The IPCC “Flavor of the day”-gate is now the Amazon Rain Forest. What will tomorrow’s flavor be?
James Delingpole of the Telegraph says this better than I ever could, so I’ll provide his summary here. Note that there are plenty more cases of unsubstantiated non peer reviewed references in the IPCC report, a list of which you can see here. For those wondering what “Load of porkies” means, see this.
Delingpole relays North’s analysis:
Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.
This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:
At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees:
This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. According to IPCC rules, it should not have been used as a primary source.
It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists. One, Dr PF Moore, is a policy analyst:
My background and experience around the world has required and developed high-level policy and analytical skills. I have a strong understanding of government administration, legislative review, analysis and inquiries generated through involvement in or management of the Australian Regional Forest Agreement process, Parliamentary and Government inquiries, Coronial inquiries and public submissions on water pricing, access and use rights and native vegetation legislation in Australia and fire and natural resources laws, regulations and policies in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa and Malaysia.
And the lead author Andy Rowell is a freelance journalist (for the Guardian, natch) and green activist:
Andy Rowell is a freelance writer and Investigative journalist with over 12 years’ experience on environmental, food, health and globalization issues. Rowell has undertaken cutting-edge investigations for, amongst others, Action on Smoking and Health, The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, IFAW, the Pan American Health Organization, Project Underground, the World Health Organization, World in Action and WWF.
But the IPCC’s shamelessness did not end there. Dr North has searched the WWF’s reports high and low but can find no evidence of a statement to support the IPCC’s claim that “40 per cent” of the Amazon is threatened by climate change. (Logging and farm expansion are a much more plausible threat).
Read Delingpole’s blog here, North’s Blog here
I recommend adding them to your blog roll. I have.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Tenuc (14:26:28) :
Here’s another apt Scottish saying which is apt regarding CAGW – It’s all fur coat and no knickers.
Long fur coat. No knickers. Maybe with high heels and a smile? Is that the impression I’m supposed to get from that saying? 🙂
@ur momisugly ShrNfr (13:46:11) :
Shall we compare this to the current US President?
Notice how he is well-known for his thoughtful gaze, the way he stares off into the distance while contemplating weighty affairs of state…
Talking about gates, billionaire former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates believes that climate change money robs health aid.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2516336420100125
Not to mention, food, education and lodging aid.
I suspected all along that the even greater fraud was in the reported consequences of AGW. At the end of the day we will learn global warming does more good than harm.
Stephen Brown (13:51:59) :
I have enjoyed my haggis tonight and a wee dram of Grants Whisky. Two!!
But then again I live: “wham ne’er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonie lasses.”
Burns also wrote “Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation”.
Very apt, very apt. Oh he had the one spot on. Yet he had never heard of global warming.
For everyone in the colonies, Burns also wrote ……
http://www.timegun.org/alamo.html
Yes all you Gringos out there; check it out and have a wee dram and toast the man. (If you can get a live haggis then good and well!!)
Funny how a wee song has so much history. Important history for two nations.
Tam O’Shanter, Kirkoswald, Ayrshire, Scotland.
PS
I’m aff I have tae ride hame the night and the weather/climate does nae look too gud. I’ll gee the Church a miss, last time was a bit of a .. tail or tale?
@Icarus (14:19:23) :
The expression “a complete load of porkies” for what ended up in the IPCC AR4 WG-II Chapter 13, seems a bit justified indeed. In fact, there are two problems with your reasoning.
First of all it should not be up to the reader to dig down in the IPCC references until anything peer-reviewed is finally found. If Nepstad et al 1999 were the primary source for the “Up to 40%” claim, that article should have been used, stated and referenced as such, no matter what Rowell and Moore understood of it.
Secondly, the IPCC AR4 WG-II Chapter 13 makes no mention of Nepstad et al 1999. As far as I can see, the Nepstad et al 1999 article is only used in AR4 in the IPCC AR4 WG-II Chapter 4:
(1) p228 Recently observed moderate climatic changes have induced forest productivity gains globally (reviewed in Boisvenue and Running, 2006) and possibly enhanced carbon sequestration, especially in tropical forests (Baker et al., 2004; Lewis et al., 2004a, 2004b; Malhi and Phillips, 2004; Phillips et al., 2004), where these are not reduced by water limitations (e.g., Boisvenue and Running, 2006) or offset by deforestation or novel fire regimes (Nepstad et al., 1999, 2004; Alencar et al., 2006) or by hotter and drier summers at mid- and high latitudes (Angert et al., 2005)
(2) p229 in some tropical and sub-tropical regions, notably South-East Asia and similarly the Amazon (e.g., Nepstad et al., 1999), deforestation rates are still high
You may note that in both cases Nepstad et al 1999 is used to mention deforestation (something one might expect out of an article titled Large-scale Impoverishment of Amazonian Forests by Logging and Fire).
