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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Advocatus Diaboli (17:00:44) : “I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones.”
So let me get this straight. Dr. Jones is receiving death threats…from himself?
how many gates can they go through before they have to give the Nobel back?
I wouldn’t trust any “prize” the Nobel process gives. For example, consider what the Scientific Community itself has allowed to occur/brought about in the case of AGW. Overall, everyone has to understand the depths and extent to which the Controllism of Ideological Narcissism – we’re only trying to “help” you or the downtrodden, etc., save the World, etc. – Political Correctness, Progressivism, Postmodernism, and the various forms of Totalitarianism have infiltrated institutions including Government, the Press, the Educational system, the Medical system etc.. It’s real. But not that I’m pessimistic about it: it’s “see a problem, fix a problem”, if nothing else – but it is something else, too.
From:
Jaye (20:01:45) :
So I just scanned RC’s take on “Glaciergate”. Came across many posts that talk about the lunatics at WUWT and ClimateAudit, then I came across this little jewel that made it through moderation…
“Indeed, as the capitalist economies of scale are reduced, the atisfaction from making your own clothes and embracing a low-carbon vegan diet will be so intense, reproduction will come to be seen in the same category as child abuse.
I yearn for the day when i might not have been born!”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I found this little tidbit to be encouraging. Each year “Darwin Awards” recogonizes those who take chlorinating the gene pool seriously. I presume that this poster will take his own advice seriously as will the like minded, “wish I wasn’t here”, guilt ridden, geniouses at RC and not reproduce. If only we could convince them not to proselytize.
The way the recent history of the No-Bell Awards has gone, they might need to merge with the Darwin Awards to regain their credibility.
Kendra (16:25:53), I agree with John Hultquist:
John F. Hultquist (20:23:42) :
Kendra (16:25:53) : “asking a naïve question”
No. Your question was a very good one and I don’t think it got the sorts of answers it deserved.
I agree and tried to give an answer to your question below last night, but it vaporized along the way or something- I should have copied it:
Kendra (16:25:53):
I’m just curious – is it that there were already enough uphill battles that no one really studied the references the IPCC used? Or had they already been noticed but no one paid attention when they were pointed out?
Actually many of the ipcc “references” were really studied, ones which involved the basic hypotheses of AGW and the ipcc’s way of doing Climate Science, which was thereby revealed to be not Scientific. One of the most basic sets of questions was, “Is ‘it’ warming, how much, and how much is ‘it’ really ‘unprecedented’?” This led to Anthony’s examination of the U.S. surface stations – basically some of the primary thermometers which the ipcc Climate Scientists never checked! – and to “sceptics” trying to get the source of the data used by GISS and HADCRU to make their temperature reconstructions, and find out what they did to the data in order to make their graphs – which actually constituted what GISS and HadCru’s “science” was.
It led to Steve McIntyre’s dedicated attempt to analyze the tree ring, etc., proxy data and methods which claimed by Climate Scientists to show long term temperatures prior to instrumental data.
Which all led to the fact that the ipcc and its elite Climate Science were not doing real Science, because their “science” involving data, code, materials and methods was not accessable for “audit”, review, or replication – except allegedly for a few annointed “peer reviewers” and Team or “tribal” members.
McIntyre also found by looking and asking for references that no one could back up the ipcc’s alleged basic CO2 “doubling” effect on atmospheric temperatures.
Other ipcc direct statements of fact and predictions could be checked, shown to be dubious, or disproven on their own merits.
So what is being revealed now about the ipcc references is not surprising at all, though it is also scandalous, and ironically has torched off what was already obviously the whole problem to begin with, that the ipcc and its elite Climate Scientists were simply not doing real Science, merely based upon the way they tried to handle their “references”.
In an ideal world “Climate Science ” would have been stopped in its tracks years ago. The CRU leaks would never have occurred because there would have been nothing needing leaking. And the bogus ipcc “references” would have never been included in anyone’s truely scientific analysis.
But the people and process which caused this whole mess are not simply going to go away. They’re going to keep on doing what “got them there” probably because they actually don’t know how to do anything else or at least can’t be trusted to do anything else, as already proven. They’re going to do go down swinging as per usual to the bitter end. So they are going to keep on propagandizind, diverting, making bizarre arguments and “references”, conspiring with their enablers and buddies, etc., until they’re nearly or actually physically subdued.
May I UNGate the FloodGate with some more associated ClimateGate Gates? I’ve been finding everywhere a GateGate!
