Willis Eschenbach recently posted about “Baked Alaska“, as well as Out in the Ama-zone now from Dr. Richard North we have “Amazon Alibi in Flames” and the research of the document trail used to push the Sunday Times into a retraction about the so called “Amazongate” issue is interesting and telling. I posted a few thoughts on it here previously. Since this new revelation about the issue needs a wider audience, I’ve reposted Dr. North’s essay below. However, I suggest that readers put his website in your bookmarks as there will likely be more to come. Upon further research by North, it seems that evidence of the citation is missing, and even George Monbiot now has admitted that the IPCC made a mistake. He’s changed his tune from just a short time ago. – Anthony
==================================
By Dr. Richard North –
Returning to The Sunday Times retraction of its “Amazongate” article, readers will recall that the paper declared that the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
In the case of the WWF report, it said, the figure had, in error, not been referenced, but was based on research by the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), which did relate to the impact of climate change.
This statement mirrored an earlier statement directly by the WWF, where the organisation claimed that the source for its statement was “Fire in the Amazon, a 1999 overview of Amazon fire issues from the respected Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM – Amazon Environmental Research Institute).”
The source quotation from “Fire in the Amazon,” we are told, reads “Probably 30 to 40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
Well, we have now ascertained that there are three versions of this document. It starts off life as: “Flames in the rain forest: Origins, impacts, and alternatives to Amazonian fires”, published in English at 161 pages.
We then get the Portuguese version at 172 pages, entitled: “A Floresta em Chamas: Origens, Impactos e Prevencao de Fogo na Amazonia.”
In both cases, they are published by the “Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest” in 1999, with the support of the World Bank and the Ministry of Environment Secretariat for the Coordination of Amazon.
Then it reappears as an IPAM publication, in a revised version 204 pages long, in Portuguese only, with the same title as the shorter version.
English and Portuguese versions are in electronic searchable form and, as far as we can ascertain, the claim: “Probably 30 to 40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall,” is not present in any version. Nor can we find any variation or close approximation, nor any form with a similar meaning.
In The Sunday Times, it is averred that this document does “relate to the impact of climate change.” And so it does … sort of. It describes how “fires may be affecting climate patterns” (above) and indeed, precipitation. But there is absolutely nothing about climate change affecting rainfall, or the forest being destroyed by small (or any) reductions in rainfall.
In its anxiety to cover its back, and prove “Amazongate” false, the WWF may have been party to the promulgation of a provable lie. Or maybe, this is just another of Nepstad’s little “misinterpretations”. Either way, though, the IPCC is in a little difficulty. Not only is its claim unsupported by its original report, newly offered reference doesn’t support it either.
And they thought that The Sunday Times retraction was the end of the matter. It is only starting.
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Monbiot, or Mon Bot, responds venomously in his ‘apologia’. Here be the worm.
===================
That pile of lies is getting pretty high, and pretty unstable!
Further research suggests that the origin of the quote was a now defunct webpage aimed at brainwashing children:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/amazongate-smoking-gun.html
and another follow up:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/perpetuating-lie.html
Can’t these people store all their halftruths in a database so that they can at least appear to be consistent. Oh. I think i found a market niche. Software for professional liars.
ROTLMAO. Moonbat has found a catastrophist’s paper: (from his blog, linked above)
“The first paper, by Cox et al, predicts a drop in broadleaf tree cover from approximately 80% of the Amazon region in 2000 to around 28% in 2100 (Figure 6). That is bad enough, involving far more than 40% of the rainforest. But the forest, it says, will not be largely replaced by savannah: “When the forest fraction begins to drop (from about 2040 onwards) C4 grasses initially expand to occupy some of the vacant lands. However, the relentless warming and drying make conditions unfavourable even for this plant functional type, and the Amazon box ends as predominantly baresoil (area fraction >0.5) by 2100.”
”
and now merrily states that the danger to the Amazon has been understated by the IPCC.
Next thing you know he’ll tell us we’ll die from H2S when all the fish die and start to rot. Go ahead Moonbat, right ahead.