The abstract of that article is particularly terse on Nature.com: Amazonian deforestation rates are used to determine human effects on the global carbon cycle and to measure Brazil’s progress in curbing forest impoverishment,,. But this widely used measure of tropical land use tells only part of the story..
For some reason, there is a longer version on Mendeley.com:
It is hard not to notice that Nepstad et al 1999 were concerned about deforestation and fires possibly exarcebated by severe droughts, whilst Rowell and Moore, and the IPCC authors and reviewers, completely turned the cards around, pushing hard on the climatic side first. That is not the first time I have seen “Chinese whispers” at play in the IPCC AR4…
The whole issue of the credibility of the science advocating AGW reminds me of the Monty Python sketch.
What have the advocates ever got wrong?
Well there’s the Hockey stick graph.
OK apart from the Hockey Stick graph, what have the advocates ever got wrong?
Well there’s the prediction of the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035.
OK apart from the Hockey Stick graph and the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers what have the advocates ever got wrong?
Of course there’s the prediction that summer Arctic sea ice will disappear by 2017…
After a considerable time…
OK, so apart from the Hockey stick graph, the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers, the melting of summer Arctic sea ice, the lack of hurricane activity, the erroneous relationship between malaria and global warming, the resilience of corals, the obstinacy of Tuvalu and the Maldives to disappear to the sea, the manipulation of instrumental temperature data… (Gasp for breath!) What have the advocates ever got wrong???
Well they didn’t predict the lack of warming over the last ten years!
I have done considerable research on the ice age climate. It was dry almost everywhere because with colder temperatures there is less evaporation. The Amazon shrank some and became somewhat fragmented. Europe was mostly deforested even where there was no ice. etc. The lie that warmer = drier comes from the climate models of the 1980s to early 1990s which could not simulate rain, and thus people simulated temperature but kept rainfall constant in their assessments, leading to silly claims like the SE USA would turn into tropical savanna. Now the models simulate the hydrologic cycle and agree on MORE rainfall in the future, not less. The claims about drought are in the face of these model results (though of course following any change not all areas will respond the same and local drought is possible).
“just because it was not peer reviewed does’t mean its wrong…”
Given the climate scientists’ habit of either hiding behind “peer review” , or dismissing non peer reviewed papers out of hand , that is one of the most hypocritical statements I’ve seen here
I wasn’t stating it, nor agreeing with it, I was trying to illustrate the attitude on the “other side”. Don’t know if this is fair ball or not but here is a sampling from the first 30 posts (out of 600+) at realclimate on glaciergate. All I am getting at is that the evidence the sceptics see as damning just washes off the alarmists:
>
Unfortunately AGW true statements are weighed in a handsfull of goose down and never remembered. AGW stumbles are measured in shovel loads of lead and never forgotten.
>
The glaciers are retreating and we need to be prepared to deal with the consequences. There are many uncertainties as to when the glaciers will be entirely gone
>
Jimbo’s link (his 4th) on the Science news story, which is identical to the recent tempest in a teapot about the Himalayan glaciers
>
At a time when governments are baulking at taking tough measures to combat climate change, this new blow to the credibility of the IPCC could not have come at a worse time.”
>
I think its a pity that, when it comes to climate change, what is clearly a mistake (the 2035 date is pretty absurd when you think about it), gets reported as if something deliberately nefarious is afoot
>
The real danger to the rainforests is from razing to build palm oil plantations. At present the need for palm oil to make biofuel is reducing the forests in Sumatra, Indonesia and Brazil by an England sized piece each year in each of the three places. Another Green masterpiece. Not only are 10 to 20 Million people a year starving to death because of higher food prices because food is used for biofuel, it is causing deforestation also.
