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.
”
DavidS (14:21:12) :
Chums,
Several weeks ago, before the big freeze here and before glaciergate, I thought I saw on the UK Royal Society website links to a page of specific climate events and natural disasters caused by AGW. This page doesn’t seem to exist any more. Perhaps it was just a dream. Did anyone else have the same dream?
DavidS
Yea if the link below dated 03/12/2009 12:01:26 is the one you are referring to, I think its still there
Heading ‘Climate Change’
http://royalsociety.org/LandingPage_WF.aspx?pageid=7355&terms=global+warming
but I wonder if they will need to do a little Blairism on it in light of recent revelations.
”
those two RSC links leads to different reports: one from 2007 the other from 2008 (I happen to see as size was slightly different). I don’t know yet if anything else changed (at work right now).
would be interesting to see a 2009/2010 version when out 🙂
Some of you will recall IPCC reviewer, Chris Landsea’s Open Letter to the Community (07/08) explaining that he had decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report because “I have come to the view that the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant has become politicised.’
He describes how after being invited to provide the write up for the Atlantic hurricane section of the AR4’s chapter, where there was strong evidence that any impact from global warming on future hurricanes would be small, his evidence was disregarded and Dr Trembath gave a press conference predicting the likelihood of ‘more intense hurricanes’ in future.
The critical point isn’t the typo in the graph which was raised here
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_faqs.htm
The real point is in Chapter 5 page 10 of the report which states
The critical point is whether Muir-Wood et al. is correctly interpreted to justify the projected losses. Roger Pielke Jr. certainly believes that it has not been
If the Stern report would be a paper print, it could at least be ripped up and used for toilet paper for the poor. Now it seems that it just needs to be deleted and forgotten asap. After all this the praised Stern will soon look like one of the big fools.
Richard Lindzen & al. pointed immediately out that one single false assumption makes the report loose all value: there is no proof of AGW. And now, no melting glaciers, no rising sea level, no increased hurricane activity, just falsified bad temperature data and more scandals…
Have to keep a close eye on the little rascals. 😉
DaveE.
What suprises me is how all these “errors” all increase the global warming effect.
If they were genuine errors they should be some decreasing it. In all fairness there should be a 50/50 split between increase and decrease.
But no….. Somehow BY CHANCE they all increase the effect.
Now that’s a really big suprise indeed!!!!!
There is much more to the Climategate scandal than meets the eye.
Complete melting of the Climategate iceberg would likely expose decades of corrupt manipulation of data and observations by an unholy international alliance of politicians, scientists, publishers and the news media.
How much will melt? Nobody knows, but we will have an exciting future if Anthony Watts and others can keep the hot spotlight of public attention focused on the Climategate iceberg.
Those seeking power used greed to pull this off. Eventually the money trail will lead us to them.
Keep up the good work!
Oliver K. Manuel
@ur momisugly Dr.T G Watkins(Wales): I already have written to my MP, Lib Dem Alarmist Meg Munn, to ask what her position is on environmental policy, in light of the Climategate revelations. Her letter of (non-)response stated that she would write to Gordon Brown for clarification on the Government’s position. Completely evaded my question! So I emailed her, clarifying that the question was with regards to HER standpoint, not the Government’s (which is already well known). She didn’t reply. So much for representation.
Another thing that has changed, is the IPCC’s description of itself.
Their website used to say something to the effect of:
“promote blah blah about MAN made climate change”
Now that has been cleaned up and changed to something completely different.
I’m the “naive” reporter who’s also a “dumba*s,” according to Daniel H & Dirk H, commenting on this blog.
Yes, I did make a typo on my website, Not in 2035 (http://notin2035.com). I wrote 45 C instead of 4 C. It should have been clear it was a typo, since I was referring to a graph immediately below, showing a maximum of 4 C of warming.
Please, people: If you’re going to question scientists (and journalists) who devote their lives to delving into climate science, don’t jump all over a typo without making an effort to figure out what’s going on.
