By Richard Black.
This is a fine opportunity for WUWT readers to make comments to the committee reviewing the IPCC. My suggestion: be polite; be constructive.
“Now that we’re in the kitchen, we have to take the heat,” said Rajendra Pachauri.
“And we have to recognize that the stakes are very high. So we have to prepare ourselves for criticism, and this is not something we have done in the past.”
Indeed not. The worlds of climate science and politics were very different in 1988 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization that Dr Pachauri now chairs, came into being.
Concern there was about the potential of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions to produce a net warming of the planet’s biosphere, which was why the organization came into existence.
But computers on which scientists ran models were mere calculators beside today’s petaflop behemoths;
and many of the observation systems that now provide valued data, such as the global flotilla ofArgo floats, were barely at the stage of conception, never mind in their infancy.
As a result, the risk of warming might have been perceived as real, but it also went unquantified.
And as a result of that, there was barely a prospect of painful greenhouse gas emission cuts, never mind the wholesale decarbonisation of economies within a few decades that many now advocate.
Fossil fuel lobbyists had barely begun to organize, and a webless world did not facilitate the instant fractious exchanges of angry words and equations – the game, sometimes played on astroturf, that now makes the climate blogosphere as relentless as Shinjuku station in rush hour.
Read the rest of the story here
Comments to the IPCC review here
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Here is a must-read from Pielke Sr’s blog, the comment by Marcel Crok for the IAC Review.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/interacademy-council-iac-review-of-the-ipcc-input-by-marcel-crok/
O/T But the UK Government wants people’s opinions on “climate change”
Please be kind, do not be abusive, but respectfully hit them with every link to every science paper which debunks the appalling theory of CAGW.
http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/energy-and-climate-change/
Enjoy!!!
I see that the IAC have not invited Steve McIntyre nor Ross McKitrick to their Montreal meeting on the 15th June.
I wonder why that would be???????????????????????????
To the IPCC
Policy should be about the well being of the people not about pet policy and idealism of those in power. The IPCCs behavior of diminishing the role of natural cycles in favour of unproven computer model projections is unproven and puts the population at risk. The IPCCs behaviour of treating those who disagree with them with contempt is simply elitism. All we all want is honesty, transparency, debate and real science.
I would suggest that Enneagram track down Dr. Elsasser’s 1942 Paper on the “Radiation Balance of the Earth’s Atmosphere”.
There he treats CO2 as an equal “upflux” and “downflux” agent in the troposphere.
Later, Plass, in the ’50’s calculated the net UPFLUX (and cooling) effects of CO2 in the Stratosphere.
Following these lines of theory…which have elements which are testable and have been tested, would be of great benefit in counting the IPPC.
The ability to do incorrect calculations at a much higher speed, is not necessarily a good thing.
Owen says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:42 am
Enneagram says: ”……”
“You can’t be serious……..”
Yeh, they gotta be some serious super efficient sponges. CO2 absorbs and releases in all directions. But, when I say absorb, it isn’t as if the CO2 is reaching out for energy to suck up. It only absorbs the energy that the CO2 is in the path of. Same for all the other trace gases. lol, really, seriously.
June 10, 11:30 EDT 6 hours of debate begins on the Disapproval Resolution
On Cspan 2
vukcevic says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:46 am
I have posted my reassessment of CET data 1700-1990
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWDa.htm
(the world’s longest temperature record available, which shows a negligible temperature trend increase).
Vuk – great improvement in labelling!!! Thanks. these charts are totally understandable. However, please note, global warming seems to occur mainly at the low temperature end, ie night, winter and high latitudes, In the arctic there is almost no discernable summer warming, it is all in the winter. Maybe your correction of CET winter is inappropriate. Even if you check the data yesterday on Beesomething Texas, there was clear warming of the minima from 1977 to 2006, with no warming for the maxima. Murray
Is Rajendra Pachauri a Sikh, or just unkempt?
Completely off topic:
The Gray Monk says:
June 10, 2010 at 7:05 am
When will people realise that the only purpose of “Quality Management” and “Quality Reviewing” is to ensure that if cr*p is the end product, then it is consistent cr*p and nothing more. I have yet to see a QA system that actually improves the end product in any system – and I have been on Quality Audits and even been a Quality Auditor. The systems simply are not designed to improve anything, only to keep it always the same.
Gray Monk – do you know another venu where we could discuss your assertion? My TQM experience is totally contrary to your assertion. Murray
Jimbo, reading through the comments as you suggested is depressing.
