UPDATE: The interest in this appears to be so high, that the IPCC server holding the PDF report has crashed @ reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net All links to it are down up now about 2 hours later. Thanks to Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. I have added the recommendations from IAC below the NYT story. Related: McKitrick: Fix the IPCC process
UPDATE2: Local copy secured, thanks to WUWT readers AdderW and Christopher Monckton download (full report 1.5MB) here:
Climate_Change_Assessments_Review_of_the_Processes_Procedures_IPCC
Pre-release summary report (short form 90K) here:
UPDATE3: RealClimate breaks radio silence for this and posts for the first time in over a week with their typical “nothing to see here move along” meme. From their point of “It appears mostly sensible and has a lot of useful things to say about improving IPCC processes -” I assume then they endorse replacement of top IPCC officials, even though they make no mention of that point. I’m sure WUWT readers can ask their position, assuming such comments are allowed.
From the “we told you so months ago” department, and the NYT; the InterAcademy Council, karma, and Mister Return to Almora are on a collision course.
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Flaws Found in U.N. Climate Structure
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — The scientists involved in producing the periodic United Nations reports on climate change need to be more open to alternative views and more transparent about their own possible conflicts of interest, an independent review panel said Monday.
…
The revelations about the errors contributed to the already highly charged debate about the science of climate change and gave added ammunition to critics doubting assessments that the earth is warming. Coming on the heels of leaked e-mails among some of the leading climate change researchers which suggested that they were manipulating data, the mistakes contributed to what surveys showed were an erosion in public confidence in the science of climate change.
…
The changes recommended by the panel include replacing the top eight officials responsible for producing the United Nations reports every seven years or so. That throws into question whether Rajendra K. Pachauri, the current chairman of the panel, called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, should remain to oversee the report due out in 2013-14.
Read the full story here
h/t to a zillion people who read WUWT, thanks.
============================================================
Here are recommendations found in the body of the report:
Governance and Management
The IPCC should establish an Executive Committee to act on its behalf between Plenary sessions. The membership of the Committee should include the IPCC Chair, the Working Group Co-chairs, the senior member of the Secretariat, and 3 independent members, including some from outside of the climate community. Members would be elected by the Plenary and serve until their successors are in place.
The IPCC should elect an Executive Director to lead the Secretariat and handle day-to-day operations of the organization. The term of this senior scientist should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment.
Review Process
The IPCC should encourage Review Editors to fully exercise their authority to ensure that reviewers’ comments are adequately considered by the authors and that genuine controversies are adequately reflected in the report.
The IPCC should adopt a more targeted and effective process for responding to reviewer comments. In such a process, Review Editors would prepare a written summary of the most significant issues raised by reviewers shortly after review comments have been received. Authors would be required to provide detailed written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the Review Editors, abbreviated responses to all non-editorial comments, and no written responses to editorial comments.
Characterizing and Communicating Uncertainty
All Working Groups should use the qualitative level-of-understanding scale in their Summary for Policy Makers and Technical Summary, as suggested in IPCC’s uncertainty guidance for the Fourth Assessment Report. This scale may be supplemented by a quantitative probability scale, if appropriate.
Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate the basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or event (e.g., based on measurement, expert judgment, and/or model runs).
Communications
The IPCC should complete and implement a communications strategy that emphasizes transparency, rapid and thoughtful responses, and relevance to stakeholders, and which includes guidelines about who can speak on behalf of IPCC and how to represent the organization appropriately.
Additional recommendations:
The IPCC should make the process and criteria for selecting participants for scoping meetings more transparent.
The IPCC should establish a formal set of criteria and processes for selecting Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors.
The IPCC should make every effort to engage local experts on the author teams of the regional chapters of the Working Group II report, but should also engage experts from countries outside of the region when they can provide an essential contribution to the assessment.
The IPCC should strengthen and enforce its procedure for the use of unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature, including providing more specific guidance on how to evaluate such information, adding guidelines on what types of literature are unacceptable, and ensuring that unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature is appropriately flagged in the report.
Lead Authors should explicitly document that a range of scientific viewpoints has been considered, and Coordinating Lead Authors and Review Editors should satisfy themselves that due consideration was given to properly documented alternative views.
The IPCC should adopt a more targeted and effective process for responding to reviewer comments. In such a process, Review Editors would prepare a written summary of the most significant issues raised by reviewers shortly after review comments have been received. Authors would be required to provide detailed written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the Review Editors, abbreviated responses to all non-editorial comments, and no written responses to editorial comments.
The IPCC should encourage Review Editors to fully exercise their authority to ensure that reviewers’ comments are adequately considered by the authors and that genuine controversies are adequately reflected in the report.
The IPCC should revise its process for the approval of the Summary for Policy Makers so that governments provide written comments prior to the Plenary.
