There’s been lots of whooping and celebrating by the warmist crowd lately over the retraction by the Sunday Times Jonathan Leake story about Amazongate.
The claim was that the sensitivity to rainfall reduction was based on peer reviewed literature. I’m here to tell you that claim is totally unsupportable, I’ll even go so far as to call the claim “bogus”, it is that bad. The proof lies in the screencap below:
Excerpts from what Christopher Booker writes in his latest Telegraph Column:
Last week, after six months of evasions, obfuscation, denials and retractions, a story which has preoccupied this column on and off since January came to a startling conclusion. It turns out that one of the most widely publicised statements in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a claim on which tens of billions of dollars could hang – was not based on peer-reviewed science, as repeatedly claimed, but originated solely from anonymous propaganda published on the website of a small Brazilian environmental advocacy group.
The ramifications of this discovery stretch in many directions. First, it seems to show that the IPCC – whose reports governments rely on to justify presenting mankind with the largest bill in history – has been in serious breach of its own rules.
…
The document cited by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), which it later described, after a full internal inquiry, as a “report”, proved remarkably difficult to track down. Since then, both the WWF and Dr Nepstad have cited other papers in support of their claim – but none of these provided any support for the specific claim about the impact of climate change made by the IPCC.
…
The original read: “Probably 30-40 per cent of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.” This was hyped up in the final drafting of the IPCC report, to claim that “up to 40 per cent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation”. “Brazilian Amazon” – only around half the total rainforest area – was changed to include the entire forest. The word “sensitive” was changed to “react drastically”. And the original IPAM note had made no mention at all of climate change.
Please visit Booker’s article, to read the full story and to show support.
The Sunday Times piece (now retracted) was originally headlined “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”, though this headline was later changed on the website version. It said the 40% destruction figure was based on an “unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise”.
That headline and claim has been borne out by facts. The Sunday Times should put the story back up, and retract their retraction. Leake had it right and the editors simply caved to pressure without doing a thorough investigation to see if his claim was supportable. It took bloggers like Dr. Richard North to do the job the Sunday Times would not do, even to save their own credibility.
The screencap above showing the proof of source to the IPCC claim via the WWF report was located by Dr. Richard North of the EU Referendum (with the help of commenter Gareth on that blog), thanks to the “Wayback Machine“, an archive of Internet web pages. I won’t provide the link here for the old IPAM web page, as I don’t want to overload the service, but you can see the IPAM web pages archived in the Wayback Machine search results page below:
North writes:
As it stands, this is the only known source of this sentence. There is no author identified, the provenance of the web page is not identified and not in any possible way could this be considered “peer reviewed”. It has no academic or scientific merit – yet it is this on which the WWF and IPCC apparently rely.
What is also particularly important is that the IPCC uses the sentence, which it modifies slightly, to argue: “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.”
Meanwhile, real peer reviewed literature, published just this week, supports the idea that the Amazon is not all that sensitive to rainfall reduction:
Press Release from the Max Planck Institute
“We were surprised to find that the primary production in the tropics is not so strongly dependent on the amount of rain,” says Markus Reichstein. “Here, too, we therefore need to critically scrutinize the forecasts of some climate models which predict the Amazon will die as the world gets drier.”
Read all about it here:
CO2 field experiment likely to cause “do-over” for climate models
As for the sorry state of incompetence at the IPCC and their claims using WWF literature, Shub Niggurath suggested last week that no peer reviewed science references on the issue existed in first and second order IPCC drafts:
More importantly, contrary to what many have suggested, it does not seem, that a statement was formulated assessing all available literature at the time. The sentence in question remained virtually unchanged through the drafts (except for the ‘drastic’ addition), it referred to the same WWF report through three different versions.
Well worth a visit to his site.
The WWF, in my view, is a poison pill for respectable science. They should be avoided for any references in peer reviewed papers and in journalism.
This whole complaint forcing the Sunday Times into a retraction is a made up crisis, and it’s CYA bullshit of the highest order. Readers know that I don’t use that term in posts often, or lightly. In fact, I can’t recall the last time I used it in a story.