Being a Brasilian I wouldn’t mind incorporating all the Amazon into Brasil, but for now, 40 % of Brasilian raiforest is still only 20 % of the whole Amazon. So where is the scientific reference for the IPCC claim of 40 % of the (whole) Amazon?
DirkH says:
July 3, 2010 at 11:42 am
“ROTLMAO. Moonbat has found a catastrophist’s paper: (from his blog, linked above)
“The first paper, by Cox et al, predicts a drop in broadleaf tree cover from approximately 80% of the Amazon region in 2000 to around 28% in 2100 (Figure 6).
“”
and yes i pasted this excerpt including the year 2000 right from Moonbat’s blog. I don’t know which year he really meant to say… the catastrophist’s paper is here:
http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibcperu.org%2Fdoc%2Fisis%2F7077.pdf&ei=3YcvTPagDMn_OYbn9d4B&usg=AFQjCNEuXCPYDC_PQc2XWK0JTFkTe06jZw
It’s a beautiful piece of fantasy with colorful maps that came out of the GCM’s. Recommended for fans of horror B movies. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy. Don’t think too hard about thermodynamics while reading it; the paper is a little short on that.
Kudos to Dr. North for his dogged and unrelenting pursuit of this IPCC fiasco. Oh how the Moonbat and his ilk crowed over the Sunday Times’ article retraction. Thanks to Dr. North, the obfuscation, misdirection, and outright nose-stretchers by the IPCC, WWF, Nepstad, Moonbat, et al. are coming back to haunt them. I hope (probably in vain) that we will see a follow up in the Sunday Times that provides an update on all of this, and provides at least a partial retraction of their retraction.
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 – Fire in the Amazon Cartoon Web page
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 2000 WWF
“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation;…”
– 2007 IPCC
This is the relentless march of science?
Joel Heinrich says:
“Being a Brasilian I wouldn’t mind incorporating all the Amazon into Brasil, but for now, 40 % of Brasilian raiforest is still only 20 % of the whole Amazon. So where is the scientific reference for the IPCC claim of 40 % of the (whole) Amazon?”
Can’t wait for all the tiresome Trolls posting on Steve G’s articles to continue our education by means of an erudite dissertation on this!
Or does the whole AGW theory depend entirely on the vagaries of the north polar icecap?
IPCC summary
“Tropical plant species may be sensitive to small variations of climate, since biological systems respond slowly to relatively rapid changes of climate.
…..
Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000).”
I remember some news articles back in at the middle of this decade which blamed rising temperatures and deforestation for the 2002 – 2005 drought in the Amazon. Here is another view:
————————–
How does the Amazon react to increases in Co2 and temperature?
Reference – pdf
Lloyd, J. and Farquhar, G.D. 2008. Effects of rising temperatures and [CO2] on the physiology of tropical forest trees. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363: 1811-1817.
Send this to Monbiot!
“A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought,” said Arindam Samanta, the study’s lead author from Boston University.
….
“The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct,” said Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC. read more… ”
Reference:
Geophysical Research Letters article citation: Samanta, A., S. Ganguly, H. Hashimoto, S. Devadiga, E. Vermote, Y. Knyazikhin, R. R. Nemani, and R. B. Myneni (2010), Amazon forests did not green‐up during the 2005 drought, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L05401, doi:10.1029/2009GL042154. – published 5 March 2010.
—-
New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought
ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)
roger says:
July 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Can’t wait for all the tiresome Trolls posting on Steve G’s articles to continue our education by means of an erudite dissertation on this!
Or does the whole AGW theory depend entirely on the vagaries of the north polar icecap?
Ditto.
And after the last article that included a retraction within minutes, they continued to dogpile Steve and this blog. What a stark contrast. The IPCC and WWF COULD have made an error originally, but instead of a mea culpa they spin this lie even further, pressuring a retraction from the Times. And, oh, the chest thumping that took place after said retraction.
You would think that the ethical supporter of AGWT would recognize the error and publicly take their lumps. How can you respect someone’s supposed scientific integrity if they are only vociferous others mistakes but mum on their (or their group’s) own?
WWF= Wolrd Wide Fake
Jimbo,
Don’t know where the problem is, but this can’t be saying what was intended. If a species is living close to its optimum temperature range, it would have the maximum “distance” to move to get to a dangerous position.