All Working Groups should use the qualitative level-of-understanding scale in their Summary for Policy Makers and Technical Summary, as suggested in IPCC’s uncertainty guidance for the Fourth Assessment Report. This scale may be supplemented by a quantitative probability scale, if appropriate.
Chapter Lead Authors should provide a traceable account of how they arrived at their ratings for level of scientific understanding and likelihood that an outcome will occur.
Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate the basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or event (e.g., based on measurement, expert judgment, and/or model runs).
The confidence scale should not be used to assign subjective probabilities to ill-defined outcomes.
The likelihood scale should be stated in terms of probabilities (numbers) in addition to words to improve understanding of uncertainty.
Where practical, formal expert elicitation procedures should be used to obtain subjective probabilities for key results.
The IPCC should establish an Executive Committee to act on its behalf between Plenary sessions. The membership of the Committee should include the IPCC Chair, the Working Group Co-chairs, the senior member of the Secretariat, and 3 independent members, including some from outside of the climate community. Members would be elected by the Plenary and serve until their successors are in place.
The term of the IPCC Chair should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment.
The IPCC should develop and adopt formal qualifications and formally articulate the roles and responsibilities for all Bureau members, including the IPCC Chair, to ensure that they have both the highest scholarly qualifications and proven leadership skills.
The terms of the Working Group Co-chairs should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment.
The IPCC should redefine the responsibilities of key Secretariat positions both to improve efficiency and to allow for any future senior appointments.
The IPCC should elect an Executive Director to lead the Secretariat and handle day-to-day operations of the organization. The term of this senior scientist should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment.
The IPCC should develop and adopt a rigorous conflict of interest policy that applies to all individuals directly involved in the preparation of IPCC reports, including senior IPCC leadership (IPCC Chair and Vice Chairs), authors with responsibilities for report content (i.e., Working Group Co-chairs, Coordinating Lead Authors, and Lead Authors), Review Editors, and technical staff directly involved in report preparation (e.g., staff of Technical Support Units and the IPCC Secretariat).
The IPCC should complete and implement a communications strategy that emphasizes transparency, rapid and thoughtful responses, and relevance to stakeholders, and which includes guidelines about who can speak on behalf of IPCC and how to represent the organization appropriately.
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A simple question for everyone….
WHY NOW??
[snip – OTT ~mod]
I even wonder if the actions we are taking “Today” to prevent the alleged ‘Global Warming’ is affecting the climate in the opposite way, for this is the second year we have had no “summer”. OH of course that is “weather”. Silly ole’ me. Though if the IPPC can get it “wrong” anyone can. ‘Cept we all pay for their mistakes, you had mine for FREE!
I do not think any of this matters anymore. They are “dead men walking” no matter what they do, simply because “you can’t fool all of the peoplle all of the time”.
After years of scaremongering in the UK (eg. snow is a thing of the past) the Great British Public has had enough. The next idiot who stands up and declares “2010 the hottest year ever” will probably get shot. Today, in London, I had to fire up my central heating, for the first time in August – ever!
“PaulH says:
August 30, 2010 at 11:53 am
This seems like a promising step, but it all smells like more make-busy work for additional bureaucrats.”
WHS ^
UN will assimilate the IPCC structure, and all the Worlds taxpayers will not notice the extra dollar or pound, euro they pay in taxes each year to keep a new department of ‘crats in worthless employment generating glossy make-beleive reports to justify further localized carbon tax infrastructure, the proceeds of which will mostly be spent on yes, more bureaucrats.
Kevin Trenberth was interviewed on (Australian) ABC Radio today and seems to be supporting moves for Pachauri to go, as well as supporting many of the recommendations.
Transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2998349.htm?site=sydney (sorry not competent enough to embed the link)
I haven’t seen it here or anywhere esle, but did anyone else take note of the fact that the IAC basically came straight out and admitted that the GCM’s that the IPCC relies on are not Peer Reviewed Science and because of that the IPCC has to be able to use “grey literature”. From the report:
No Grey literature = No GCM’s, No GCM’s = No basis for Climate Alarmism. And to think Warmist scream is it peer reviewed at skeptics when all of their doom and gloom scenerios are based on non peer reviewed GCM’s
My summation, briefly.
gave added ammunition to critics doubting assessments that the earth is warming.
Neil MacFartquhar, the NY Times publicist, is an idiot (as expected). Nobody doubts warming, MN is ice free in the summer.
The confidence scale should not be used to assign subjective probabilities to ill-defined outcomes.
The likelihood scale should be stated in terms of probabilities (numbers) in addition to words to improve understanding of uncertainty.
Is a vote of no</b< confidence one on the options?
Where practical, formal expert elicitation procedures should be used to obtain subjective probabilities for key results.
Steve Mac, you’re wanted on the phone, someone from the IPCC.