WUWT readers should make this IPCC folly known at other websites in comments. They wanted a debate, they wanted a retraction, well they got it. Now it is time for them to admit they supported a flawed premise based on shoddy activist driven “science”.
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899, that is a truly brilliant quote which exactly sums up the politics of today’s climate ‘science’.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Roger Knight,
“ICPP”: yours was the best one-word comment I ever saw on this subject!
International Committee for Better Science: ICBS.
Never forget that in the UK the main reason the whole climate change saga rumbles on is because the BBC is institutionally bias in favour of it happening.
We all know the majority of politicians are too stupid and scared to challenge the status quo but the BBC is meant to provide both sides of any argument but fails on this issue miserably.
The only flicker of hope is that after all these years of ‘Warmist’ propaganda the British public are still fairly sceptical about climate change.
Ah yes, I wondered if anyone would bring this up.
Did you ever go check out the published material relating to the “leading models of future climate change”? Such as this one: http://springerlink.metapress.com/content/5ya2xh872g25fglt/
Papers like these do indeed make projections of permanent drought for Amazonia, with rainfall massively lower than today. Looking at some of their graphs, they basically project a permanent El-Nino state. I can well believe that the Amazon rainforest would be severely impacted by such a state of permanent drought. This is hardly a “small reduction in rainfall”!
Whether these “leading climate models” are closer to reality than the typical Harry Potter novel is the real question. These papers admit that there are some deficiencies in their models – such as producing 20% LESS rainfall when they model TODAY’S climate. What about the model deficiencies that they DON’T know about?
All this is against a background which shows remarkably stable annual rainfall figures over the 20th century for Amazonia, despite the increase in global temperatures over the same period.
Which do you believe, hard data or fantasy climate games?
The Nepstad et al study forecasting that most of the Amazon forest would be gone by 2030, after reaching a “tipping point” by the combined effect of climate change, fires and deforestation, relies indeed on several unwarranted assumptions, as other such catastrophic scenarios for the forest.
To begin with, the very same IPCC 2007 report foresees INCREASED precipitation over the Amazon as a consequence of foreseen climate change (see WG1 Fig.11.15, http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-11-15.jpg., and Technical Summary Fig.TS30, http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/ts30.jpg). No tendency towards more drought is envisaged.
Some authors have speculated that the establishment of a permanent El Niño in the ENSO would reduce rainfall over the Amazon, but there is actually no evidence of any trend in El Niño related to climate change (as acknowledged in the IPCC AR4); all simulations trying to produce such persistent El Niño condition, e.g. by Guilyardi et al )see reference below), have so far failed even if CO2 concentrations are forced above 10 times their preindustrial levels, and nothing remotely of the sort is predicted to happen in the near future. The impact of deforestation on the hydrological cycle has not been detected by careful comparative examination of pristine vs deforested river basins (see Linhares et al 2007, reference below). Deforestation itself is rapidly decreasing, and occurring mostly at the non-rainforest borders of the Amazon basin. Normal precipitation over the rainforest part of the basin is about 3000-3500 mm/yr, without a dry season; drier years do not cause dryness but a decrease in that abundant precipitation (there are more significant effects on the Cerrado part of the basin, which is not a rainforest).
More details in my recent paper on the future of the Amazon forest, not yet published by available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1509603.
References:
Linhares, C.A.; J.V. Soares; D.S. Alves; D.A. Roberts & C.D. Rennó, 2007. Deforestation and hydrology dynamics in Ji-Paraná river basin, Brazil. Anais XIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Sensoriamento Remoto [Proceedings of the XIII Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing], Florianópolis, Brasil, 21-26 April 2007, INPE, pp. 6799-6806.
Guilyardi, Eric, 2006. El Niño–mean state–seasonal cycle interactions in a multi-model ensemble. Climate Dynamics 26:329-348.
Guilyardi, Eric, A.Wittenberg, A.Fedorov, M.Collins, C.Wang, A.Capotondi, G.J. van Oldenborgh & T.Stockdale, 2009. Understanding El Niño in Ocean-Atmosphere General Circulation Models: progress and challenges. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~ericg/publications.html.
Let me equally engage in some speculation, which appears to be the favorite pass of time of the IPCC report designers, this is my guess on the making of.
