This post will remain at the top for a few days, new stories will appear below this one
UPDATE1: Andrew Revkin at the NYT weighs in, and semi endorses the leak, see update below – Anthony
UPDATE2: Alternate links have been sent to me, should go faster now. – Anthony
UPDATE3: The main site is down but a large “all in one” RAR file (and bittorrent) has been created by a readers, see below. – Anthony
UPDATE4: 7:30AM PST 12/14/12 reactions are now coming in worldwide, see here, and the IPCC is going to issue a statement today. – Anthony
UPDATE5: 8:30AM PST 12/14/12 The IPCC has issued a statement on the leak, see below. -Anthony
UPDATE6: 12PM PST 12/14/12 The real bombshell of the report is now evident, a lack of warming to match model projections, see it here
UPDATE7: 12:30PM PST 12/14/12 Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. Analysis of UN IPCC Draft report : IPCC ‘shows almost complete reversal from AR4 on trends in drought, hurricanes, floods’
UPDATE8: 5PM PST 12/14/12 Another IPCC reviewer speaks out, this time about water vapor trends – actual data and IPCC contradict each other.
UPDATE9: 2PM PST 12/16/12 A rebuttal to Steven Sherwood and the solar forcing pundits of the IPCC AR5 draft leak
Full AR5 draft leaked here, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing
(Alec Rawls) I participated in “expert review” of the Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”), and am now making the full draft available to the public. I believe that the leaking of this draft is entirely legal, that the taxpayer funded report report is properly in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, and that making it available to the public is in any case protected by established legal and ethical standards, but web hosting companies are not in the business of making such determinations so interested readers are encouraged to please download copies of the report for further dissemination in case this content is removed as a possible terms-of-service violation. My reasons for leaking the report are explained below. Here are the chapters:
From http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/
(which is down now, see updated links below in update #2)
Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean
Chapter 4: Observations: Cryosphere
Chapter 5: Information from Paleoclimate Archives
Chapter 6: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols
Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
Chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models
Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
Why leak the draft report?
By Alec Rawls (email) [writing at http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/ ]
General principles
The ethics of leaking tax-payer funded documents requires weighing the “public’s right to know” against any harm to the public interest that may result. The press often leaks even in the face of extreme such harm, as when the New York Times published details of how the Bush administration was tracking terrorist financing with the help of the private sector Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), causing this very successful anti-terror program to immediately collapse.
That was a bad leak, doing great harm to expose something that nobody needed to know about. With the UN’s IPCC reports the calculus is reversed. UN “climate chief” Christina Figueres explains what is at stake for the public:
… we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science.
So may we please see this “science” on the basis of which our existing energy infrastructure is to be ripped out in favor of non-existent “green” energy? The only reason for secrecy in the first place is to enhance the UN’s political control over a scientific story line that is aimed explicitly at policy makers. Thus the drafts ought to fall within the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.
The Obama administration implicitly acknowledged this when it tried to evade FOIA by setting up private “backdoor channels” for communications with the IPCC. If NCAR’s Gerald Meehl (a lead author of AR5’s chapter on near-term climate change), has working copies of the draft report (and he’s only one of dozens of U.S. government researchers who would), then by law the draft report (now finished) should be available to the public.
The IPCC’s official reason for wanting secrecy (as they explained it to Steve McIntyre in January 2012) is so that criticisms of the drafts are not spread out across the internet but get funneled through the UN’s comment process. If there is any merit to that rationale it is now moot. The comment period ended November 30th so the comment process can no longer be affected by publication.
As for my personal confidentiality agreement with the IPCC, I regard that as vitiated by the systematic dishonesty of the report (“omitted variable fraud” as I called it in my FOD comments). This is a general principle of journalistic confidentiality: bad faith on one side breaks the agreement on the other. They can’t ask reviewers to become complicit in their dishonesty by remaining silent about it.
Then there is the specific content of the Second Order Draft where the addition of one single sentence demands the release of the whole. That sentence is an astounding bit of honesty, a killing admission that completely undercuts the main premise and the main conclusion of the full report, revealing the fundamental dishonesty of the whole.
Lead story from the Second Order Draft: strong evidence for solar forcing beyond TSI now acknowledged by IPCC
Compared to the First Order Draft, the SOD now adds the following sentence, indicated in bold (page 7-43, lines 1-5, emphasis added):
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.