The IPCC should develop and adopt formal qualifications and formally articulate the roles and responsibilities for all Bureau members, including the IPCC Chair, to ensure that they have both the highest scholarly qualifications and proven leadership skills.
Adios, Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, back to your Lionel trains.
Opps, a little early in the morning. Pardon the overwhelming bold.
As long ago as 1997 when I read COM (97) 9. “Environmental Taxes and Charges in the Single market”, it seemed to be all about concentrating on making money out of it. Right at the beginning, the first paragraph reads “The Commission has several times given its support to an increased use of fiscal instruments to make environmental policy more efficient and cost-effective. Most of these instruments are implemented at Member State level. This Communication is presented in order to support these activities, and ensure that the environmental taxes and charges are used in a way compatible with Community Legislation.”
The real shock at that time was when President Bush said “NO” to Kyoto. They noted that the Kyoto Protocol would require the U.S. to cede to a UN bureaucracy the powers we now use to set the pace of our economic growth, our production of goods and services, and the creation of new jobs. This form of unilateral economic disarmament makes no sense.” “”The idea of trading credits to facilitate implementation of that agreement, and the very concept of regulating the world’s energy policies through an international treaty together constitute a huge battle over power–not just “power” in the sense of controlling the energy sources that drive the world economy, but political power in the sense of “who decides”; who decides how fast our economy should grow (or if it should grow at all), who decides etc, etc”
R. Gates says: August 30, 2010 at 5:05 pm
The climate junkie will form their [opinoin] sic based on their personal experience and somewhat on their political leanings, the scientist will form their opinion based on their own educational and special areas of interest, knowledge, and research,….
Gates, in spite of the fact you deny it, some of us here are both.
This report contains a lot of very fine recommendations, which is implemented will doubtless result in a much improved, and far less certain, report next time.
The problem is, there were ALREADY a fine sounding set of policies, regarding peer review, and deadlines, and answering reviewers concerns for instance, which although clearly written down, were in practice utterly ignored, as long as doing so resulted in a more alarming conclusion.
After all, they weren’t supposed to quote from WWF and Greenpeace leaflets, but they did. I see no reason to suspect these new rules will be followed any more than the old ones were.
The results from this review are certainly better than almost anyone on here would have dared to predict and certainly are very much more credible than the three notorious UK “reviews” of the Climategate affair.
I’m almost inclined to think that it would be hard for them to come up with an IPCC that is even worse than the ‘old’ one. But I’ve been wrong before with that kind of optimism.
Call me an old curmudgeon (many do!) but my overriding reaction, however, is to recall the old Russian proverb:-
“You can’t make butter out of sh*t.”
Pach-man is toast! Well, at least he has the ability to enthrawl millions with his dim wit, de-mean-or, and lively, lurid novels. Imagine what poor Professor Mann is thinking – no alternate speciality. Hay! I’ll bet he could write fiction too. I have a feeling there’s going to be a tsunami of sexest detective novels on the market soon. Wonder what the “Libbers” are going to say?
Over at Realclimate, it’s as if only lamenters are being allowed to post. I wonder how many posts have been gavinized.
I found this article by Michael Oppenheimer fascinating. It was published at the Environmental Defense Fund site and is therefore unabashedly honest and boastful about how the IPCC got started. Should be required reading for everyone who thinks the IPCC was a legitimate clearing house for information on climate and climate change:
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2007/11/01/ipcc_beginnings/
theduke says:
August 31, 2010 at 8:34 am
“Over at Realclimate, it’s as if only lamenters are being allowed to post. I wonder how many posts have been gavinized.”
I tried to post a supportive comment about the IAC report at RC, but it got gavinized.
I wish I had saved a copy of what I was trying to post, but generally all I said was how I was surpised not to see many comments supporting the recommendations of the IAC Report, how there were a lot of comments worried about how the MSM was portraying the report, how I hope all of the recommendations are implemented in time to affect AR5, and how science can only be improved by improved processes.
So it does seem that any positive, supportive comments are being gavinized. This is likely why there are so few comments appearing. What a pity. Just when you thought there could possibly be some common ground of agreement…..
Tim Clark says:
August 31, 2010 at 4:30 am
R. Gates says: August 30, 2010 at 5:05 pm
The climate junkie will form their [opinoin] sic based on their personal experience and somewhat on their political leanings, the scientist will form their opinion based on their own educational and special areas of interest, knowledge, and research,….
Gates, in spite of the fact you deny it, some of us here are both.
_____
Oh? I’m quite aware that there are mixtures of all types of individuals here on WUWT, from the climate junkie to the politcal hack, and of course, I well aware of the professional scientists here who are also a climate junkies. My point is– main stream America could care less about the IPCC, and really about the whole notion of climate change in general, and the whole debate about the credibility of the IPCC is simply one of politics, not one of science. Changing (or even getting rid of) the IPCC doesn’t change the science, only the kind of political hay that can be made for either side. If AGW is a problem, there will need to be some kind of international body to deal with it, one way or another, eventually.