Instead, Daniel H and Dirk H resorted to attacking me instead, assuming that I have some “alternate theory of Himalayan glacial meltdown.” If they read the page at all, though, they’d see that I think the vast majority of standard climate science is solid.
Also, Daniel H wrote “This guy … claims to have published articles in Science, Nature, and National Geographic.” Well, it’s true. All it takes is about 10 seconds on Google to check that—I seem to be the only Mason Inman around—but he didn’t bother.
When I write professional articles, I have editors who catch typos. And it was the first day my new site was up, and I wasn’t expecting to get so many hits the first day (500). If I’d known, I would have made more of an effort to proofread it. But the readers there pointed out the typo and it’s fixed now.
Mason Inman,
You may have fixed a type-o, but junk science is still junk.
PJP (14:57:40) :
I pulled the pdf from web.archive.org before it disappears there too.
DaveE.
No, I’m just implying that they aren’t putting their money where their mouth is. There have been several chest-thumping episodes in the past involving scornful bet-challenges by various warmists, expressing a desire to take on all comers who dispute CAWGism. You’d think at least a few of them would take advantage of the fantastic odds on offer. (I.e., if it’s a tossup that 2010 will be the warmest year on record, but they can get 25% odds on betting that it will be, the rational “expectation” of that bet is a 100% return.)
PS: Actually, it’s a 200% expected return. Here’s a test case that simulates the return after any even number of bets, given that the real likelihood of “Warmest Year” is 50%. Start with $1 and bet on 2010 = Warmest Year, and the odds are 25/75.
Trial A: Yes — Warmest. Win $3. Total now $4.
Trial B: No — Not Warmest. Lose $1. Total now $3.
Bottom line: Start with $1, end with $3, for a 200% return.
Repeat next year with 2011 as warmest year, etc.
Maybe Booker and North should also look at Nicholas Stern’s portfolio.
Roger Knights, you need a lesson in probability. You wrote “… if it’s a tossup that 2010 will be the warmest year on record…” and “… given the real likelihood of ‘Warmest Year’ is 50%…”
How’s that? If you think that global warming is not happening, then 2010 would have the same likelihood of being the warmest year as any of the previous years in which we have good temperature records.
Then the probability of 2010 being the warmest year would not be 50%. It would be some very small chance, depending on how many previous decades of records you’re comparing 2010 against. If all years in the past 100 years are equally likely to be the warmest year on record, then the chance of 2010 being the hottest year in that set would be 1%.
For the record, I think global warming is real, and that people who don’t understand basic statistics should learn a bit more before questioning the scientists who have worked hard to show that the planet is in fact warming.
Part of me hopes, however, that you don’t believe me, and that you’ll go bet your hard-earned cash and lose it.
I am getting 404 errors no such page at the times for many of the glacier gate stories – temporary outage or down the memory hole?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/
UN climate chief ‘got grants through bogus claims’ – 404 ERROR
The chairman of the UN’s climate change panel used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win huge grants – 404 ERROR
Sloppy science is seeping into the climate watchdog – OK
World misled over glacier meltdown – 404 ERROR
UN expert: more errors in climate report – OK
jorgekafkazar (18:17:23) :
“What’s next? Maybe “the Himalayan coral reefs are going to be gone by 2035. What? There are no coral reefs in the Himalayas? OMG, it’s worse than we thought!!!”
actually jorgekafkazar, there are coral reefs in the Himalayas, they’re Triassic in age, approx 200Ma and uplifted during the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny approx 50-2Ma
sorry, I’m being facetious…..there are corals in almost all mountain ranges, albeit fossil ones.
@Mason Inman
You took offense because I stated that you were naive. Allow me to back up this claim with pertinent facts from your web site, located at http://notin2035.com/
The following quotes are from your “Stern Review got it right on glaciers” article:
“To put 5° C in perspective, that was the highest level of impact considered in the Stern Review. In the standard scenarios considered by the IPCC, the highest warming is around 4° C.”
