I reported yesterday on Dr. Richard Norths findings on what he coined “amazongate” related to yet another WWF reference in the IPCC AR4.
Yesterday I sent him a comment from WUWT reader “Icarus” that made a very valid point. However that point drew back the curtain for an even larger problem now uncovered by Dr. North as he writes in:
“We are trying to do the best job we can in assessing the quality information about climate change issues in all its dimensions and some do not like the conclusions of our work. Now it is true we made a mistake around the glacier issue, it is one mistake on one issue in a 3,000 page report. We are going to reinforce the procedures to try this does not happen again.”
So says Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC – as retailed by the famous Louise Gray, purveyor extraordinare of WWF press releases – in The Daily Telegraph today. It was simply a “human mistake”, he adds. “Aren’t mistakes human? Even the IPCC is a human institution and I do not know of any human institution that does not make mistakes, so of course it is a regrettable incident that we published that wrong description of the Himalayan glacier,” he says.
So far though, the IPCC is sticking to its legend that this is only “one mistake”, burying its head firmly in the sand and ignoring the growing evidence that the IPCC report is riddled with “mistakes” – to apply that extremely charitable definition.
Another of those “mistakes” is the false claim highlighted in my earlier post on “Amazongate“, where the IPCC has grossly exaggerated the effect of climate change on Amazonian forests, stating “up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation” – on the basis of a non peer-reviewed WWF report whose lead author, Andy Rowell, is a free-lance journalist.
However, being “human” myself – although some would hotly dispute that assertion – I appear to have made a mistake in my analysis, charging that in the document referenced by the IPCC, there is no evidence of a statement to support the IPCC’s claim that “40 per cent” of the Amazon is threatened by climate change.”
Actually, that is the charge retailed by James Delingpole and by Watts up with that, whereas what I actually wrote was that the assertion attributed to the author of the WWF report, that “up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation” is nowhere to be found in the report.
The WUWT post, however, evoked a response from a commentator, “Icarus”, who noted that there was a reference to a 40% figure references in the WWF report, as follows:
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.
That is very much my mistake, having completely missed that passage, thus charging that the IPCC passage was “a fabrication, unsupported even by the reference it gives”.
With that, though, the story gets even more interesting, as the assertion made by Rowell and his co-author Peter Moore, is referenced to an article in the Nature magazine, viz:
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Anthony,
Are we going to see any response to
Dr. Menne’s new paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research titled, “On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf
??
This AR-4 that the Carbon Cult has published……is it paper copies ? How many 3000 page’s filled with voodoo science did they distribute?
How many tree’s had to die ?
How many jumbo-jets had to bring it to the USA, to Europe, to the UK, to Australia….?
What was the Carbon footprint? Why didnt they distribute it using sailboats?
Or did they only use electronic publishing? Using high tech from the Western sivilisation?
When they have all these summits, (how many do they need? Isnt the science settled already?) why don’t they use video conferencing? Like we do in the private sector?
When they eat, why do they need Caviar? Why not settle for vegetar salat?
John Galt (10:32:38) :
“Gate de Jour” doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sing.
Couldn’t agree more, how about “Daily Fail”?
maxwell (10:18:59) : “That said, the report should not contain any such non peer-reviewed papers. The fact that it does contain a very small proportion, however, does not by any standard of reference call its other observations and conclusions into question. There is an entirely different debate for that.”
Well, every “hockey stick” reference is questionable, whether peer-reviewed or not. I wonder how that affects the report’s credibility. IIRC storm damage estimates are now discredited, too. And as WUWT readers know, the record of surface temperature “measurements” (i.e. adjustments) is also “ro-busted”.
Right now AR4 is starting to look a lot like a swiss cheese.