Ron de Haan (13:49:24) :
And now…ObamaGate:
http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/01/25/obama-stopping-vital-power-plants-in-developing-countries/
That has been going on even before Obama, of course, he’s fitting right in with the other ostriches of the world. Haiti is an example of this tragic irony. People in that country actually died in food riots. ie. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7331921.stm Why? Because the UN doesn’t wish 3rd world nations to develop. In other words, we’re killing people to save us. Nice. Weird how the world couldn’t have cared less when they were starving to death from lack of capital development, but apparently, when an earthquake is the causation of starvation, it is incumbent upon the world to show we care.
For everyone’s reference, one of the “mysteries” of the Amazon is that over the past 20 or so years, the net primary productivity (plant growth) has gone up in spite of warming (averaged over the basin), and even in dry periods. It seems when there is too much rain, it is too cloudy for maximum photosynthesis. No impact yet!
Ron de Haan (13:49:24) :
And now…ObamaGate:
http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/01/25/obama-stopping-vital-power-plants-in-developing-countries/
Sorry, that name is currently “reserved” as it’s expected to be used for something larger within a few years.
One major thing to consider with that article, the US puts up a lot of World Bank money. We are somewhat short of money. So “requesting” the World Bank to stop financing coal plants has the effect of the US putting up less money based on a “noble” cause.
I did find it interesting that apparently this has lead to the killing off of a coal-fired electric plant in Pakistan. Given the situation over there, do we really want to give Pakistan more reasons to invest in nuclear plants?
Only 83 months 30 minutes and 12 seconds left until global warming kills the planet.
http://onehundredmonths.org/
It’s worse than we thought — IPCC really is a front for the WWF and other environmental activist groups, with IPCC’s periodic reports padded with their advocacy pieces.
Does the IPCC report any truth? It appears not. So, why isn’t being investigated for fraud? If all that appears to be correct about the IPCC telling porkies is in fact true then it should be a walk in the park to prove the IPCC and it’s chairman is committing fraud on a grand scale.
David S (13:21:55) :
Steve Goddard (13:35:45) :
It would do us all well to remember this report –
The UN climate change numbers hoax
By Tom Harris and John McLean
Monday, 30 June 2008 Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7553
It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over: “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis.”
But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.
Like the three IPCC “assessment reports” before it, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released during 2007 (upon which the UN climate conference in Bali was based) includes the reports of the IPCC’s three working groups.
[you posted the link, don’t post the whole article ~ ctm]
The UN is the most politically corrupt institution we humans have ever created, which generates these questions in my mind;
1. What else should we have expected?
2. Do we really think they are going to suddenly own-up to their cooked-up ideology?
3. Isn’t this what us “dumb”, “deniers” have been saying all along?
4. Isn’t it time we have a real, hard look at our support for this dishonest organization?
5. Why shouldn’t we sue them (in the World Court) for all the damage that we can prove they have done with their lies?
6. And most importantly – Why do liberals (here in the US) and the main stream media, who claim to be intellectual geniuses, so blindly believe in (and prop up) everything this fraudulent body excretes?
7. Oh, and don’t you think Al Gore and his great friend Dr. Hansen at NASA knew this?
Hey, i’m just asking…
Steve Goddard (15:30:23) : edit
“Only 83 months 30 minutes and 12 seconds left until global warming kills the planet.
http://onehundredmonths.org/”
Thanks, Steve, this is a perfect example of the chiliastic millenialistic disasturbationism running rife through the Church of Global Warming.
I seem to recall that the left used to attack Bush’s evangelical streak since so many of the evantelicals preach of the end of days and look forward to bringing about armageddon, and avoiding government takeover by the ‘anti-christ’ (SSN, RFID, etc all being the “mark of the beast”). Here we have the same exact doomsday scaremongering being perpetrated by people who claim to be rational.
The END is NEAR. REPENT!
mikelorry,
The BBC has a good story today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8468233.stm
Oy vey. At this point, the only onrushingly imminent “tipping point” in sight is the complete discrediting of the IPCC process.
LOL… stop tickelling me!
Guardian: Oliver Tickell: Don’t let the carbon market dieThe Copenhagen climate change conference achieved too little, but a modest global carbon tax would make amends
Some people have good reason to be shocked that banks have pulled out of the carbon market, not least recent economics graduates whose dissertations on carbon finance now qualify them only for unemployment. And JP Morgan, which paid a jaw-splitting $204m for carbon trader Ecosecurities last September, must be feeling a little sore. Perhaps it relied on the GHG Emissions Credit Trading report (yours for a mere $397), which predicts a $4.5 trillion carbon market by 2020.
