While Oxburgh writes a 5 page book report that most college professors would likely reject due to incompleteness, we have this report from Donna Laframboise of Toronto and a team of citizen auditors. The mission? Determine how much of AR4 met IPCC’s own standards for peer review by reviewing every reference in the report to determine if it comes from peer reviewed literature, grey literature, or if they “simply made stuff up”, like glacier melt dates.
21 of 44 chapters in the United Nations’ Nobel-winning climate bible earned an F on a report card we are releasing today. Forty citizen auditors from 12 countries examined 18,531 sources cited in the report – finding 5,587 to be not peer-reviewed.
Contrary to statements by the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the celebrated 2007 report does not rely solely on research published in reputable scientific journals. It also cites press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, working papers, student theses, discussion papers, and literature published by green advocacy groups. Such material is often called “grey literature.”
We’ve been told this report is the gold standard. We’ve been told it’s 100 percent peer-reviewed science. But thousands of sources cited by this report have not come within a mile of a scientific journal.
Based on the grading system used in US schools, 21 chapters in the IPCC report receive an F (they cite peer-reviewed sources less than 60% of the time), 4 chapters get a D, and 6 get a C. There are also 5 Bs and 8 As.
In November, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri disparaged non-peer-reviewed research in an interview with the Times of India (see the end of the article):
IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.
Between Oxburgh’s failure to write a credible report and this obvious failure of IPCC to follow their own rules, is it any wonder why people are beginning to laugh at the “robustness” oft touted in climate science?
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mikael pihlström (00:59:47) :
“Modelling is the reason why you can send the astronauts out there
and get them safely back.”
Nope, the reason we could do it was that we had the will.
Animations appear to suffice today.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/12/science-agency-spares-shame-of-plagiarists-by-name/
mikael pihlström (01:09:52) :
You will have to admit, that in the sceptic movement it is becoming
commonplace, to dogmatically look for the word ‘model’ and then
declare the science invalid.
——————-
The origins of my scepticism lie with the misinterpretation of models by fisheries scientists: the models used by fisheries scientists who were recommending catch limits for the Grand Banks fisheries in the 1980s were generated using too many assumptions about natural mortality, the fishing mortality rates, and recruitment rates. I.e. – there was not enough data to justify the conclusions being drawn from the models. The result? The most calamitous collapse of groundfish stocks in the history of the North Atlantic fisheries. The good thing was that this event forced scientists to go back to the drawing board and re-examine their assumptions.
Models are not evidence, they are tools. Where is the evidence that reinforces the claims being made by climate scientists that catastrophic, or even non-catastrophic, global warming is occurring DUE to human-generated CO2? WUWT provides a plethora of evidence in numerous postings over the past several years that there are few if any measurable effects from this source.
vigilantfish (12:31:43) :
Models are not evidence, they are tools.
Robert E. Phelan (07:16:51) :
I do disagree that skeptics automatically reject “model”…
Unless you have some subgroup of sceptics in mind, I cannot understand
your opinion that many skeptics do not automatically reject any results,
which mentions models. The two instances when I admitingly was blunt, were direct responses to such cases in a single thread.
I completely agree that model is not evidence, but prediction. I completely
agree that they are dangerous in wrong hands. But I completely disagree
taht science cannot make scenarious/predictions for the future, just because
we have to wait for the evidence.
mikael pihlström (13:13:49) :
I feel as if I am repeating tropes here, but the lovely thing for climate scientists is that their predictions are so far in the future that most of them will have spent their last paycheck and be long since stowed in the ground before their predictions are rejected or verified.
Even before climate alarmism took off and climate science became a hive of ideological and politicized activity (back in the innocent days of the study of weather) I was drawing mental parallels between meteorology and fisheries science. Both deal with attempts to predict the future course of events. Meteorologists so far have little success beyond a 5 day horizon. Fisheries scientists try to use past data to project the total allowable catch at a certain proportion of the fish stock. Their calculations include the recruitment of fish (successful spawning and survival to the first year), growth, natural mortality from predation etc, as well as fishing mortality.
Since the cod stock collapsed the science has been refined and models are being used more cautiously. The sustainable yield is now calculated as a much smaller portion of the stock. Scientists now must also account for variations in water temperatures and long-term climate change whether natural or not, and multispecies interactions, the role of environmental damage (e.g. effects of bottom trawling) fish behaviour and other parameters. They still rely on models, but the models, while vital tools, are now treated more cautiously, and cross checked by a variety of mathematical and empirical techniques.