The Chapter 7 authors are admitting strong evidence (“many empirical relationships”) for enhanced solar forcing (forcing beyond total solar irradiance, or TSI), even if they don’t know what the mechanism is. This directly undercuts the main premise of the report, as stated in Chapter 8 (page 8-4, lines 54-57):
There is very high confidence that natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing. In particular, over the past three decades (since 1980), robust evidence from satellite observations of the TSI and volcanic aerosols demonstrate a near-zero (–0.04 W m–2) change in the natural forcing compared to the anthropogenic AF increase of ~1.0 ± 0.3 W m–2.
The Chapter 8 authors (a different group than the Chapter 7 authors) are explicit here that their claim about natural forcing being small compared to anthropogenic forcing is based on an analysis in which the only solar forcing that is taken into account is TSI. This can be verified from the radiative forcing table on page 8-39 where the only solar variable included in the IPCC’s computer models is seen to be “solar irradiance.”
This analysis, where post-1980 warming gets attributed to the human release of CO2 on the grounds that it cannot be attributed to solar irradiance, cannot stand in the face of the Chapter 7 admission of substantial evidence for solar forcing beyond solar irradiance. Once the evidence for enhanced solar forcing is taken into account we can have no confidence that natural forcing is small compared to anthropogenic forcing.
The Chapter 8 premise that natural forcing is relatively small leads directly to the main conclusion of the entire report, stated in the first sentence of the Executive Summary (the very first sentence of the entire report): that advances since AR4 “further strengthen the basis for human activities being the primary driver in climate change” (p.1-2, lines 3-5). This headline conclusion is a direct descendant of the assumption that the only solar forcing is TSI, a claim that their own report no longer accepts.
The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect. Dozens of studies (section two here) have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices, suggesting that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change, very little of which could be explained by the very slight variation in TSI. At least the Chapter 7 team is now being explicit about what this evidence means: that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing must be at work.
My full submitted comments (which I will post later) elaborate several important points. For instance, note that the Chapter 8 premise (page 8-4, lines 54-57) assumes that it is the change in the level of forcing since 1980, not the level of forcing, that would be causing warming. Solar activity was at historically high levels at least through the end of solar cycle 22 (1996), yet the IPCC is assuming that because this high level of solar forcing was roughly constant from 1950 until it fell off during solar cycle 23 it could not have caused post-1980 warming. In effect they are claiming that you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the burner to maximum and leaving it there, that you have to keep turning the flame up to get continued warming, an un-scientific absurdity that I have been writing about for several years (most recently in my post about Isaac Held’s bogus 2-box model of ocean equilibration).
The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum. The final draft of AR5 WG1 is not scheduled to be released for another year but the public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.
President Obama is already pushing a carbon tax premised on the fear that CO2 is causing dangerous global warming. Last week his people were at the UN’s climate meeting in Doha pretending that Hurricane Sandy was caused by human increments to CO2 as UN insiders assured the public that the next IPCC report will “scare the wits out of everyone” with its ramped-up predictions of human-caused global warming to come, but this is not where the evidence points, not if climate change is in any substantial measure driven by the sun, which has now gone quiet and is exerting what influence it has in the cooling direction.
The acknowledgement of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing should upend the IPCC’s entire agenda. The easiest way for the UN to handle this disruptive admission would be to remove it from their final draft, which is another reason to make the draft report public now. The devastating admission needs to be known so that the IPCC can’t quietly take it back.
Will some press organization please host the leaked report?
Most of us have to worry about staying within cautiously written and cautiously applied terms-of-service agreements. That’s why I created this new website. If it gets taken down nothing else gets taken with it. Media companies don’t have this problem. They have their own servers and publishing things like the draft IPCC report is supposed to be their bailiwick.
If the press has First Amendment protection for the publication of leaked materials even when substantial national security interests are at stake (the Supreme Court precedent set in the Pentagon Papers case), then it can certainly republish a leaked draft of a climate science report where there is no public interest in secrecy. The leaker could be at risk (the case against Pentagon leaker Daniel Ellsberg was thrown out for government misconduct, not because his activity was found to be protected) but the press is safe, and their services would be appreciated.
United States taxpayers have funded climate science to the tune of well over 80 billion dollars, all channeled through the funding bureaucracy established by Vice President Albert “the end is nigh” Gore when he served as President Clinton’s “climate czar.” That Gore-built bureaucracy is still to this day striving to insure that not a penny of all those taxpayer billions ever goes to any researcher who is not committed to the premature conclusion that human contributions to atmospheric CO2 are causing dangerous global warming (despite the lack of any statistically significant warming for more than 15 years).
Acolytes of this bought “consensus” want to see what new propaganda their tax dollars have wrought and so do the skeptics. It’s unanimous, and an already twice-vetted draft is sitting now in thousands of government offices around the world. Time to fork it over to the people.