The Sunday Times article on Pachauri fielding grants with bogus data – opens many more gates. Part of the 2.5M pound EU “High Noon” grant went to the UK Met Office – the greater share went to Pachauri’s institute TERI (formerly Tata Energy Resource Inst.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999975.ece
So, the Met Office accepted funds from EU taxpayers based on the false claim that Himalayan glaciers were melting. This would be the same Met Office whose CEO is paid more than the PM and got a fat bonus last year.
You could only make this stuff up.
So, the Amazon rain forest totals 4-6 mil km² and of this the original real study looked at 270,000 km² plus 360,000 km² or a total area impacted by drought in logged areas of 630,000 km². In other words, the study looked at 15% to 10% of the total rain forest. And of that area, the original study found that 10% to 40% were impacted by an extreme El Niño.
So, the real percentage figure of the Amazon rain forest impacted by logging and a strong El Niño is from 1% to 7.5%. [10% of 10% = 1% and 40% of 15% = 7.5%].
The IPCC thrives on creative writing and lying with statistics.
Just released – new sci-fi/fantacy blockbuster – DEATH OF A PLANET – the complete works of the IPCC. (based on a true story) with guest authors from around the globe. Now in a supermarket near you.
Gary,
that is exactly my point though. The hockey stick is not questionable because Mann cited some non peer-reviewed papers in the original Nature paper. There are sophisticated scientific reasons why one should questionsits conclusions. But this pandering to the idea that a handful of non peer-reviewed citations in an overwhelming sea of peer-reviewed ones somehow marks the report as suspect is really neither here nor there. I am merely making a distinction. I am not questioning anyone’s ability to critique the report, but rather saying if one is going to critique it, use a criteria strong enough for the task. Not an unrepresentative one.
On one hand, you have the warmist enviros claiming global warming is causing the forests to burn down, and on the other hand you have big money being poured into naturalist enviro lawsuits that claim it’s natural for the forest to burn, so you cannot manage the forest.
I suspect that this is intentional, and that our forests are nothing but pawns to them.
The eyes say manage the standing dead and overgrowth, and do something useful with the resource.
The agenda says it’s due to something odorless and colorless, you can’t see it, but let us tax you into the dirt and you can be green conscious.
Meanwhile, the forests need managing and continue to burn uselessly.
” kwik (10:45:59) :
This AR-4 that the Carbon Cult has published……is it paper copies ? How many 3000 page’s filled with voodoo science did they distribute?
How many tree’s had to die ? ”
Putting aside the carbon sequestration jokes, it should be noted that most paper is produced from trees grown in commercial plantations, and of course they’re immediately replanted. So print all you want and stop feeling guilty about it.
And, by the way, C02 does leave an acid taste in the mouth.
Do you get up every morning and have the taste of Coke in your mouth?
Chances are, you’re drinking too much soda pop, but you don’t get that taste in your mouth from 380 ppm C02.
Lying is a “mistake.” Sometimes it’s because you have your hand in the cookie jar; sometimes it’s because you are directing genocide. The importance of the “mistake” is the effect it has on others. The effect of lying on the liar, however, is the same is the same in all cases – he ceases to be trustworthy. Clearly the IPCC has been lying by both omission and commission and therefore is not to be trusted with any pronouncements or findings. It’s time for a complete do-over, but this time with real transparency and honesty.
Until it is proved that (a) carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere catastrophically, and that (b) curtailing human use of carbon based fuel will prevent the worst of the projected scenarios — there are important and direct things that might be done for the good of people and the environment.
Also, see
Vincent at 10:15:15 who makes a good point that should be widely circulated.
I’m looking forward to, and fully expect a similar revelation every day for the next n days, where n=number of pages in that IPCC report (n is not currently available as it is undergoing value added adjustment)
Don’t worry about the amazon jungle, it is not yours. Worry about your own countries which are being devastated by wrong policies. The armageddon you are so fond of is a present from above just for you to enjoy. Don´t you see it?. Sorry but you are done! (No joke, ask anyone who you think will speak frankly to you from any part of the world south of the equator).