PR consultant: So what is the message you want to bring across?
Scientist: Well, all we want to do is report on the current status of our knowledge of climate change really.
PR consultant: So how is that going to reduce CO2 levels?
No this technical stuff full of caveats is of no use, every child now knows it is the CO2 so lets not dwell on that. Science may be your cup off tea, writing summaries is definitely not. I have taken the liberty to level with the leadership and ran a google query, very usefull stuff indeed, readable and quite alarming, that will wake up some politicians! This Himalaya glacier research is really an eyeopener, not to mention the Amazone burn down research, must be good stuff, even the WWF support it. And the image of lagune islands beingwashed away, that should knock out the sceptics who just want to stand by the side watch the world go down. We have a mission remember, our very name says it, Climate Change so lets focus on the change issues.
The lessons to be learned:
Beware when PR and science come together.
Beware even more when PR, politics and science get mixed up.
Be alarmed when the press joins in in the above alliance.
Peter Walker UK said: This is kind of off topic, but something in the amazon artical made me wonder what would cause the world to be drier?
Its assumed by the AGW crowd, that warm = bad = drier
and that colder = good = wetter?
Has there been any research done which investigates whether a warmer climate will actually cause drier weather? You know scientific method, actual field work, no computer models involved, researched facts, i.e. someone who poses a Theory, investigates in the real world, does traditional science and lets the facts talk for themselves, even if the facts disprove the theory.
If the climate is warmer, won’t there be more evaporation, more clouds, and more rain overall?
If it is colder won’t there be less rain (more water which is locked up as ice), less evaporation and drier conditions?
What you have described is a negative feedback that the models seem not to incorporate – that of warmer temps inducing more cloud cover.
The alarmists pick and chose their predictions well. The common refrain from alarmists just a few years ago was along the lines of warmer and wetter in general but also more extreme. These days they seem not to highlight the wetter part, perhaps because it’s not really a problem, would benefit marginal settlements and agriculture and aid the greening of the planet.
When it comes to the Amazon it appears to me that some alarmists use only the projections for the dry season when they should be more intellectually honest and look at the wet season too.
Here are the IPCC’s Assumption about future trends for Latin America.
From the table you can see that for the Amazon a warmer world will ‘see’ -40% to +10% precipitation change in the dry season and -10% to +10% change in the rainy season.
Below the table is the following admission: “In summary, the current GCMs do not produce projections of changes in the hydrological cycle at regional scales with confidence. In particular the uncertainty of projections of precipitation remain high (e.g., Boulanger et al., 2006a, b, for climate-change scenarios for South America using ten GCMs). That is a great limiting factor to the practical use of such projections for guiding active adaptation or mitigation policies.”
Even the IPCC don’t know what will happen. You wouldn’t think that from this furore.
While the scam moves fall steam ahead. Most people in the UK with BskyB access will surely be aware of a stream of WWF ads over the last few months – save the rainforests by donating money, and BskyB will match the donation. Seems to me, we can join the dots. BskyB is in partneship with WWF, to lease rainforest paid for by gullible tv viewers, but will sit back and rake in the money from all these carbon credits they expect to sell.
If we are going to monetize the rainforest, shouldn’t we be a lot more open about doing it? How about private investment companies inviting investors to take out leases on the rainforest, so that the investors earn the revenue from the carbon credits, rather than WWF and BskyB, who aren’t even risking their own money, but the money fraudulently obtained by deception from the viewing public? Just a thought.
IPCC: Intentionally Providing Climate Crap
I note that as the core samples from the ice in Greenland and Antarctica were being taken, the MSM had a field day courtesy of the Propagandists, telling us that we’d all know now how badly we’ve been treating our atmosphere.
Notice all the silence? We’re not being bombarded with, “See, it’s worse that we thought!” Now they’re starting the tap dancing on the CO2 content.
Amazongate, Glaciergate II, it will keep rolling until PNS is firmly discredited and banished from real science and the political sphere.
I expect answers from our Propagandist Trolls, but just like Phil above, more speculation rather than factual studies. Maybe they are all allergic to real data, who knows? Beats peanuts.