The variables for fisheries science are enormous. Yet they are at least equalled by those that challenge climate science. The computer models of the 1990s made no provision for the effects of clouds or solar variation, or the PDO or AO or numerous other parameters. But while fisheries scientists had to change the way they operate due to the the collapsing fish stocks, there is never any consequence when climate scientists’ models turn out to be way off target. They simply reboot and start all over again, always with the same story, modifying their models to keep their hypothesis of global warming going, while declaring the science to be settled. Furthermore, to push their story they rewrote history: Michael Mann’s now thoroughly discredited hockey stick graph (a model of the past) is an example of why it is hard for sceptics to treat climatologists’ projection models with much reverence. It also turns out that while they are embarked on a an argument that relies heavily on statistics, they are not very good statisticians. See
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/global-average-temperature-increase-giss-hadcru-and-ncdc-compared/
vigilantfish (15:26:25),
I just finished reading the link you posted. Very interesting. “VS” responded to Scott Mandia, who said that CO2 is rising and most of the rise is anthropogenic:
In other words, there is no evidence that the substantial rise in CO2 over the past 150 years has caused any warming at all. It may have. But the effect is extremely small compared with what we’ve been led to believe by people whose incomes are dependent on showing that CO2 will lead to catastrophe.
This is one more example showing that CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
vigilantfish (15:26:25) :
“Furthermore, to push their story they rewrote history: Michael Mann’s now thoroughly discredited hockey stick graph (a model of the past) is an example of why it is hard for sceptics to treat climatologists’ projection models with much reverence. It also turns out that while they are embarked on a an argument that relies heavily on statistics, they are not very good statisticians. See
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/global-average-temperature-increase-giss-hadcru-and-ncdc-compared/”
No objection against a critical ‘surge’ on evaluating the chances of predictive modelling of climate for the 21th, but given the ‘sceptic’
view on modelling we discussed earlier, I wonder when that will
happen. As the IPCC report 2007 provides rather much material on
the modelling and scenarios it is perhaps symptomatic that the
discussion (rejection)here is on a rather abstract level. Involvement
of statisticians is of course needed, but does the last phrase of a
fragment copied from the link you posted suggest to you that a
pure statistician approach is not enough?
• VS Says:
March 4, 2010 at 13:54
“In other words, global temperature contains a stochastic rather
than deterministic trend, and is statistically speaking, a random
walk. Simply calculating OLS trends and claiming that there is a ‘clear increase’ is non-sense (non-science). According to what we observe therefore, temperatures might either increase or decrease in the
following year (so no ‘trend’).”
vigilantfish (15:26:25) :
Mcintyre is obviously a better statistician than Mann, but that the
hockey stick is thoroughly discredited I doubt – time will tell.
vigilantfish,
Nobody expects a 1 to 1 relation between temp and CO2, esp not when other climate forcings (notably aerosols, but also volcanic, solar, other ghg etc) are also changing. On that thread on my blog, some people seem a little too eager to jump to conclusions that are not supported, and haven’t even been tested.
Bart Verheggen (01:57:12):
You assert:
“Mcintyre is obviously a better statistician than Mann, but that the
hockey stick is thoroughly discredited I doubt – time will tell”
No, the Mann, Bradley & Hughes (MBH) ‘hockey stick’ is probably the single most discedited graph in the entire history of science.
Many studies provide data that conflict with the findings of that work of Mann et al. (e.g. Beltrami et al “Long-term tracking of climate change by underground temperatures”, Geophysical Research Letters v.12 (2005)).
In 2005 McIntyre and McKitrick published two papers that together provide a complete refutation of that work of Mann et al.
(ref. McIntyre S & McKitrick R, Energy & Environment, v 16, no.1 (2005), McIntyre S & McKitrick R, Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 32, No. 3, (2005)).
But, perhaps the most important of their studies of that work of Mann et al. was their publication in 2003
(ref. McIntyre S & McKitrick R, Energy & Environment, v 24, pp 751-771 (2003))
that showed it is not possible to directly replicate the work of Mann et al.
The fundamental errors in the methodology of Mann et al. were that their statistical methodology tends to generate a graph with ‘hockey stick’ shape when fed with data that is random red noise. This was first determined by McIntyre & McKitrick.
The US National Academy of Sciences established a special committee to investigate the matter and it determined that the findings of McIntyre & McKitrick concerning the methodology were correct. The Energy Committee of the US Congress was so concerned at the matter that it commissioned Prof Wegman (an accomplished statistician) to form a committee to investigate it. His report is available at
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
That report also determined that the findings of McIntyre & McKitrick were correct.
There are several reasons for the inability to directly replicate this work of Mann et al.; not least that Mann refused to reveal his source codes to others except his co-workers. This inability to replicate this work of Mann et al. means it has no scientific worth: i.e. this work of Mann et al. is anecdote of similar kind to a report of a ghost sighting.
Other similar flawed studies have been conducted but they were each conducted by co-workers of Mann and they each use the same data which has not been revealed to others.
When Briffa published one such study in Philosophical Transactions B of the UK’s Royal Society he was surprised to discover that the journal’s Editor insisted that he had to reveal his data. This resulted in the revelation that his ‘hockey stick’ was a function of the trees he had chosen to select from those that were available (this is known as the ‘Yamal Controversy’).
And then there is the ‘divergence problem’ and ‘hide the decline’, … but the above is probably sufficient to demonstrate that the MBH ‘hockey stick’ has been completely discredited.