This is wrong. The IPCC projections used 1990 as a baseline while the Stern Review used the pre-industrial era as a baseline (1750-1850, the second half of the Little Ice Age). The global mean surface temperature during the pre-industrial era was at least 1° C cooler than the 1990 global mean. Therefore, you should have added 1° C to the IPCC’s worst-case estimate for T in order to compare it with the Stern Review’s worst-case estimate for T. Had you actually accomplished this rudimentary task, you would have found that the results from Stern were identical to the results from AR4. However, since you failed to adjust for this crucial difference, your entire central thesis collapses.
Furthermore, as a self proclaimed “science journalist”, you are shockingly sloppy. Aside from the glaring typo that I pointed out previously, you also made the following erroneous claim:
“Here are the passages I was able to find about the glaciers in the report, which were all in Chapter 5”
This is wrong. Every one of your Stern Review quotes was sourced from Chapter 3, not Chapter 5. Fortunately for you, the only readers likely to take your work seriously are those for whom accuracy is not an issue, never has been an issue, and never will be an issue.
Finally, you are a dumbass for including the following disclaimer on your science fiction/fantasy blog:
“Not In 2035 was built by Mason Inman, a science journalist who covers climate change—and is by no means a climate skeptic or denier”
The part where you boast of not being a climate skeptic or “denier” unequivocally proves that you are a dumbass. All good scientists are skeptical by nature and even James Hansen recognizes this principle and prefers to label AGW skeptics as “contrarians” for that very reason. In addition, it is particularly sleezy and insensitive to intentionally associate climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers. The fact that you employ this pejorative as a label for anyone who disagrees with your alarmist viewpoints speaks volumes to your lack of journalistic integrity and scientific objectivity.
I hope that clears things up.
Hi Daniel H: You’re right about the baselines. I should have pointed out that the IPCC temperature increases are relative to 1990 levels. I fixed that on my blog (and wrote a correction so it doesn’t seem I’m trying to cover anything up).Also, you’re right that I had the wrong chapter number; I fixed that as well. This is constructive, so I appreciate it.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that my “central thesis collapses” because of this. I was comparing the claim in the IPCC that Himalayan glaciers would largely melt by 2035 (when temperatures will about 1.5 C higher than the 1990 level), with the Stern Review’s prediction, that they’ll only melt away at a much higher temperature (about 4 C above 1990 levels).
Any of these kinds of estimates are rough, however, and as the Stern Review says (in the text just below the chart that mentions glaciers melting): “At
each temperature, the impacts are expressed for a 1°C band around the central temperature, e.g. 1°C represents the range 0.5 – 1.5°C etc.”
So although my initial post was off by 1 C, it doesn’t make my “thesis collapse.” There’s still a big difference between predicting something will happen when the world warms about 1.5 C, on the one hand, and when it warms 4 C (plus or minus half a degree). So it still seems to me that the Stern Review is in line with what other scientists are now saying.
Yes, all good scientists are skeptics. But some people have an overactive sense of skepticism, and that’s what I object to. I don’t know if you, Daniel H, would qualify as what I’d call a climate skeptic; I was just saying on my site that there are people like this, and I’m not one of them. Contrarian is another good term, and I do like James Hansen, so maybe I’ll change what I wrote on my site. (And I never said anything about the Holocaust. Some people deny that global warming is happening, and that’s all I was referring to by saying “climate change denier.”)
I put that bit on there because when I initially created my site a few days ago, all the people who commented or wrote to me seemed to have that overactive sense of skepticism, and I wanted to point out I’m not one of them. Yes, I’m skeptical, but I do think manmade climate change is real, and that it will be a huge problem if we don’t deal with it. I can change my mind if there’s good reason to, but I think there’s good reason for me to worry about climate change.