Funnily enough, the alarmist Cox et al paper that Monbiot is now citing, has as its lead author, someone from the CRU – and it relies on doom and gloom computer predictions.
Could it be that Monbiot is being spoon fed by the CRU?
His buddies at the Hadley Centre may be helping. CRU – probably not. CRU does temperature record and research.
Shub Niggurath says:
July 3, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 – Fire in the Amazon Cartoon Web page
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.”
– 2000 WWF
“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation;…”
– 2007 IPCC
This is the relentless march of science?
———
Well, this kind of ‘science’ at least. Unfortunately Climategate and its aftermath prevented future evolution of this alarming finding. Otherwise, we may have got to this by now:
““At least 40% of the Amazonian forests could suffer catastrophic impacts from any change in precipitation there, or anywhere; researchers warn that the extinction of the little known Amazonian polar bear is evidence that we may have already reached an irreversible tipping point and that a global carbon trading market enforced by a World Watermelon Fund research-industrial complex is the only only ‘for the children.’ ”
You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said. In his “correction,” he states clearly that it was wrong only to cite the WWF – not that the underlying facts are wrong. The entire rest of the column is used to state explicitly what published papers are the true basis for the Amazon claims. To simply say that Monbiot has “admitted” something without saying that he admits it sarcastically is a disservice to the truth. Shame – you should know better.
(So admitting the source of lies was wrong to use but still repeating the same lies as true is okay? Sorry, the shame isn’t on our side here. – the mods)
“Dave Dardinger says:
July 3, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Jimbo,
they could find “no evidence for tropical forests currently existing ‘dangerously close’ to their optimum temperature range,” as is often suggested by climate alarmists.
Don’t know where the problem is, but this can’t be saying what was intended. If a species is living close to its optimum temperature range, it would have the maximum “distance” to move to get to a dangerous position.”
Very good! For them, everything is dangerous. I think they’re living in constant paranoia, or maybe a bipolar disorder (manic-depressive) state of mind. Ooops. I accuse the enemy of being mentally disturbed. Must be because i have a manic warmist at my place of work.
Do you know why the 40% figure is important?
Because the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation thinks so?
“The Foundation says its primary objective is to achieve “the effective management of 370 million hectares of forested landscapes” which it says are needed to maintain the climatologic function of the Amazon Basin and protect the region’s biodiversity ”
What is the total area of the Amazon forest?
815 million hectares
What is 370/815 ?
45%
What will happen if this 45% of the forest is not “effectively managed”?
“The 370 million hectares represents 45 percent of the region’s 815 million hectares of rainforest and is considered a threshold below which the Amazon rainforest ecosystem may tip towards a radically different landscape dominated by dry savanna.”
Just so it is clear – if 45% of the forest is not “effectively managed” (whatever that is) – the entire system will flip to a dry savanna. No need of droughts, fires, deforestation, “slight reduction of precipitation”…
!
Who is the “the largest and most influential sponsor of conservation in the world’s biggest rainforest”?
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1206-moore.html
Hu Duck Xing said on July 3, 2010 at 11:03 am:
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
(ref)
After 12 years with no significant warming, total failure of the hockey stick, Climategate, and exposure of the IPCC’s draft world-conquest game plan at Copenshaggen, the AGW religionists’ reaction was completely predictable: desperately increasing their lies and propaganda. It’s a travesty.
MarkB says:
July 3, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said. In his “correction,” he states clearly that it was wrong only to cite the WWF – not that the underlying facts are wrong.”
If you consider model outputs from 2003 or 2004 as facts, even though Catastrophist Cox (et.al.) himself says in the conclusion of his (et.al) paper: “The modelled Amazonian dieback phenomenon
is therefore qualitatively understood, but
we are still a long way from being able to estimate
the probability of such an ecological
catastrophy occurring in the real Earth system.”, so if you consider that a fact, then i think….
…i have a bridge you might be interested in.
MarkB says:
“You grossly misrepresent what Monbiot has said.”
Monbiot grossly misrepresents just about everything he writes.