Since the errors in IPCC AR3 were outed, there’s been this general view from the skeptical climate community at large and here on WUWT that the IPCC is collectively an elitist, pigheaded, organization, resistant to change. Recall ‘Voodoo Science’, as IPCC chair Rajenda Pauchauri once said in response to the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 fiasco. I think I’ll let Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s example of this stand on its own without further comment:
Alleged errors in the treatment of disaster trends in Chapter 1, WGII, AR4
CLA response from Cynthia Rosenzweig and Gino Casassa
August 23, 2012
Alleged Error #1
Text from Roger Pielke, Jr.
Error #1: IPCC p. 110: “These previous national U.S. assessments, as well as those for normalised Cuban hurricane losses (Pielke et al., 2003), did not show any significant upward trend in losses over time, but this was before the remarkable hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005.”
FACTUALLY INCORRECT: Figure 5 in the following paper, in press prior to the IPCC AR4 WGII publication deadline, clearly shows that the addition of 2004 and 2005 losses do not alter the long-term trend in hurricane losses:
Pielke, Jr., R. A. (2006), Disasters, Death, and Destruction: Making Sense of Recent
Calamities. Oceanography 19 138-147.
Click to access resource-2449-2006.02.pdf
This same information was also in the report of the 2006 Hohenkammer Workshop on Climate Change and Disaster Losses, which was cited by the AR4 WGII: http://cstpr.colorado.edu/sparc/research/projects/extreme_events/munich_workshop/pielke.pdf
RECOMMENDED CORRECTION: ““These previous national U.S. assessments, as well as those for normalised Cuban hurricane losses (Pielke et al., 2003), did not show any significant upward trend in losses over time, and this remains the case following the remarkable hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005.”
CLA Finding
There is no error in the statement. No correction is needed and the text can stand as is.
Rationale
The clause about the published analyses being before the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons is a statement of fact about the time line, and it is not a statement that the results were different after including 2004 and 2005. The statement does not infer that the overall pattern of losses would be different; instead it suggests that 2004 and 2005 were remarkable years in terms of hurricane losses, which they were.
PIELKE RESPONSE SEPTEMBER 13: This boggles the mind. The time line was such that published analyses (I provided 2!) that were available to the IPCC when drafting the AR4 included 2004 and 2005. The IPCC is say that up is down, and with a straight face. Did they not even read what I wrote?
More here, bring an air sickness bag.
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When it comes to the IPCC, the old saying applies. There are none so blind, who will not see.
Pointman
Thought I would test the significance of the “but” as per DaveA. Here goes;
IPCC AR5 is a crock of shite, but don’t let facts get in the way of our alarmist grants.
Please imply or infer whatever you like of that.
Ok, AR4 I’m thinking ahead!
The IPCC is literally correct. The statement can be read in two ways. The fact that they’ve chosen to make the statement ambiguous rather than clear, points to the fact that they wish to mislead the reader.
I take issue with those who suggest the IPCC statement is “factually correct”. I get what you’re saying but it is irrelevant to the obvious point of the criticism and implies that because the statement is “factually correct” it is sufficient to the purpose of clearly communicating fact. A statement is more than the sum of its parts and no matter how clever the semantic gymnastics if it leads a reader to a factually incorrect interpretation then the statement IS incorrect.
Richdo: “A statement is more than the sum of its parts and no matter how clever the semantic gymnastics if it leads a reader to a factually incorrect interpretation then the statement IS incorrect.”
No, the statement is ambiguous, and in this case deliberately misleading. That doesn’t make it “incorrect” it makes it a near-lie and bad writing if your intent is to communicate effectively. In this case they want to NOT communicate effectively, because to do so would undermine their point. Case in point… people can give testimony in court that obscures the truth but won’t land them in jail for perjury. Of course, in court, the opposing side can cross-examine to uncover your half-truth or seek clarification on your statement. The IPCC reports have no cross-examination going on and are apparently responsible to no one.
I’m not saying that they’re correct in doing this since the supposed purpose of the IPCC is to clearly communicate the science to the world. They’ve failed in their charter mission.
I’ll agree with the others in saying that the “infer” isn’t an error. The statement is objectively true. If it was done before the insurance data was available for 2004 and 2005, this would be proper to state “there is no long-term trend, but this does not include exceptional losses in 2004 and 2005 due to lack of data”. However, the implied meaning is “there was no long-term trend until we added the 2004 and 2005 data”. There are two problems, not including the additional data and then keeping the deceptive wording without the explanatory text.
In short, they can only be held accountable for their words, not for any inferences that you might draw from intricacies of wording. This is a deliberate and carefully chosen Jedi Truth. It may be factually true (from a certain point of view), but it is intened to deceive.
The sequence 2,2,2,2,2 is remarkably flat, but that’s before the addition of two more remarkable data points, 2 and 2.
OK, technically correct, but who on earth does not think that the second clause is intended to suggest something changed?
Their rationale is essentially that they were making two, unconnected points. However, it is poor form to make two unconnected points in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence.
We have assumed that Cynthia Rosenzweig and Gino Casassa were not corrupt, but this was before the publication of their remarkable CLA finding.
>> Did they not even read what I wrote?
Silly boy, of course they didn’t.
The minimal violation that occurred with the IPCC response was that they did not strive for an unambiguous document. This is a horrible fault in an international organization that must bridge more than a mere few language barriers.
Those real-time U.N. interpreters who tell the world leaders and diplomats what the other guy is saying had better not be this ambiguous — or the entire organization would create wars. Because disambiguation is one of the most important things the U.N. can do, this is both a moral fault and a fault in performance of ones primary duties. Because we know the U.N. can do disambiguation well in many other venues, we must know that it is intentional here.
Why go to such great effort to leave a statement that would mislead so many? It is because they have hope that a great global effort is still possible.
Why are these folks so devoted to something (AGW) that isn’t 100% proven? I think I know why.
We all know why entrenched positions will encourage people to maintain their own self interest — I’m not so focused on these types.
Where it is not in one’s self-interest it is because so many people fear that humans are about to mess their nest. They fear this intuitively and they never question the real details because they see the trajectory of more humans each creating more pollutants and they intuitively know what will happen when the box fills up with the pollutants. So, they don’t know when but they feel as if they know it will happen at some point. If they have these fears, why not just stretch the truth and lie a bit for a good cause — after all it will save even the skeptics? 🙂
The only problem is these folks have wrecked the credibility that science will need to address the true and real problems coming our way.