If this is true, then, this is shameful on the part of WWF and the IPCC. They have released a report which is not really factual and which has affected many, not just politically but also economically. So, this should be a lesson for all of us. Don’t believe right away something that others have written unless you have read and seen numerous supporting evidence.
Re Gareth (July 11, 2010 at 4:33 am ): That uncertainty framework that is stated in general about Latin America is partially the result of adding up very different subregional processes. For the Amazon specifically, the general prospect is that it would become wetter. The only tendencies to a drier weather are predicated of the nonforest borders of the basin, and only for the dry season (a decreased precipitation at a season where previous rainfall was very low, coupled with a significantly increased rainfall at the rainy season). The annual average prediction for the basin is an increase in humidity. However, (1) those predictions are just model simulations; (2) the tipping point hypotheses of rapid savannisation rest on the idea of more frequent and more severe droughts, which are in principle compatible with a wetter long-term trend. However, there is no actual evidence of a tendency towards more frequent or more severe droughts accompanying predicted climate change. The main possible driver aduced as a cause of such increases in frequency or intensity of droughts could be an increase in amplitude and/or intensity of the El Niño Oscillation, which is not forecast by IPCC or more recent research to happen in the foreseeable future.
The only reason I can think of to read the Sunday Times is Jeremy Clarckson. And now they charge for the online version. Well, I can get Clarckson elsewhere.
Slightly off topic maybe – but does anyone here know if the previous IPCC (I much prefer ICPP) and other AGW propogandist predictions have been collected somewhere? I’ve seen and heard a few dotted about (like: “all ski resorts below 2000m won’t have any snow from now on – because of global warming…” – actually heard by me in a skibus returning to Geneva airport in January 2008 – the guy was serious – he’d heard it from a friend who heard it from a ski instructor who saw it on telly… and the snow that year hadn’t been very good. Following two skiing seasons? The best snow for many years – twice!)
Ric Werme says:
July 10, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I was listening to an interview of the host for “On the Media,” and part of the discussion turned to how the new non-commercial media won’t be able to do the in-depth spade work that the well-funded media has done up to now. Between climategate and the IPCC screwups, I think we can make a decent case that lots of volunteer prying eyes can equal a few paid prying eyes, at least in cases where the information is somewhere on the public net.
I hope the folks at the Sunday Times are feeling rather embarrassed.
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You have that correct.
“The well-funded media” is funded by corporations who WILL pull strings to kill unwanted stories. I have seen it happen. I have also seen the story get out anyway.
Example:
John Munsell told me he was interviewed by a well known media source for three days, the story was written, ok’ed by the editor and then pulled by the owner of the media.
Here is the story from other sources: It ended in a Congressional investigation – whitewashed of course.
http://www.marlerblog.com/2009/07/articles/lawyer-oped/one-e-coli-o157h7-outbreak-i-think-i-could-have-prevented/
http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/11/meatpacking-maverick
The other Congressional investigation where the uselessness of HACCP is brought up by the Chairman of the inspector’s Union:
http://njcfil.com/b/pdf/stansTestimony.pdf
After an “investigation” the USDA found there was no substance to Mr. Painter’s allegations against the new HACCP regulations that turn testing and inspection over to the corporations. This despite over a 1000 of noncompliance reports filed by Mr. Painter’s inspectors.
Here is an example of a citizens investigation into a bill that was killed last year:
http://www.naisstinks.com/index.php?con=farmers_hr_875
This is a bit disjointed because it is written by several people and cobbled together fast to help refute the white wash by Organic Consumers, the head of which is now a special advisor to the UN. (nice bribe)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-solemn-walk-through-HR-8-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090314-67.html
An interesting side note. Young activist types are now recruited into UN run NGOs and fed propaganda. This effectively turns possible dangerous “lose cannons” into “useful idiots” vigorously pushing the “truth” they have been carefully indoctrinated with. We can thank Maurice Strong for this brilliant move. It is said he got the idea when he was working for YMCA international.
I wonder if it will turn up again in some form in AR5, Nepstad is a Lead Author on WGII
899 says:
July 10, 2010 at 4:42 pm
…I would ask only one thing, and that is you should employ the term ‘propagandists’ instead of ‘activists,’ inasmuch as that’s really what they are.