No less chagrined must be Gordon Brown, who sees the carbon market as key to the global response to climate change, and to the economic fortunes of the City of London…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jan/25/carbon-market-copenhagen-climate
Tips! What about ocean acidifications. I’m sure propaganda pamphlets from WWF and Greenpeace about the imminent extinction of fish life caused by CO2 has got into IPCC reports as well.
The “40 percent” statement can be found on page 15 of the Global Review of Forest Fires report (Rowell and Moore, 2000) which was based on a Nature article called Large-scale Impoverishment of Amazonian Forests by Logging and Fire (Nepstad et al, 1999). It’s remarkably similar to the statement found in AR4 but with a few crucial differences. The statements need to be restated and compared to understand what’s happening.
AR4:
“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000).”[1]
RM00:
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall. In the 1998 dry season, some 270,000 sq. km of forest became vulnerable to fire, due to completely depleted plant-available water stored in the upper five metres of soil. A further 360,000 sq. km of forest had only 250 mm of plant-available soil water left.”[2]
The first problem is that AR4 has changed “Brazilian forest” to “Amazonian forests” so that the 40% figure is no longer valid since the Amazonian forests are (as a whole) much larger in extent than the Brazilian forest. However, this probably doesn’t matter since it appears that the 40% figure is incorrect regardless of context.
To understand why, we need to know the total area of the Brazilian forest in square kilometers (km2) so that we can calculate the percentage of vulnerable forest based on the claimed 270k km2. Wikipedia conveniently references a WWF source for this information and puts the total Amazonian rain forest area at 5.5 million km2[3]. There is no area given that is strictly limited to the Brazilian portion of the rain forest but it can be easily approximated by subtracting about 1.5m km2 from the total area, leaving about 4m km2[4]. Clearly 270k km2 of 4m km2 is only about 8% of the total area, not 40%.
Maybe we’re missing something. Let’s dig deeper and look at the original Nature article which states:
“Moreover, we find that surface fires burn additional large areas of standing forest, the destruction of which is normally not documented. Forest impoverishment due to such fires may increase dramatically when severe droughts provoke forest leaf-shedding and greater flammability; our regional water-balance model indicates that an estimated 270,000km2 of forest became vulnerable to fire in the 1998 dry season. Overall, we find that present estimates of annual deforestation for Brazilian Amazonia capture less than half of the forest area that is impoverished each year, and even less during years of severe drought.”[5]
This doesn’t really help. In fact it makes things even more confusing. Did RM00 arrive at the 8% figure and then double it, assuming it was “less than half” of the total land area based on the claim that “present estimates of annual deforestation for Brazilian Amazonia capture less than half of the forest area”? If that is how they interpreted it then they were wrong because the “less than half” claim only pertains to deforestation estimates while the 270k km2 figure is strictly a fire vulnerability estimate. These are two distinct statistics. So it’s not really clear how we got to 40%.
1. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter13.pdf
2. http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2000-047.pdf
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amazon_rainforest.jpg **(see note below)
5. http://www.ic.ucsc.edu/~wxcheng/envs23/lecture12/Fire_nature.pdf
**The non-Brazilian portion of the Amazon Rainforest is clearly about 1/4 to 1/5 of the total land area based on the map which is how I arrived at 1.5 million km2.
Carbon trading: A worldwide shell game?
In the February issue of Harper’s (subscription required), Schapiro points out the many shortfalls of the system. ..
“There is serious potential for conflicts of interest,” Schapiro writes. “It is not uncommon for validators and verifiers to cross over to the far more lucrative business of developing carbon projects themselves – and then requesting audits from their former colleagues.”
Once credits are awarded, there’s no system for recalling them if the originating projects fail to live up to expectations.
Recognizing the problem, the United Nations, which grants credits, has stepped up oversight. Staffing at the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism, the division overseeing the credits, has risen from 20 people in 2005 to nearly 100.
If the U.S. joins in, cap-and-trade could explode to a $3 trillion market…
Yet Schapiro describes it as an “elaborate shell game, a disappearing act that nicely serves the immediate interests of the world’s governments, but fails to meet the challenges of our looming environmental crisis.” (DUH!)
http://news.muckety.com/2010/01/24/carbon-trading-a-worldwide-shell-game/23991
desperation time…
glaciergate still not created in wikipedia get on to it someone before wc does!
so… is there any claim left on the IPCC AR4 that is supported by any scientific evidence that climate change is going to be “the end of the world”, or at least that we should be concerned about ?
Just wondering…