Meanwhile NASA GISS scientist Lacis, who was highly critical of the chapter 9 executive summary draft says that:
I am actually encouraged by the all criticisms that the IPCC AR4 report is receiving.
He makes some valid points and provides insight into the review process. More in comments at Andrew Revkin’s NYT Dot Earth blog here
From the Australian, news on that IPCC “overhaul” in Nature:
Scientists say IPCC should be overhauled or scrapped
INTERNATIONAL scientists have called for the world’s peak climate change body to be revamped or scrapped after damaging controversies that have dogged the expert panel in recent months.
The scientists suggest a range of options, from tightening the selection of lead authors and contributors to the International Panel on Climate Change, to dumping it in favour of a small permanent body, or even turning the whole climate science assessment process into a moderated “living” Wikipedia-IPCC.
Writing today in the journal Nature, five US, British, German and Swiss climate scientists – all contributing or lead IPCC report authors – agreed a mechanism for assessing the facts and impacts of climate change was critical.
But they acknowledged that calls for reform had intensified after what Nature called “recent furores”. Last month, for instance, it was revealed that flawed communication between teams of scientists led to the IPCC’s inaccurate claim that most Himalayan glaciers would melt almost 300 years earlier than forecast. In November, the release of hacked email messages between climate scientists triggered widespread media reports of scientific wrongdoing.
According to Mike Hulme, from Britain’s University of East Anglia, the structure and process of the IPCC has passed its sell-by date. “The IPCC is no longer fit for the purpose,” he wrote in Nature.
In Australia, Barry Brook, the director of climate change research at Adelaide University, agreed, saying: “I wouldn’t be disturbed if there wasn’t ever another IPCC report, provided we replaced it with something more timely, concise and relevant to policy makers,” he said.
Full story at the Australian here
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The wheels are falling off the gravy train so they are going to put some new ones on.
The problem is always going to be the conflict between science and advocacy. The IPCC was created for the purpose of advocacy, not science.
Join the dots
Yesterday, a post from Professor Ravetz stating:
“Indeed, if we look at the definition of ‘post-normal science’, we see how well it fits: facts uncertain,values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.”
” But climate change had never been a really ‘normal’ science, because the policy implications were always present and strong, even overwhelming. ”
And now this:
“Writing today in the journal Nature, five US, British, German and Swiss climate scientists – all contributing or lead IPCC report authors – agreed a mechanism for assessing the facts and impacts of climate change was critical.
According to Mike Hulme, from Britain’s University of East Anglia, the structure and process of the IPCC has passed its sell-by date. “The IPCC is no longer fit for the purpose,” he wrote in Nature.
In Australia, Barry Brook, the director of climate change research at Adelaide University, agreed, saying: “I wouldn’t be disturbed if there wasn’t ever another IPCC report, provided we replaced it with something more timely, concise and relevant to policy makers,” he said.”
Here it repeats – the same alarmist language – “a mechanism… was critical”, “something more timely” “stakes high”, “decisions urgent”
And here it repeats again – the emphasis on policy – “policy implications even overwhelming”, “relevant to policy makers”
These guys are singing from the same post-normal hymn sheet. And they’re WRONG!!!
If what is require is “a mechanism for assessing the facts and impacts of climate change was critical”, then how about jettisoning all the PNS bull and sticking to due scientific process. It’s due scientific process that best assessed the facts, and whether or not global warming is even happening, let alone having critical impacts.
This is their new battleground – they wish to be the ones defining what the process is for assessing climate science. They want to be the ones who define the truth, who define the mechanism for assessing climate science, who define the process, who define what form of peer review is acceptable, who define this post-normal scientific method. This is what they want.
But they were IPCC authors themselves – they’re the ones who are unfit for purpose. The failure of the IPCC is their failure. We must make them own that failure.
Oliver K. Manuel (13:54:15) :
Nature cannot regain credibility now by suggesting an overhaul of IPCC.
—————————
Nature, Science, PNAS and all other high impact journals have been publishing unlikely and minimally tested claims in all fields, particularly biological sciences. They think of it as their job to publish important controversial articles. It’s a statistical certainly that many will be proven wrong. That is what makes them “high impact factor”. So, bad climate science isn’t all they publish.
