Dr. Richard North, who does investigative journalism at the EU referendum blog, has a comprehensive analysis and backgrounder on the latest in a series of blunders by the IPCC that have been uncovered. It complements the just released story by Jonathan Leake of The Sunday Times that highlights a leading British scientist calling for IPPC to “tackle the blunders or lose all credibility”
Here is Dr. North’s introduction to the issue:
Following an investigation by this blog (and with the story also told in The Sunday Times), another major “mistake” in the IPCC’s benchmark Fourth Assessment Report has emerged.
Similar in effect to the erroneous “2035” claim – the year the IPCC claimed that Himalayan glaciers were going to melt – in this instance we find that the IPCC has wrongly claimed that in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020.
At best, this is a wild exaggeration, unsupported by any scientific research, referenced only to a report produced by a Canadian advocacy group, written by an obscure Moroccan academic who specialises in carbon trading, citing references which do not support his claims.
Unlike the glacier claim, which was confined to a section of the technical Working Group II report, this “50 percent by 2020” claim forms part of the key Synthesis Report, the production of which was the personal responsibility of the chair of the IPCC, Dr R K Pachauri. It has been repeated by him in many public fora. He, therefore, bears a personal responsibility for the error.
In this lengthy post, we examine the nature and background of this latest debacle, which is now under investigation by IPCC scientists and officials.
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What follows is a detailed investigation by Dr. North, I highly recommend reading it here:
EU Referendum: And now for Africagate
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This is nothing, its just show that science is ugly, and some experts have gone rogue. But the science behind climate change is concrete. There are thousands of peer reviewed studies that support it. And I base that on nothing.
Thats the typical media spin such scandals get.
Stephen Brown (15:48:34) :
What an absolutely fascinating observation from your personal experience. One wonders whether this kind of thing is generalisable and if so whether it would have any role to play in weather, if not climate, prediction.
Well done. However, is it not odd that none of these errors was discovered before now?? And if the IPCC peer review process worked at all, and these errors were flagged – what happened to the flags? Are there peer reviewers out there that would like to tell us what happened when they critiqued IPCC work?? Were they ignored??
Or what.
What next? There’s no “Australiagate” yet, and we’re feeling a bit left out. Note to self: Get onto it – there’s bound to be one in there somewhere. Something about droughts perhaps, as many citizens of NSW and Qld mop up after between 3 and 8 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.
“But the underlying science is robust!” they cry.
“Oh yeah? Prove it,” we shout back.
“The models can’t be wrong,” they retort, stamping their feet.
“Garbage in, garbage out,” we bellow, those millions of us who have ever worked with computers or used a spreadsheet to conclusively prove that black is white, simply by beginning with the conclusion and fiddling the variables to arrive at it.
I have genuine sympathy for all of those scientists who have done their jobs skilfully and honestly (i.e. without an agenda) to derive new knowledge about the most complex system we (almost) know of, barring life itself. That their work should be misused by agents of doom with a monophonic agenda is a travesty in itself.
But then, ’twere ever so. Money talks, hucksterism squawks, and bulls**t walks.
The entire IPCC process, not to mention the once noble concept of peer review, is surely now compromised beyond salvation, and the devious clowns that run it must soon be feeling the rapier’s cruel point on their collective ar**s as they walk the plank.
CarlNC (15:11:56) :
“It has been said before that this fiasco is damaging the image of science, and as time goes on and the IPCC keeps repeating the line that these errors and omissions don’t change the science …”
In a way I agree with the IPCC on this. The core science is the man-made global warming hypothesis. That is unaffected by wild predictions of how man-made global warming would affect life on the planet. The problem for the IPCC is that a prophesy of doom is necessary, otherwise global warming is nothing to worry about.
I wonder what predictions of doom now remain. I suppose sea level rises are still threatened, although we know the IPCC has scaled back its predictions to such an extent that beach-front properties in California have been given an official safety certificate by Saint Al of Gore.
Leon Brozyna (14:59:46) : Thanks for the (growing) -gate list. I picture Pachauri as Cardinal Fang of the Spanish Inquisition, protesting in a high-pitched voice:
“TWO paltry mistakes do NOT discredit my IPCC! Glaciers and the Amazon, Amazon and glaciers…and weather disasters–THREE mistakes! Glaciers, Amazon, and disasters do not…and Holland–FOUR mistakes!
.
.
.
SEVENTY-SIX mistakes, uh, the nature of which I have divulged in my previous utterances, do not discredit…and African rainfall–SEVENTY-SEVEN mistakes!”
We need a special link that briefly summarizes all of the gates in clear, easy for even a warmist to understand, language…preferably with links to supporting articles.
This is from another poster (forgot who) and does a great job. However, it was done after Amazongate and darn if this IPCC corruption-gate thing just keeps getting more interesting. It’s hard to keep up!
__________________________
“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.”
Pamela Gray (15:35:56) :
Yes. You have struck gold. Don Martin could easily head the IPCC.
It would make a great Magazine. 50 cents cheap.
Humor in a Carbon Vein.
Green vs Green
Scenes we’d like to Forget.