There are over 550, and the sense I get from them is that the majority are pompous, overeducated idiots. Unfortunately, they allowed at least one idiotic “chemtrail” comment to stand, which is an embarrassment to everyone. Then there are the usual trailoffs into how ideal socialism is, the spill in the Gulf, how stupid the previous President was, and how the US financed the Taliban.
It proves what I said over a decade ago: give the average person a chance to be heard, and you will discover they don’t have much to say. And presumably most of those commenters vote. Although that’s not a given… most of my acquaintances who are firmly in bed with the warming hypothesis have decided in recent years that they can’t change anything by voting so they won’t try. Hooray for ignorance!
Just as an aside, I was at my parents place last week and to occupy some time I was flipping through the last few years of National Geographic… where I learned the world will soon be thawed, cooked, drowned, folded spindled and generally mutilated… and all because I have A/C in my car (or something). And I’m killing the poor baby animals! Those poor innocent polar bears and somehow also the elephants. Oh, and a few thousand different insects. And bats. They’re ALL in danger, because apparently if a climate region moves a few miles these animals are all too stupid to follow.
And it’s ALL happening even faster than anyone thought! Anyone! Not a SINGLE alarm-raising doom-laden prognosticator who was screaming and hollering about how this was all happening actually believed!
Sorry, but watching him I can’t help seeing a Doberman.
How about “Don’t use any published papers that do not release data and code.”
Transparency.
The IPCC needs to be made subject to a Freedom of Information act, or at least commit to strict rules of transparency.
An international organization, funded by democracies, can not close up in a DDR/Stasi like way to requests for information.
If they have nothing to hide, they should be happy to provide any information requested.
Or else, stop the funding.
I find Richard Black’s comments consistently biased towards warmism and ignore him.
Owen says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:42 am
“…The absorption of radiation depends on the absorptivity coefficient of each particular type of molecule. Trace gases like CO2 or CH4 or N2O can and do absorb significant amounts of outgoing thermal radiation.
Please read up on basic chemistry, starting with the Beer-Lambert Law”
_______________________________________________________________________
And the effects of trace gases are completely swamped by the effects of H2O in all its forms.
Atmospheric Transmission
I live in North Carolina it is between the Atlantic Ocean and the mountains. About a third of the state is mountainous but there is nothing closer to the mountains than Chapel Hill just west of Raleigh. Seems the mountain areas are no longer part of the “official” record, despite the existence of Asheville NC a big city in the mountains, home of the Biltmore Estate (1895)
Here is the raw 1856 to current Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
North to south thru the middle of the state
North – Raleigh NC
Middle – Fayetteville NC
South – Lumberton NC
Coastal Cities:
North – Elisabeth City
South – Wilmington NC
Rural
North – Louisburg
North – Louisburg
South – Southport
South – Southport
Amazing how the temperatures follow the Atlantic ocean oscillation as long as the weather station is not sitting at an airport isn’t it?
Take a look at this city vs the airport. Norfolk City and Norfolk International Airport
Just to give you all some ideas. In my review of the climategate mails and the processess I would identify these issues.
1. Page count. The page limitation is used on occassion to limit the treatment of uncertainty. That is, where there is uncertainty the document should have more explanation but the tendency was to use the page limitation to quash discussion.
There is no reason to have a page limit for the technical sections. Summaries for policy makers, of course, should be of some digestable length
2. Publication deadlines. In order to be considered papers had to be “in press” by certain dates to be considered. This led to people bending the rules and process to get certain key papers in. I would suggest a proceedure that would require that
papers be actually PUBLISHED and ACTUALLY available to the public, with
open access to code and data.
3. Reviewer comments. Reviewers comments were routinely ignored. This is especially troublesome when the author and the reviewer are ‘intellectual combatants.” A mechanism for handling these issues needs to be implemented. The Lead Author should not have cart blanche and be allowed to ignore reviewers.
4. Open the whole process. Sunlight is a great disinfectant. We want to see the drafts
as they are created. we want to see the reviewer comments and how they are handled.
5. Allow for public comment.
6. A Minority report. probably written by reviewers who feel their objections
have not been fairly adjudicated.
Those of you who have had to deal with the process of creating documents in feilds of inquiry where there is disagreement should use your experience to make constructive suggestions.
TallDave says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:53 am
Fossil fuel lobbyists had barely begun to organize,
What? I would bet they are outnumbered 100:1 in both funding and personnel by the climate change lobby.