Unbiased activism is neutral in its thrust, in that it seeks to reveal the truth of matters, rather than push for a political outcome only.
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Than you for pointing that out. It is something we should all take note of.
savetheshark says: “I say let them play themselves out into utter foolish oblivion.”
Unfortunately, as they do so they have been and are still “playing” the rest of us into economic oblivion. The ramifications of a carbon tax and huge subsidies of
“alternative energy” go far beyond the increase of direct purchases of fuel/utility bills we all have to pay. Every product or service we purchase has a significant hidden energy cost attached we all have to pay for as well. As governments spend, taxpayers pay the cost, either now or in the future, and even if in the future, there are the costs of government borrowing that has to be paid for from present budgets.
Peter Walker UK says:
July 10, 2010 at 7:13 pm
This is kind of off topic, but something in the amazon article made me wonder what would cause the world to be drier?
Its assumed by the AGW crowd, that warm = bad = drier
and that colder = good = wetter?
Has there been any research done which investigates whether a warmer climate will actually cause drier weather? You know scientific method, actual field work, no computer models involved, researched facts,…
So what research has been done?
___________________________________________________________________
Yes the research has been done. That is why most geologists think CAGW is a crock of sh..
If H2O ends up as ice there is less H2O as liquid water or as water vapor so everything is dryer:
“..“At the most extreme stage of the last glaciation, most of Canada and much of the northern USA were covered by an ice sheet thousands of metres in thickness. Colder and often drier than present conditions predominated across most of the USA. The eastern deciduous and conifer forests were replaced by more open conifer woodlands with cooler-climate species of pines and a large component of spruce. The open spruce woodland and parkland extended somewhat further west than present, into what is now the prairie zone. As a result of aridity and lowering of sea level (which lowered inland water tables), much of Florida was covered by drifting sand dunes. Notably moister than present conditions occurred across much of the south-west, with open conifer woodlands and scrub common in areas that are now semi-desert.
Reconstruction of North America during last Ice Age: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html
You will notice the climates of entire regions were changed by glaciation and not just in the colder temperatures but in the amount of water too.
Mr Lynn says:
July 10, 2010 at 9:07 pm
….As elections in the USA grow closer, I suggest we let our candidates know that among the most important factors influencing our votes will be whether the Congress should continue to allow our tax monies to support the IPCC, dedicated as it is to ignoring science in favor of advocating a political agenda that is against human progress, against human freedom, and anti-human.
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You forgot the overthrow of the US Constitution with the blessing of the “US government”.
“…The United Nations has concluded that it is the institution of governance that must be responsible for the security of people and it is preparing to redefine national sovereignty, demilitarize national capabilities, and disregard the protest of uncivil society – read: organizations not accredited by the United Nations.
The new reformation is underway. It is a reformation, not only of the United Nations, but of global societies. It is occurring daily with the blessings and staunch assistance of the Clinton/Gore Administration and many members of Congress….”
http://www.sovereignty.net/p/gov/ggunreform.htm
Too bad we can not try these politicians for treason as they so richly deserve the label of traitor.
Poor Phil. What part of “discredited” do you not understand? Continuing to defend this kind of buffoonery simply makes you look… pathetic.
…”That headline and claim has been borne out by facts. The Sunday Times should put the story back up, and retract their retraction.”…
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One retraction for The Times is a major miracle, two would be impossible to think of. They’ll go out of business before they’ll ever retract a retraction.
noaaprogrammer says:
July 10, 2010 at 7:02 pm
“I would like to see the growing checklist of all the ‘-gates’ related to the new $cience of Lieingtology. What are we up to now – a half-dozen or so?”
Check this: http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/gate-blowup-come-on-in-gate-lovers/
The number of “-gates” listed (including convenient links to more details on each) is 63, a number considerably larger than your estimate of “a half-dozen or so”.
A more comprehensive list by Pierre Gosselin puts the number of “-gates” at 70. Check: http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/climate-scandals/
Raj Pachauri belongs in prison for fraud and crimes against humanity.
We should all lobby our governments to cancel our membership in and withdraw all funding from the UN.