=============================================================
UPDATE1: Andrew Revkin writes in a story at the NYT Dot Earth today:
It’s important, before anyone attacks Rawls for posting the drafts (this is distinct from his views on their contents), to consider that panel report drafts at various stages of preparation have been leaked in the past by people with entirely different points of view.
That was the case in 2000, when I was leaked a final draft of the summary for policy makers of the second science report from the panel ahead of that year’s round of climate treaty negotiations. As I explained in the resulting news story, “A copy of the summary was obtained by The New York Times from someone who was eager to have the findings disseminated before the meetings in The Hague.”
Here’s a question I sent tonight to a variety of analysts of the panel’s workings over the years:
The leaker, Alec Rawls, clearly has a spin. But I’ve long thought that I.P.C.C. was in a weird losing game in trying to boost credibility through more semi-open review while trying to maintain confidentiality at same time. I’m sympathetic to the idea of having more of the I.P.C.C. process being fully open (a layered Public Library of Science-style approach to review can preserve the sanity of authors) in this age of enforced transparency (WikiLeaks being the most famous example).
I’ll post answers as they come in.
Full story at DotEarth
==============================================================
UPDATE2: Alternative links for AR5 WG1 SOD. At each page click on the button that says “create download link,” then “click here to download”:
Summary for Policymakers
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425211/SummaryForPolicymakers_WG1AR5-SPM_FOD_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 1: Introduction
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425214/Ch1-Introduction_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch01_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436270/Ch2_Obs-atmosur_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch02_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436276/Ch3_Obs-oceans_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch03_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 4: Observations: Cryosphere
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436279/Ch4_obs-cryo_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch04_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 5: Information from Paleoclimate Archives
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436282/Ch5_Paleo_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch05_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 6: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436285/Ch6_Carbonbio_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch06_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436286/Ch7_Clouds-aerosols_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch07_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425217/Ch8_Radiative-forcing_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch08_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 8 Supplement
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436312/Ch8_supplement_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch08_SM_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436298/Ch9_models_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch09_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436302/Ch10_attribution_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch10_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436303/Ch11_near-term_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch11_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425220/Ch12_long-term_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch12_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 13: Sea Level Change
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425221/Ch13_sea-level_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch13_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425222/Ch14_future-regional_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch14_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 14 Supplement
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436309/Ch14_supplement_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch14_SM_Final.pdf.html
Technical Summary
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425223/TechnicalSummary_WG1AR5-TS_FOD_All_Final.pdf.html
======================================================
UPDATE3: a large “all in one” RAR file has been created by a reader “hippo”
Link to the entire set of documents, as single RAR archive:
http://www.filedropper.com/wwwstopgreensuicidecom
And now a bittorrent magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3f31ecb2a557732ea8d42e14b87aca7efb5dbcc7&dn=IPCCAR5&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.cc.de%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A80
reader “krischel” writes:
It’s a folder with each individual PDF in it.
If you have a torrent client like Transmission, you should be able to copy/paste open up that magnet URL and start downloading.
Replaced Link with the newer one. -ModE
==================================================
UPDATE4: 7:30AM PST 12/14/12 reactions are now coming in worldwide, see here, and the IPCC is going to issue a statement today.
UPDATE5: IPCC statement here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/statement/Statement_WGI_AR5_SOD.pdf
Full text here in this WUWT post (easier reading)
Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.
“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,” he told PM.
“What it shows is that we looked at this. We look at everything.
“The IPCC has a very comprehensive process where we try to look at all the influences on climate and so we looked at this one.”
Professor Sherwood says research has effectively disproved the idea that sunspots are more responsible for global warming than human activity.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036?WT.svl=news0
I think you owe Professor Sherwood an apology.
The bit-torrent version took mere minutes to download.. fast connection! C’mon people.. get with technology!
richard says:
just took a look over at Skeptical science,
“So why would the latest IPCC report contradict these studies when its purpose is to summarize the latest and greatest scientific research? The answer is simple — it doesn’t. Rawls has completely misrepresented the IPCC report”
——-
The IPCC regularly mis-represents its’ own report- I will point to their conclusions about monsoons in S America, Africa and India, where their own science said it would become spotty in those regions… but they talk to the media about increased precip, and more flooding!
Alec is only giving Thinking people a chance to judge for themselves!
“Global warming is not due to the sun, confirms leaked IPCC report”
Climate sceptics’ claims that UN climate science panel’s AR5 report show the sun is causing global warming don’t stack up.