@JohnH
“Thats the second ref to 3000 pages I have seen, first was in the Today program this morning by a Green activist. All previous refs were that the IPCC report is 1600 pages long. The bigger it gets the lower the error rate I suppose.”
Maybe the IPCC has been quietly sending out double-spaced copies to journalists?
I don’t want to sound picky but:
– Gate Of The Day would be Gate-du-jour.
– Gate-de-jour means Daytime Gate.
REPLY: Good point, I defer to your expertise and changed the title, foreign languages are my worst subject – A
Would it be correct and sequentially correct to summarise the revelations of the last few months as consisting of:
1. Hockey-stickgate – wherein is described the distortion, hiding and manipulation of temperature data as evidence of a hypothesis.
2. Climategate – wherein is described the corruption of the peer-review process by an AGW “mafia”
3. Pachaurigate – consisting of actions (or omissions) which have converted the supposedly scientific and peer-reviewed credentials of the IPCC AR4 report into an advocacy document, and in turn encompassing:
3.1 Glaciergate wherein is described the exaggeration of non-peer reviewed press articles (with no scientific backing) to further a particular political agenda, and
3.2 TERIgate wherein the exaggerated claims of Glaciergate are used in support of obtaining funding for research projects, and
3.3 Disastergate wherein it is implied that there is a clear statistical link between natural disasters and global warming where there is none, and
3.4 Amazongate wherein a postulation that there is a linkage between the Brazilian forest and rainfall is morphed to become a linkage between the Amazon forests and global warming
Guardian:
Henry chance (09:54:02) :
Even Joe Romm is lying about the world record storm in LA last week.
It’s easy to point to big weather events and cry apocalypse. I grew up
in L.A. and remember asking my dad why there were concrete channels
all over town. He said they were for water runoff. I asked why they
were always empty. He said they were not always empty, and if we
didn’t have them, L.A. would flood. Young people can be fooled my
Romm and others, but not those of us who have been around. Those
channels are huge and have been around for over 80 years.
Why Romm?
For those young people who don’t want to be manipulated by lies,
here is a link.
http://www.lastormwater.org/siteorg/general/lastrmdrn.htm
memory is slipping, here’s the link to Guardian on Obama will omit climate change in speech :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/25/barack-obama-climate-state-union
OMG! How can we (IPCC) be sure that our report is 100% accurate? So we included some false info. What’s a few white lies amongst friends?
How can anyone trust the information in AR4? The wheels are off thanks to this site and the many like it. Thank you for all of your hard work, this is like a tax cut or rather the avoidance of unnecessary taxes and regulation!
It might be useful if climate skeptics applied some of the same skepticism to other environmental sciences, such as the widespread quango claims that the Amazon is currently being deforested, or that Amazonia is a wilderness untrammeled by man until recently.
In fact, Amazonia has been inhabited by human beings for 10,000 years or more. The residents cleared, planted domesticated crops, grew fruit and nut orchards, altered soils, mounded, ditched, fish farmed, and burned vast areas. People have been creating and extending Amazonian grasslands and savannas through annual burning for millennia — not merely slash-and-burn swidden, but landscape-scale adaptation of whole regions to conditions suiting human survival and prosperity.
Large urban civilizations occupied the putative Amazon “wilderness”. In the aftermath of mass population decline following the introduction of Old World diseases, the forests grew back. That process continues today as abandoned fields quickly reforest.
The idea that once removed, tropical forests are lost forever is alarmist poppycock. Just as the seas are NOT going to boil, neither are the forests of Amazonia disappearing. It may be comforting in a sick way to assume that humanity is the scourge of all life, but just ain’t so.
Biology is not fragile. The Earth is not in a precarious state. People are foolish. These are eternal verities.
Given the Amazon mistakes, scientific citations in IPPC reports carry no more weight than a Hollywood movie that says “based on a true story.”
I was wondering when they were going to play the “we’re only human” card.