That said, their editors drank the kool-aid w.r.t. AGW. The editors failed and need to go. The American Physical Society is another matter. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/dissenting-members-ask-aps-to-put-their-policy-statment-on-ice-due-to-climategate/. The APS has a long history of enforcing orthodoxy in physics. I bet they thought this issue was no different. The whole organization has been corrupting science for so long people think it’s the way things are done. What to do with this sort of organization? They appear to control jobs. Orthodoxy is great stuff when you are keeping the nutjobs out of a field rather than keeping them in it.
Was Lacis’ quote:
” am actually encouraged by the all criticisms that the IPCC AR4 report is receiving.”
or was it:
“I am actually encouraged by all the criticisms that the IPCC AR4 report is receiving.”
(correction requested)
Before any consideration of the continuation of the IPCC we first need to redo very carefully the temperature indices maintained by NOAA and afilliates, GISS, CRU and the Hadley Centre, which have all been shown to be hopelessly corrupt.
Even the satellite based series are corrupted by the fact that they had to be calibrated using GISS and/or HadCRUT.
Until the very basis of current policy is rigorously recalculated there is no point in continuing with IPCC.
It is simply amazing that important economic indices are rigorously calculated by professional organisations such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics under fully transparent procedures yet the temerature series are calculated by a bunch of bumbling amateurs who want us all to take their word for it rather than show their workings.
For example, GISS (Gavin Schmidt) openly admits to spending half a man day per month on this.
Until this work is redone using professional statisticians and fully transparent procedures under the full scruitny of all concerned another IPCC report is irrelevant.
The Emperor’s New Clothes!
Buy one get one free:
“Scientists say Nature should be overhauled or scrapped”
The IPCC should be scrapped. But it probably won’t be.
ChooChoo Pachauri insists the IPCC is not a UN entity. I wonder about that. He’s mendacious and self-dealing.
But if the IPCC is brought back under the auspices of the UN, they should be required to publicly archive on-line, in real time, all data [both raw and adjusted, and all methods used]; all computer codes, algorithms methodologies and notes, at the same time that any statements, papers, findings, assessment reports, or conclusions are made. In other words, complete public transparency of the process that led to the conclusion.
Anything less will result in exactly the same situation we have currently: gaming the system for money and political power by scaring the populace.
Scrapping is a very good idea. But will it really happen. The UN isn’t just going to roll over, and play dead. Even if many scientists stop contributing, there will be enough of them staying on board to continue on for whatever reason. But revisions will happen to some degree, I’m sure.
The climate change issue has gone well beyond being just an enviro thing. I think Lord Monckton has shown that very well. Climate change is being used by folks in the world who are looking for a one world government, and if it gets derailed, they will just use something else. It’s just a means to there goal.
The passions of the warmist crowd are being used by these folks. They are nothing but pawns. That’s the sad part.
The bright side, though, is that climate science has really moved forward. We are continually gaining new insights on our climate. And that’s a good thing. Climategate has been a very helpful thing. So kudos to the snitch.
“Smokey (15:08:49) :
[…]
But if the IPCC is brought back under the auspices of the UN, they should be required to publicly archive on-line, in real time, all data [both raw and adjusted, and all methods used]; all computer codes, algorithms methodologies and notes, at the same time that any statements, papers, findings, assessment reports, or conclusions are made. In other words, complete public transparency of the process that led to the conclusion.”
Celebrity Big Brother. I like that. Include fly-on-the-wall cameras in the toilets to film the bribery.
Science worked very well in the centuries before the UN or any other transnational body existed, and it would continue now to work very well without one. Galileo, Copernicus, Watt, Lorenz, Einstein, you name ’em, they didn’t need anything but the occasional conference of scientists to spread the word around. In today’s world of instant communication and Internet connectivity, I can’t see how an international bureaucratic body would have any value to add.