_______________________________________________________________________
No they are not because Big oil started the whole ball rolling in the first place. Google Maurice Strong, first earth Summit 1972 and also David Rockefeller and the Club of Rome (they are both affiliated)
Murray Duffin says: June 10, 2010 at 8:42 am
Maybe your correction of CET winter is inappropriate
(re: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWDa.htm )
Perhaps, but even if correction is not applied and the time sections are considered individually, each spanning nearly 150 years (1700 -1850 & 1850 – 1990), two trends would more than cancel each other ( -0.26 and +0.15 0C /century), suggesting that most of the winters’ rise from 1700-1990 (0.5 out of 0.75 0C) would be condensed in just 5 years i.e. 1845-1850, at the point of the data records transition. See:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET13.gif
(I have added the above remark to the article)
The reason for the correction for pre-1850 period is the ‘un-natural’ discontinuity for two periods, having in mind that official records are considered to be accurate post 1850.
(btw. are you Murray Duffin from FSEC)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWDa.htm
The Gray Monk says:
June 10, 2010 at 7:05 am
…. I have yet to see a QA system that actually improves the end product in any system – and I have been on Quality Audits and even been a Quality Auditor. The systems simply are not designed to improve anything, only to keep it always the same.
__________________________________________________________________________
As a certified Quality Engineer, I agree wholeheartedly. As Dr Demming said, Quality starts at the top. If top management are a bunch of crooks then all quality control does is sort the material and make sure the off spec goes to the customers without incoming inspection. (And yes that is based on personnel experience – dishonesty or unemployment were often my choices)
Most “Quality Audits” by customers were a laugh since all they did was audit the already fudged paper work. I have never seen an auditor take part of the retain sample and double check the results of the analysis.
The IPCC was set up to provide evidence for human co2 caused global warming it has no other function. I do not want my taxes wasted on funding this organisation or any climate change related spending by the British government. I no longer have a television and do not need a TV license I don’t miss it anymore,we are told that paying a license means we have an unbiased media ,but that is not apparent from the bbc’s handling of climate change or of the last election,more people should tear up their TV license.The British government could cut the budget deficit by spending less on manmade global warming research.
Gary says:
June 10, 2010 at 5:42 am
The IPCC was created to address the perceived problem of detrimental climate change. This isn’t the same thing as a comprehensive baseline descriptive analysis of the variability of climate. The first is motivated by a political agenda; the second by scientific curiosity. The two were conflated by the participants and they should be separated if we are to have an honest representation of any risks that need to be addressed. The very first thing any review must do is set out the agenda, the mission, the guiding philosophy, and the criteria for analysis and decision making that both advocates and critics of AWG can agree on. As we have seen with the IPCC reports, a shaky foundation inevitably leads to an unstable house.
I disagree wholeheartedly with that assessment for the following reason: It presumes that a group of people may —upon whatever determination— presume to tell, nay: DEMAND that the rest of us must proceed to live in a certain way in order to please a cadre of priests in the temple of whatever science.
If the IPCC were to have had ANY credibility, it would HAVE had to have been started when the last ‘ice age scare’ happened back in the late 60’s to early 70’s.
Instead they waited for the warming to take place and then ran with the idea knowing full well that a cooling trend would take place shortly thereafter.
And run they have: Now with the Earth’s temperature dropping, they clamor noisily for a WORLD TAX, not wanting to wait a moment longer, lest the cooling get even worse than now, and thereby shut down their whole reason for existence.
They are nought but modern shamans screeching at the tops of their collectivist lungs that if we don’t kowtow to their demands, why they will cause the moon to eat the sun as they did ages ago with other ill-informed populations with solar eclipses.
Andrew30 says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:56 am
O/T
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/09/nasa-arctic-mission.html
“NASA is launching a mission from Alaska next month, but it won’t be into space.
[–snip–]
I expect that they will chop up the ice as needed to allow the wind and the currents to carry it out to warmer water.
Andrew, you’ve got it all wrong! They are making that trip to get some ‘virgin ice’ for their daiquiris!
The Gray Monk says:
June 10, 2010 at 7:05 am
When will people realise that the only purpose of “Quality Management” and “Quality Reviewing” is to ensure that if cr*p is the end product, then it is consistent cr*p and nothing more. I have yet to see a QA system that actually improves the end product in any system – and I have been on Quality Audits and even been a Quality Auditor. The systems simply are not designed to improve anything, only to keep it always the same.
That’s a rather cynical view of matters, but allow me this: A properly designed quality assurance system is meant to do just one thing: Report on conditions/findings.
It is something of a ludicrous thought to think that a QA system should ‘improve’ on anything, inasmuch as that isn’t what QA is designed for.