Maybe we should call this C3-Gate or Climate Change Corruption-gate.
“Kendra (16:25:53) :
[…]
To go back to my question, did everyone, skeptics included, take most of this on faith (because they already had enough problems – and enough evidence)?”
I can only speak for myself. Since buying Lomborg’s “The skeptical environmentalist” about 5 years ago i knew that the IPCC was an organization primarily focussed on exaggerating its claims. I never bothered to read the IPCC reports myself, why read all that stuff when i consider it biased anyway? So there was the opposite of faith on my part. Let’s just say i’d be surprised if they have one fact right.
I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece
THE scientist at the centre of the “climategate” email scandal has revealed that he was so traumatised by the global backlash against him that he contemplated suicide. Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times that he had thought about killing himself “several times”. He acknowledged similarities to Dr David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC report that alleged the government had “sexed up” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Gary Hladik (16:54:13), correction: Cardinal Ximinez.
Does this error make me eligible to join the IPCC?
These errors were all known and in there for effect.
“I suppose sea level rises are still threatened”
Even Greenpeace only claims sea levels rises of between 3 inches and 3 feet over the next 100 years.
When are the IPCC going to wave the white flag and do what they should have done right back when Steve McIntyre broke Mann’s hockey stick?
Start from scratch guys! Ditch the exaggerations and the fakery. Make all the data and software available to the public. Put a gag in your most obnoxious allies (Al Gore, Prince Charles and Greenpeace). Set up independent auditing of all areas and start listening to the sceptics.
The longer you leave it, the harder it will be to regain ground.
But the report was written by 2600 of the worlds best scientists. All the scientists agree, sic.
I am glad that people are finaly beginning to look under the hood at the science. Now to just get the politicians to understand that all this climate sciance has been hyped to a degree which is not a reliable reflection of the state of understanding.
A costly exersize so far, hopefuly some pragmatism will be instilled in the media, politicians and public.
I think the USA has plenty of problems, not the least of which was Mann’s Hockey Stick. Now, you might have PennStateGate to add to the list. And, don’t forget the march of the thermometers … NoaaGate? And, with Hansen/Schmidt around there’s probably a NasaGate lurking somewhere.
This “gate” appears to me to be the biggest because Pachauri cannot possibly wiggle out by saying he “did not know” or that it is a minor error.
It is so big that it isn’t a gate, it is as big as a barn door, or better yet, huge as a mountain pass leading to his valley of despair and loathing.
John
Bob Highland (16:46:22) :
What next? There’s no “Australiagate” yet, and we’re feeling a bit left out.
Well, there’s always Darwin. Not to mention all the hysteria of increased wildfires. In fact, is this mentioned anywhere in the IPCC report? Could another gate in the making.
As View from the Solent points out, Phil Jones is invoking the sympathy card claiming things have made him feel suicidal. But of a resignation there is no sign. He’s a bit extreme in that sense.
Old news for some… but, in that parallel dimension occupied by the Met Office, we have Professor John Mitchell’s tooth and nail fight to withhold his 2007 AR4 working papers and correspondence with IPCC chums splashed across the Mail. So worried is the Met Office, they’ve got the Defence Secretary to justify the refusal.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/met-office-and-mod-collude-in-climate-data-cover-up/
Met Office credibility is about the same as the temperature in Celsius in Washington DC right now…
OT I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones
THE scientist at the centre of the “climategate” email scandal has revealed that he was so traumatised by the global backlash against him that he contemplated suicide.
Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times that he had thought about killing himself “several times”. He acknowledged similarities to Dr David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC report that alleged the government had “sexed up” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
In emails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jones appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring climate change.
Jones, 57, said he was unprepared for the scandal: “I am just a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises.”
Story continues… http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece
“joe (16:41:11) :
This is nothing, its just show that science is ugly, and some experts have gone rogue. But the science behind climate change is concrete. ”
You mean like GCM’s that can’t model cloud formation?
OT – I’m annoyed. Not with you guys on this board but the whole way this is going. I’m insulted: I’m being called a “flat Earther”, a “denier”, and I’m not a “climate scientist”. There’s thousands of homeopathists telling me I don’t know how water works as well! Sounds the same with climate “science” – if the methodolody is flawed every result after is suspect, this is the way my science works and has done for hundreds of years. I’m the arch skeptic: I try and catch myself when I’m going with my emotions and play devils’s advocate with myself…. but, speaking for myself, I’m all with cutting back on pollution, wasting resources etc. but absolutely none of this political charade is helping anybody… I’ll rephrase that, it isn’t helping us, the majority.
”””Dave Worley (15:22:11) : RobustGate is real.””’
The IPCC AR4 report IS robust!
Robustly incorrect and misleading.
John
””’Pamela Gray (15:35:56) : It wouldn’t surprise me to find the next piece of climate change results reported by IPCC’s 4th report . . . . .should be looking for that reference in Hustler.”””’
Pamela, good . . . . really good.
But we all should get our rabies shots. The rodent (nest of rodents) that we all keep chewing on looks to me to be infected.
To health & happiness,
John