature increase this century of 2 to 3 ºC. This would mean that the Earth will experience a larger climate change than it has experienced for at least 10,000 years. The impact and pace of this change would be difficult for many people and ecosystems to adapt to.
In the short term, some parts of the world could initially benefit from climate change. For example, more northerly regions of the world may experience longer growing seasons for crops and crop yields may increase because increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have a fertilizing effect on plants.
However the IPCC has pointed out that as climate change progresses it is likely that negative effects would begin to dominate almost everywhere. Increasing temperatures are likely, for example, to increase the frequency and severity of weather events such as heat waves, storms and flooding.
Furthermore there are real concerns that, in the long term, rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could set in motion large-scale and potentially abrupt changes in our planet’s natural systems and some of these could be irreversible. Increasing temperatures could, for example, lead to the melting of large ice sheets with major consequences for low lying areas throughout the world.
And the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor those who can least afford to adapt. Thus a changing climate will exacerbate inequalities in, for example, health and access to adequate food and clean water.
Peter of Sydney (16:04:59) :
A lot has been revealed lately about how wrong the IPCC has been. Virtually everything they have said has now been shown to be false.
Given that the IPCC report is 44 chapters, 3 working groups, and thousands upon thousands of scientific citations, someone should put all that information you claim is false together in one document.
PJP (14:57:40) :
Are you sure that page is no where to be found?
This would be an important story if it is gone now.
After all I’ve been told about the unquestionable scientific acumen of the Royal Society it would be a serious mark on their reputation and credibility to have had a page on their web site that they now had to delete because it was poor science.
I love this site, feel really good when I read most of the comments posted so why do I feel sad?
Maybe i’m wrong but here’s a personal impression.
Anthony and team post cogent, pithy posts to which we all respond. That is good, in so many ways but, and I’m as guilty as anyone, we subsequently flood the post with well-intentioned opinions that mostly tend to dilute the power of the intended logical thrust!
For example, this thread started out, as a well-directed thrust, against evident ridiculous and,obviously, illogical Peer-Abused Pontifications by a political appointee, Lord Stern.
It rapidly deteriorated into “just another anti-agw diatribe”
The point of impact became diluted and the rationale of the post became submerged by misdirected, albeit, anger.
Folks, these guys are truly dangerous, we need to discipline ourselves somehow. Twenty times, at least, every week Anthony and Team come up with compelling arguments that support the premise that AGW is but a poor and fragile thought.
And what do we do? We vent our spleen by scattershot.
Forget about shooting up thirty years of grant-funded misrepresentation each time, let’s just take each moment of mischief at a time and then slowly and methodically rip it, using logic and unfundedintegrity, into the laughter-pits of History!
As the tip of the Climategate iceberg melts away, we can already see an international alliance of politicians, scientists and publishers using public funds to manufacture “scientific certainty” of CO2-induced global warming.
Nearby was the world’s new saviour – Mr. Al Gore.
What a sad state of affairs for science!
What a sad state of affairs for democracy!
What a sad state of affairs for the future of mankind!
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Has anyone asked the UK government why, or who, is altering official documents and web pages? What are the policies on altering data in nationalarchives.gov.uk? Not very archivy of them.