• Dana Nuccitelli for Skeptical Science, part of the Guardian Environment Network
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 10.06 GMT ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/global-warming-sun-leaked-ipcc-report?INTCMP=SRCH
“Skeptical Science, part of the Guardian Environment Network”
A reflection of the present standard of the UK MSM journalism or cut and paste ism!
For anyone who is interested, here is the complete text of the section on GCR’s. Not exactly glowing endorsement of their role.
Alex. How much of all of this altered between the two versions.?
Or is the para you highlighted enough to overturn all the rest?
7.4.5 Impact of Cosmic Rays on Aerosols and Clouds
43
44 High solar acti0vity leads to variations in the strength and three-dimensional structure of the heliosphere,
45 which reduces the flux of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) impinging upon the Earth’s atmosphere by increasing
46 the deflection of low energy GCR. As GCR is the primary source of atmospheric ionization, it has been
47 suggested that GCR may act to amplify relative small variations in solar activity into climatologically
48 significant effects (Ney, 1959), via a hypothesised relationship between ionization and cloudiness (e.g.,
49 Dickinson, 1975; Kirkby, 2007). There have been many studies aiming to test this hypothesis since AR4,
50 which fall in two categories: i) studies that seek to establish a causal relationship between cosmic rays and
51 aerosols/clouds by looking at correlations between the two quantities on timescales of days to decades, and
52 ii) studies that test through observations or modelling one of the physical mechanisms that have been put
53 forward. We assess these two categories of studies in the next two sections.
54
55 7.4.5.1 Correlations Between Cosmic Rays and Properties of Aerosols and Clouds
56
Order Draft Chapter 7 IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report
Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute 7-44 Total pages: 139
1 Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope 1 archives and some
2 aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing
3 from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the
4 existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed
5 relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties. Such relationships have focused on decadal
6 variations in GCR induced by the 11-year solar cycle, shorter variations associated with the quasi-periodic
7 oscillation in solar activity centred on 1.68 years or sudden and large variations known as Forbush decrease
8 events. It should be noted that GCR co-vary with other solar parameters such as solar and UV irradiance,
9 which makes any attribution of cloud changes to GCR problematic (Laken et al., 2011).
10
11 Some studies have shown co-variation between GCR and low-level cloud cover using global satellite data
12 over periods of typically 5–10 years (Marsh and Svensmark, 2000; Pallé Bagó and Butler, 2000). Such
13 correlations have not proved to be robust when extending the time period under consideration (Agee et al.,
14 2012), restricting the analysis to particular cloud types (Kernthaler et al., 1999) or locations (Udelhofen and
15 Cess, 2001; Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008). The purported correlations have also been attributed to ENSO
16 variability (Farrar, 2000; Laken et al., 2012) and artefacts of the satellite data cannot be ruled out (Pallé,
17 2005). Statistically significant, but weak, correlations between diffuse fraction and cosmic rays have been
18 found at some locations in the UK over the 1951 to 2000 period (Harrison and Stephenson, 2006). Harrison
19 (2008) also found a unique 1.68-year periodicity in surface radiation for two different UK sites between
20 1978 and 1990, potentially indicative of a cosmic ray effect. Svensmark et al. (2009) found large global
21 reductions in the aerosol Ångström exponent from AERONET, liquid water path from SSM/I, and cloud
22 cover from MODIS and ISCCP after large Forbush decreases, but these results were not corroborated by
23 other studies who found no statistically significant links between GCR and clouds at the global scale
24 (Čalogović et al., 2010; Kristjánsson et al., 2008; Laken and Čalogović, 2011). Although some studies found
25 small but significant positive correlations between GCR and high- and mid-altitude clouds (Laken et al.,
26 2010; Rohs et al., 2010), these variations were very weak, and the results were highly sensitive to how the
27 Forbush events were selected and composited (Laken et al., 2009).
28
29 7.4.5.2 Physical Mechanisms Linking Cosmic Rays to Cloudiness
30
31 The most widely studied mechanism proposed to explain the possible link between GCR and cloudiness is
32 the “ion-aerosol clear air” mechanism, in which atmospheric ions produced by GCR facilitate aerosol
33 nucleation and growth ultimately impacting CCN concentrations and cloud properties (Carslaw et al., 2002;
34 Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008). The variability of atmospheric ionization rates due to GCR changes can be
35 considered relatively well quantified (Bazilevskaya et al., 2008), whereas resulting changes in aerosol
36 nucleation rates are very poorly known (Enghoff and Svensmark, 2008; Kazil et al., 2008). The Cosmics
37 Leaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) experiment at CERN indicates that GCR-induced ionization enhances
38 water–sulphuric acid nucleation in the middle and upper troposphere, but is very unlikely to give a
39 significant contribution to nucleation taking place in the continental boundary layer (Kirkby et al., 2011).