And there is more. Much more.
Richard
On a related matter The book “Climategate” by Mosher & Fuller, advertised above, now has another book with a similar name; well it also is called “Climaegate”, and is supposed to be about more than just the CRUtape e-mails.
The new book was pseudo leaked yesterday, at several SF Bay Area Tea Party rallys. Written by Brian Sussman; former TV weather man; and now the KSFO raio morning show host (Conservative).
Brian has been touting his book for some time on his radio show, and leaking bits and pieces of what is in it; and he plans a big release on the Sean Hannity radio and his Fox News TV show next week.
I didn’t buy the book, but Brian has from time to time made comments about items in it. It would seem that he settled on the Climategate Title relatively recently once that storm broke. He is hoping that this will be the big expose, and the definitive nail in the coffin of AGW and IPCC and other sillinesses.
I have a feeling that he is in for a big letdown. Not that he doesn’t reach the right conclusions; but I suspect that there is much of the important Physics; that he really doesn’t know; and he possibly has put his foot in it in a few instances. Those feelings are based on what he has revealed on his radio show.
Well if anyone decides to spend the money; maybe they can give us a report; or perhaps the vultures will soon descend and tear it to shreds. Well I wish him well with it any way.
mikael pihlström (13:13:49) :
mikael:
You manage to completely agree with a statement I didn’t make (dangerous in the wrong hands?), completely disagree with a statement I didn’t make (science cannot make scenarios for the future?) and then manage to imply that we must take drastic action based on the output of models, even though they are not evidence. You make a statement about skeptics in general:
You will have to admit, that in the sceptic movement it is becoming
commonplace, to dogmatically look for the word ‘model’ and then
declare the science invalid.
Then you switch to a statement about “many skeptics” and cite two “cases in a single thread” without either pointing to the cases or providing any context. You write as if your observations have weight and meaning. They don’t. You do not and cannot quantify your observations, which are strictly anecdotal and then denigrate mine (which, I concede is also anecdotal; I did not run a survey or attempt content analysis)?
Your engagement here is a waste of time.
I will leave the deconstruction and dissembling of Laframboise et al to other posters above. I wish to marvel at a simple truth shown if the main point is expressed in layman’s terms.
Referencing the article: 5,587 of the 18,531 sources cited were not peer-reviewed.
In other words, more than 1 out of every 4 — almost 1 out of every 3 — citations or referenced articles is not peer reviewed. This is not a minor error.
Given the high stature and esteem that the Climate Scientologists demand that we give them, they need to be exemplary in something as basic as following their own rules, that every paper be peer reviewed or not allowed into the report.
This makes the Hockey-Stick gang more than laughable in their excluding papers — even peer reviewed ones — when the IPCC allowed 5,587 grey paper citations into the report.
More than 1 out of every 4 — almost 1 out of every 3 — papers fail the IPCC’s own test. How is this not a failure? Perhaps heavy cannabis use influenced the grading scale?
“”” Bart Verheggen (01:57:12) :
vigilantfish,
Nobody expects a 1 to 1 relation between temp and CO2, esp not when other climate forcings (notably aerosols, but also volcanic, solar, other ghg etc) are also changing. On that thread on my blog, some people seem a little too eager to jump to conclusions that are not supported, and haven’t even been tested. “””
Then why do “Climate Scientists” continue to keep citing such a relationship; via the phony notion of “Climate Sensitivity”; which not only asserts such a relationship; but even specifies its mathematical form; namely a logarithmic/exponential relationship (depending on which way you plot it). Absent either hard observational evidence; with sufficiently small error bands to lock down such a mathematical form, to the exclusion of other equations; or alternatively, some real physical model, that predicts such a logarithmic relationship; I can see no virtue in postulating such a connection.
And yes; I believe all the feedback interrelationships, and other factors biological or physical/chemical, simply make any such simple cause/effect connection to be highly unlikely. The whole system is chaotic; and likely to remain mathematically intractible; besides never being in equilibrium; even remotely.
“”” Dave Worley (10:34:55) :
mikael pihlström (00:59:47) :
“Modelling is the reason why you can send the astronauts out there
and get them safely back.”
Nope, the reason we could do it was that we had the will.
Animations appear to suffice today. “””
Well I am old enough to remember quite clearly; as if it was yesterday, that when those first men reached the moon on a landing expedition, that their fancy computerized modelled process for landing on the moon; was too damn stupid to notice that it was about to put them down on a pile of rocks, which very likely would have tipped the whole machine over; from which no escape would have been possible.
I wonder if the mission planners ever thought to construct the LEM in such a way, that the total contraption was light enough and strong enough that two men in space suits with shovels or whatever could actually right the whole contraption if it fell over.
In any case, and actual man, had to take over the landing and move to some place othet than a rock pile.
Thats’ why models are always supicious. They are simply wonderful to explain in some simplified fashion, that which is already known from observation; but they should be taken with a grain of salt, when making predictions; especially about the future.