Onion – yes; as Kim put it on the PNS thread: “No surprise he who drew the map finds the treasure” (or words pretty close to that!) 🙂
1. Bin IPCC.
2. Set up new, smaller scientific body to analyse climate data gathered by GISS, UAH, RSS and others (but not HADCRUT).
3. Exclude all “evidence” of climate disasters from NGO and advacatist bodies such as the WWF, FoE, etc.
4. New climate monitoring body to publish an annual report of findings, freely available to all, including access to raw and amended data.
5. Experts on statistical analysis to have executive overview of statistical methods to be employed and to ensure configuration management is sound.
6. All reports to be peer reviewed by the most eminent scientists in physics, astronomy, geology and ecology; not just climatology.
7. First task for new body: to critically review climate change data fed to IPCC and amend or discard as necessary.
8. Get WUWT Bloggers to agree findings – the hard part!
The UN has never shown itself to useful as anything other than a money pit. The suggestions, as correctly observed by previous commenter’s, amounts to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The only thing I know, with any degree of certainty, about conditions a hundred years from now, is that my great-grandchildren will still be paying for the spending going on in DC.
…kudos to the snitch.
Yeah, what about that “snitch”? Since it’s impossible to impose a complete and total grapevine blackout, doesn’t ANYBODY have an idea (informed, perferably) on who it was?
Can we just disband the U.N.? Fixing the IPCC doesn’t seem logical. If Pachy goes away, there will be another to take his place. If the Climate Change issue doesn’t accomplish the goals of it’s advocates, another issue/cause will show up. (as several recent articles here have alluded.) To be sure, a major change in our socio-economic behavior will be necessary to thwart the impending doom.
In 2010 AR4 is no good, but it was fine in 2007.
Did it get changed for the worse in the meantime, or is it just that someone finally read the thing?
Science is looking for a way out of the deep pit they have dug for themselves. And John Christy wants to help them but his price is dismantlement of the IPCC.
They want a way out but is the science still settled? Science will have to come clean and that means Mann and Penn State, Hansen and NOAA/NASA GISS, and Nature’s own jury rigging must be held to account. The lies must not be allowed to stand.
For Penn State and NOAA/NASA GISS next November 11 is not all that far away and is getting closer every day.
Tick-tock.
Mike Ramsey
Did anyone else automatically start looking for flaws in the article because it started with “Scientists say…..”? Isn’t that how all this CAGW mess started? Which takes me to a slightly O/T subject, in the end, the consensus was Gavin, Hansen and Phil? They in turn dispatched Mann and Briffa? Was that the consensus? I seem to recall a guy named Tamino, too, but was that the thousands of scientists in consensus? Most of the other stuff I’ve read seemed to rely heavily on those guys.
Lance (13:45:42)
This issue is raised – and I think addressed – in Bishop Hill’s blog:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/10/its-worse-in-context.html
“So, if you are publishing research articles that use computer programs, if you want to claim that you are engaging in science, the programs are in your possession and you will not release them then I would not regard you as a scientist; I would also regard any papers based on the software as null and void.” 2/5/10, UK Guardian, Darrel Ince, professor of computing, Open University. I tried Revkin’s site again today but he continues to make sweeping conclusions without substantiation.
At the bottom of all this is the human propensity to allow or facilitate corruption. It seems that there is nowhere that is free from this cancer of human nature. That it has seeped into scientific endeavour is a real travesty we should be concerned about. That it was then able to infect the thinking and endeavours of so many governments in Europe and the Anglosphere is frightening. That so many people in everday life talk about and accept the ‘official version’ of climate change as though it is a fact of life shows how easy it is to capture public opinion.
The ,fourth estate’ has abrogated its responsibility. That is also a travesty. How do you root out corruption?
We’ve already seen how a ‘Wiki’ would work, and it’s much worse than CRU.
I agree with the sentiment that the IPCC is just becoming the scapegoat, and the ‘science’ will not take the beating it deserves. the science has taken a massive beating here in the blog-sphere, and we did not really concentrate on the IPCC. That one fell over at the merest feather-blow, it seems.
NOW is the time to push all the science truth we can. The vampire IPCC is dead, having been exposed to the light of day. Let’s expose the science to the light of day and see if that survives any better.