Just as you take offense at me using the term “climate change skeptic” I could just as easily take offense at you calling me “alarmist”. But just as you see a positive side of skepticism, I also see a positive side of raising alarm. When there’s a fire in the building, you want to have an alarm to warn you, right?
(Groan)
Stop right there. That’s not what I think. My phrase, “given the real likelihood of ‘Warmest Year’ is 50%” was written in haste. It was shorthand for, “taking as given the Met Office’s claim that the real likelihood of ‘Warmest Year’ is 50%.” I assumed that that meaning would be evident, because I had used the phrase “if it’s a tossup” (signaling that I was speculating about a posited hypothetical) and because only a few posts earlier in the thread there were four posts that provided the context that would have clarified my intent. The first was this one:
Therefore, your phrase “If you think” is a non-starter. I was describing what “they,” the Met Office, thinks. (Several other warmist bigshots have said the same, including Schmidt and Hansen.)
Not really, given that 2009 is the 2nd warmest year on the GISS record (which is the record used by Intrade to settle bets), that the trend up from 2008 is sharp, that Jan. 2009 is setting an all-time record so far, and that a chart of the temperature trend of the past 130 years shows that we’re near an all-time peak: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ On that page, GISS pointed that “The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008.”
But they aren’t equally likely, as demonstrated above, and as you should have been aware, assuming you have a basic familiarity with the climate record.
Duly noted.
Your simplistic assumption that 2010 is on a level statistically with the preceding 100 years are is not one any statistician would make.
You might want to reword that phrase. 🙂
I think there’s a 1 in 4 chance that 2010 will be the warmest year on record, which are the odds Intrade is offering. If you think the chance is only 1 in 100, then go to Intrade and put your money where your mouthy mouth is.
Hi Roger: OK, I misunderstood what you’d “written in haste.” Glad to know we’re on the same page on probabilities.
I don’t think that the chances of 2010 being the warmest year are only 1 in 100, since, as I said, I think global warming is real. So no bets for me. I don’t want to try to decide whether the chance is higher than 1:4 that 2010 is the hottest year. I’d be interested to find out how many people take up the bet, though.
Oops. That last (indented) pair of quotes was a “leftover” I didn’t mean to include. Also, I made another blooper. I wrote, in my paragraph before them, which was supposed to end my post:
But he was attributing that 1 in 100 chance to me. (This also undermines my remark about his statistical mistake. He was attributing it to me.) Sorry about that.
It looks stupid of me not to have noticed, but I plead “guilty with an explanation”: I accidentally hit the submit button and my comment got posted before I’d gone over it a 2nd time. I usually copy my long comments to a Word document and reread them there before hitting submit, and I catch lots of mistakes that way, and I would have caught this one.
Anyway, the bottom line is (still) that anyone who thinks, like the warmist bigshots I’ve quoted, that the odds are better than 25% of 2010 being the warmest on record are “missing a bet” if they let this opportunity pass them by.
Folks
Stop arguing. We need to present a united front to the warmist establishment.
Never forget that at Copenhagen, that brave Irish reporter (who’s name escapes me) when he asked an ‘inconvenient question’, not only did the recipient pretend not to hear the question, but the reporter had his microphone tugged away from him, and he was shouted at and escorted from the room by an armed security guard.
We are up against nasty people here (‘The science is settled… yadayada…’) – so every attack needs to leave no opportunity for counter-attack.
To the barricades..!!
Hi David,
I’m arguing (or discussing or debating) in part because I myself am a “warmist”—as you seem to label people who think that the science is clear that the planet is heating up because of people’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that it’s a big problem.
I think it’s interesting that you feel the need for a “united front” against the “warmist establishment.” When “warmists” make a concerted effort to suppress differences of opinion and present the world with a clear message about the problem of climate change, I feel they’re accused of conspiracy.
(When I did a search of pages on Wattsupwiththat for “conspiracy,” I got more than 1,000 hits, so it’s clearly an idea that comes up a fair amount.)
Are you proposing starting your own conspiracy against the “warmists”?