“The IPCC should…”
.
“The IPCC should…”
.
“The IPCC should…”
.
“The IPCC should…”
etc., etc., etc.
The IPCC won’t.
etc., etc., etc.
Anyone wanna’ bet me a quarter?
Ian H says:
August 30, 2010 at 3:32 pm
“I believe the IPCC model is the wrong one. What would be better would be the kind of adversarial system we see in court. The problem is that all sides of the question are not being given a fair go. The adversarial system would fix this.
What I’d like to see are two investigative report writing bodies, preferably less bloated than the current IPCC; one charged with the mandate of presenting evidence that AGW is a serious problem requiring immediate action, and one charged with the mandate of presenting evidence that it is not. Let them issue their reports on an alternating basis with a six month gap between them.”
The trouble with that scheme is that there is no financial incentive.
DonB
Seems like an ordered retreat to me. The criticism takes a bit of the sting out of the attacks, and makes it appear the beaurocratic machine would eventually have identified the problem itself. Presumably they are looking for another environmental campaign to get some traction, rename rebrand and off we go again.
theduke says:
August 31, 2010 at 8:34 am
“Over at Realclimate, it’s as if only lamenters are being allowed to post. I wonder how many posts have been gavinized.”
I snuck a post in – in reply to a point the fluffy bunny made:
Eli Rabett says:
30 August 2010 at 8:29 PM
“If you want to see the black helicopters fly, just wait until climate changes enough to make the situation dire. This is something the denialists have not figured out.”
Which way Bugs? Warmer or colder?
As a skeptic who thinks its reasonable to work with the mainstream view of climate change, as generally articulated in the IPCC reports, and believing policy should be rooted in risk assessments, I welcome the recommendations and acknowledge that the UN chose to seek independent analysis of its processes in order to improve them.
The muckraking following this report in semi-popular blogs is unsurprising and, to the best of my knowledge, generally unwarranted. There is no comprehensive alternative to the IPCC and no group vying to establish one – that is, an international panel of scientists, industry and government reps assessing and signing off on the state of the science of climate change and attempting to make projections about the future. Until such a broad-based venture is initiated, the recommendations that have followed each of the IPCC reports, most of which are taken up, point to a self-improving institution – particularly in this case where they have sought independent advice. There will be another set of recommendations after AR5, which will no doubt be characterised by some as a ‘slap in the face’ to the IPCC. That will be as desultorily opportunistic a side-show as it is now. The media on this is behaving just as the media does when they fail to report the uncertainty and nuance of mainstream climate science.
Rather than tearing down the only international, broad-based forum on climate change, it would be better to champion its improvement or build another (no press on that either – why am I not surprised?). The impression gleaned from many responses here is that there should be no international effort to assess climate change, or that if there was, it would be irretrievably compromised. This goes way beyond skepticism, and might be considered ‘realism’, but it is rather a hollow cynicism usually worn by adolescents when first coming to terms with the fact that ‘the system’ is flawed and can’t solve all problems.
What would you do to advance understanding on climate change? Will you actually do anything?
If the answer is ‘nothing’ and ‘no’, then ask yourself what you are really doing here, what you really want, and if it is in any way advancing anything.
Barry,
I disagree with pretty much everything you say. First, you are no scientific skeptic. You’re a true believer in the IPCC, as you admit. It never seems to occur to you that the IPCC is in this for money and political power. There is nothing unusual going on with the climate. Nothing. And there are no “risk assessments.” Everything is predicated on the putative assumption of runaway global warming — which is clearly not occurring. Any fool can see that what is happening now has happened repeatedly in the past.
Your “international panel of scientists, industry and government reps assessing and signing off on the state of the science of climate change and attempting to make projections about the future” is a complete fantasy: there is not a single genuine scientific skeptic permitted to attend any official IPCC proceeding.
You seem to enjoy carrying the IPCC’s water for them, but the fact is that an “international, broad-based forum on climate change” is 100% composed of Kool-Aid drinkers, who are in it for the money and the political power.
You ask: “What would you do to advance understanding on climate change? Will you actually do anything?”
I would leave the science to non-government scientists. What would you do? Cede power to the corrupt UN??
Smokey, I think your comments are grossly misinformed. Rather than deal with them all, I’ll take on one to demonstrate the depth of misunderstanding, in the hope that you might reconsider your positions.
Well, that’s not true. Here are 5 contributing authors for AR3 and AR4.
Richard Lindzen
John Christy
Richard Landsea
Richard SJ Tol
Paul Reiter
I reckon you should reexamine your other points, too.