The ever sharp Bishop Hill blog writes:
While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS. Lacis’s is not a name I’ve come across before but some of what he has to say about Chapter 9 of the IPCC’s report is simply breathtaking.
Chapter 9 is possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report – it’s the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made.
Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:
There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
I’m speechless. The chapter authors, however weren’t. This was their reply (all of it):
Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature.
Simply astonishing. This is a consensus?
(h/t to WUWT reader Tom Mills)
UPDATE: There’s an update to the story at Dot Earth.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/does-an-old-climate-critique-still-hold-up/
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O/T but just seen the following linked at Bishop Hill’s blog:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/climate+economistaposs+email+security+breach/3532642
Harry (09:10:46) says:
Actually, you are wrong. Educated people have known since the Greeks that the world is not flat. Secondly, there seems to be good evidence for some sort of “cold fusion” effect that needs to be explained.
There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department…….The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
This guy is ringing my bell. I didn’t know I had a twin.
Remember this is from IPCC WG1, “The Physical Science Basis”.
Most of the examples of high-profile IPCC errors and exaggeration discussed in the media so far have been from WG2. The unjustified assumption made by journalists (such as Jonathan Leake) is that WG1 is much more rigorous. In fact, WG1 has all the same features of distortion, cherry-picked literature and exaggeration as WG2 (though WG1 does avoid the use of ‘grey’ literature).
Richard Sharpe (10:03:32) :
I suspect there is a residual amount of energy in any cold fusion experiment.
What is being measured is the imparted energy from act of performing the experiment. A tribute to the degree of precision of measurement, not of the actual discovery of new energy.
If cold fusion were true, nature would (again .. I suspect) be performing it all day long.
Interesting that Lacis doesn’t have a wiki page. Did he ever, or did Connolloy disappear him?
The reply is worth repeating:
Perhaps they are thinking of such peer reviewed literature as newspaper articles, magazine articles, Master and PhD theses and dissertations, Greenpeace articles, NWF articles, and WWF articles.
Lacis is not a sceptic, he is appalled by the political agenda of the ES. This is a really heartening development, but Lacis may be just as convinced of AGW as Hansen, AFAIK. Haven’t read his papers.
And some commenters here speak as if he was punished for his criticism. I don’t see that.
Just a pointless side note…
His last name is probably of Latvian origin, where it means ‘Bear’. (cf. Ivars Lācis, former rector of the University of Latvia)
Shouldn’t expect a bear to be bullish, even on AGW. 🙂
HA HA HA !!!
“Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature”
Since we now know what “peer reviewed literature” is !!!
AR4 ES. Is it just me or does everyone else read that as ‘ARSES’ ,now too?
Leon Brozyna, note my comment above, this is from WG1 so it is using peer reviewed literature, no WWF magazines. But it is carefully cherry-picked literature and the results of it are exaggerated by the IPCC.
“Mark Bowlin (10:00:54) :
It’s hardly surprising since the executive summary was likely written first.”
Probably closer to the truth ………..
Outstanding….
:golf clap:
Lacis’s comment should be (or should *have been*) pasted across the front page of every mainstream newspaper concerned with spreading truth.
(That’ll be approximately none then.)
REPLY: Revkin at the NYT appears to be working on a story. – A
Andrew Lacis should have written something like this:
The Executive Summary is a magnificent piece of environmental advocacy worthy of Greenpeace. I would like to congratulate the authors on the subtlety with which they have ignored science in favour of the clever construction of a political agenda.
The editors also reject this comment from Andrew Lacis.
“Anthropogenic warming of the climate system is pervasive. . .”? The quantity that is being measured is temperature (of the surface, atmosphere and ocean). Temperature has no identifying label that would make it possible to identify any given temperature change as being “natural” or anthropogenic” in its origin. The term “anthropogenic warming” is yet to be properly defined. In any case, it is hardly a scientifically credible description to be attached to observational data.
Rejected. “Anthropogenic warming is both scientific and easily understood by decision makers and others.
In our little town the “renewable energy board” has little understanding of the implications where AGW is concerned. They are just doing a “good” work.
This should be a fun to rattle the cage over at Surreal Climate with. Bet it’ll get chopped everytime!
Apologies if anyone already posted this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/
“Do you trust climate scientists?” A fairly rational debate involving Philip Stott and Mike Hulme and a public phone in that was on BBC radio 4 today 9th Feb.
I am rather new to this discussion and only since Climategate broke, so I am no expert on AR4, however…
I did spend 30+ minutes paging through the review comments and was surprised to find several along the lines of (paraphrased) “we are out to support the thesis of AGW.”
Perhaps I misread those comments, so I’ll go through the document again later today.
It’s interesting what you can find if you read the reviews. So, although Dr. Lacis has quite rightly criticized the ES, we see Kevin Trenbeth arguing that chapter 9 doesn’t go far enough.
For example, on page 15 he is disappointed with the lack of conviction on hurricanes and says that “I strongly disagree with the wimpy conclusions.”
Response: “We believe that it is still premature to draw strong conclusions.”
Then, two pages later, he confess surprise that “there is nothing on glacier melt, ocean expansion and sea level rise, or salinity.”
Response: Blank.
From the next page of comments:
[Andrew Lacis]
“Anthropogenic warming of the climate system is pervasive ” ? The quantity that is being measured is temperature (of the surface, atmosphere and ocean). Temperature has no identifying label that would make it possible to identify any given temperature change as being “natural” or “anthropogenic” in its origin. The term “anthropogenic warming” is yet to be properly defined. In any case, it is hardly a scientifically credible description to be attached to observational data.
Response:
Rejected. Anthropogenic warming is both scientific and easily understood by decision makers and others.
I’ll see if I can find a way to pull all his comments. He sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Disgraceful that such an eminent climatologist has been ignored by those pushing the alarmist propaganda at the behest of their pay-masters. Time the IPCC was shut down before any more damage is done.
Just a thought. Perhaps we have a new headline in the making – Non-consensusgate?
RejectedGate
Dr Lacis also wrote this as comment no 58, showing more orthodoxy of belief as well as the same concern for the science.
The scientific merit of the IPCC Assessment Report would be substantially improved by simply deleting this chapter. Understanding is a prerequisite before any credible attribution can take place. The chapter starts by putting the cart ahead of the horse – attributions are made left and right without ever laying a foundation to stand on. The objective of the Assessment Report should be to produce a clear and convincing documentation of climate change, and avoid becoming a punching bag for climate change critics and skeptics. The place to start is with the observed record of greenhouse gas increases. These GHG increases have physical consequences ie the GHGs produce radiative forcing that is driving the climate system to a new equilibrium. And, there is a global temperature record that verifies that that is indeed what is happening. If, for political reasons, this chapter needs to be retained, it should be rewritten as a synthesis of what has been learned in the earlier chapters, and moved to the end of the Report. If written well, “attribution” will become a self-evident conclusion that is based on the facts presented.