SeaLevelGate, GoogleGate, RainForestGate, EmailGate, IceGate, CRUGate, SternGate, TempGate, KiwiGate, WikiGate, TreeGate, MediaGate, TemperatureGate, World WildlifeGate, CarbonGate,
WarmingGate, RainGate, WikipediaGate, GlobalWarmingGate, StormGate, NatureGate, GISSGate, WeatherGate, GIECGate, StudentDissertationAndMagazineArticleGate, OceanGate, GreenGate, PolarBearGate, MountainGate, YamalGate, Co2Gate, IndiaGate, GoreGate, StationGate, RussiaGate, HansenGate, StudentDissertationGate, CopenhagenGate, NetherlandGate, HadleyGate, JonesGate, ClimateChangeGate, WeatherStationGate, SaharaGate, PeerGate, ClimbingGate, ThermometerGate, NaturalDisasterGate, ForestGate, DarwinGate, ArcticGate, WarmGate, AntarticaGate, PhilJonesGate, DroughtGate, FireGate, PeerReviewGate, EarthquakeGate, BriffaGate, WhistleBlowerGate, ArticleGate, MSMGate, HadCRUGate, HadCRUTGate, ArticleGate, AntarticGate, FOIGate, GHCNGate, HarryReadMeGate, SiberiaGate, TornadoGate, UNESCOGate, UHIEffectGate, KilimanjaroGate, and can’t forget the classic,
WaterGate II Gate.
Do we have a ConsensusGate?
Dugetit (15:24:16) :
Yeah, the chicanery on the water shortage issue should very adequately called “Watergate.”
With reference to global warming, which unfortunately so long as governments are considering Cap and Trade and CO2 taxes, is still with us.
There might be global warming or cooling but the important issue is whether we, as a human race, can do anything about it.
There are a host of porkies and not very much truth barraging us everyday so its difficult to know what to believe.
I think I have simplified the issue in an entertaining way on my blog which includes some issues connected with climategate and “embarrassing” evidence.
In the pipeline is an analysis of the economic effects of the proposed emission reductions. Watch this space or should I say Blog
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Please feel welcome to visit and leave a comment.
Cheers
Roger
Hey – don’t forget the Kiwi-Gate! It may be a small country but boy – it has the same capacity of fudging temp data as some other countries!
Fox News is now carrying this about Africa-Gate and how the IPCC is losing all credibility:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/08/british-scientist-says-panel-losing-credibility/
The politics of global warming died at Copenhagen – now it looks like the “science” won’t survive this snowy winter.
In any case, global warming was about science in the same sense that the Spanish Inquisition was about God: both appealed to an unimpeachable authority to implement measures most people considered unpleasant and unnecessary.
All this is big news: where’s the US news media? At least the Brit press has caught up to the subject… See “Climategate and the ideology of news”:
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/climategate-and-the-ideology-of-news/
The climate isn’t the only thing that could reduce food production by 50%. We have seen that happen in Rhodesia over the last decade. In the Unites States and an aggressive E.P.A. could have a similar effect by enforcing the strictest regulations available to them.
I heartily endorse vulgarmorality’s piece, recommended a couple of posts above. He’s got his finger on the real motives of the warmists: Not politics, not money, not their vegetarian overlords, but arrogant, pushy elitist rationalism. (I.e., IMO, Pareto’s “circulation of the elites,” supplemented by “the will to power.”)
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/climategate-and-the-ideology-of-news/
PS: I should concede that there was one very powerful political motive for CAWG alarmism: It provided a huge stick for Bush-bashers to pummel the Republicans with, to harvest lots of Independent votes, and to rope in greenie campaign foot-soldiers. These fantastic payoffs ensured that the unscrupulous, and the conscientious but willfully deluded — i.e., everyone — would take full advantage of this wedge issue.
PPS: Come to think of it, Global Warming provided a terrific campaign issue for left-wing parties worldwide, so long as the costs could be fudged or it could be pretended that renewable energy sources would become practical in a reasonable time and not be too expensive.
A UK professor named Runciman (sp?) wrote a book in the 60s titled (I think), The Liberal Mind. One sentence stuck with me (I paraphrase): “The soul of socialism is sensitivity to wrongs crying out for redress.”
Global warming fits the script as a crying wrong. And the villains of the piece are “the usual suspects”: big money, polluting industries, blinkered, unfeeling, compromised, apologist-scientists and greedy, short-sighted, money-nexus market-fiend political parties and pressure groups. Plus the short-sighted, uncaring, unthinking, unscientific, polluting, convenience-focused, populist-or-worse, Joe-sixpack public.
What a narrative! The facts must surely fit it! Any that don’t they must be lies! My knee is jerking at warp speed! Get me my warhorse! On with the show!
PPPS: Or maybe Runciman wrote, “The soul of socialism is a search for wrongs crying out for redress.”
IPCC: I protect carbon crooks