40 Field measurements qualitatively support this view but cannot provide any firm conclusion on the role of
41 ions due to the scarcity and other limitations of free-troposphere measurements (Arnold, 2006; Mirme et al.,
42 2010), and due to difficulties in separating GCR-induced nucleation from other nucleation pathways in
43 continental boundary layers (Hirsikko et al., 2011). If strong enough, the signal from GCR-induced
44 nucleation should be detectable at the Earth’s surface because a big fraction of CCN in the global boundary
45 layer is expected to originate from nucleation taking place in the free troposphere (Merikanto et al., 2009).
46 Based on surface aerosol measurements at one site, Kulmala et al. (2010) found no connection between GCR
47 and new particle formation or any other aerosol property over a solar cycle (1996–2008). Our understanding
48 of the “ion-aerosol clear air” mechanism as a whole relies on a few model investigations that simulate GCR
49 changes over a solar cycle (Kazil et al., 2012; Pierce and Adams, 2009a; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011) or during
50 strong Forbush decreases (Bondo et al., 2010; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011). Although all model studies found a
51 detectable connection between GCR variations and either CCN changes or column aerosol properties, the
52 response appears to be too weak to cause a significant radiative effect because GCR are unable to effectively
53 raise CCN and droplet concentrations (Kazil et al., 2012).
54
55 A second pathway linking GCR to cloudiness has been proposed through the global electric circuit (GEC). A
56 small direct current is able to flow vertically between the ionosphere (maintained at approximately 250 kV
57 by thunderstorms and electrified clouds) and the Earth’s surface over fair-weather regions because of GCRSecond
Order Draft Chapter 7 IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report
Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute 7-44 Total pages: 139
induced atmospheric ionization. Charges can accumulate at the upper and lower cloud boundaries 1 as a result
2 of the effective scavenging of ions by cloud droplets (Tinsley, 2000). This creates conductivity gradients at
3 the cloud edges (Nicoll and Harrison, 2010), and may influence droplet-droplet collision (Khain et al., 2004),
4 cloud droplet-particle collisions (Tinsley, 2000), and cloud droplet formation processes (Harrison and
5 Ambaum, 2008). These microphysical effects may potentially influence cloud properties both directly and
6 indirectly. Although Harrison and Ambaum (2010) observed a small reduction in downward LW radiation
7 which they associated with variations in surface current density, supporting observations are extremely
8 limited. Our current understanding of the relationship between cloud properties and the GEC remains very
9 low, and there is no evidence yet that associated cloud processes could be of climatic significance.
10
11 7.4.5.3 Synthesis
12
13 Although there is some evidence that ionization from cosmic rays may enhance aerosol nucleation in the free
14 troposphere, there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too
15 weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle
16 in any climatically significant way. The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Agee
17 et al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major
18 contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.
Well done, Alec!!!! Thanks for your efforts!!!!
For those who may attack Alec Rawls for leaking this they should remember this:
Peter Glieck committed wire fraud and lied to obtain documents and was hailed a hero by some in the press. Also the media loved WikiLeaks. The BBC avoided ClimateGate like the plague until they could no longer avoid it. One man’s leak is another man’s poison.
Jimbo
Peter Glieck didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement, legally binding himself to not revealing confidential information.
davidmhoffer:
I am writing in response to your post at December 13, 2012 at 6:38 pm.
I hope this leak of the AR5 draft will be important but I fear and anticipate that it will be inconsequential.
Only the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are read, cited and quoted by the media, AGW-activists and politicians. And the SPMs are distorted propaganda documents. Importantly, the SPMs are completed first and the Chapter contents of an IPCC Report are amended to agree with their SPM. The amendments do not delete ‘get out clauses’ included as ‘insurance’ which can be cited in later defence of failed ‘projections’ and ‘predictions’. Hence, much rubbish and inconsistency is throughout IPCC Reports.
The leaked AR5 draft contains important statements on solar effects which seem to be examples of such ‘get out clauses’. These statements will have no importance of any kind unless clearly stated as being important in the published version of the AR5 SPM.
Chapter contents of IPCC Reports are only read and studied by nerds like me while the SPMs are read, cited and quoted by the media, AGW-activists and politicians.
Which brings me to your post which induced my response. It says in total
[emphasis added as bolding by me: RSC]
When the call for AR5 reviewers was announced on WUWT at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/sign-up-now-open-for-expert-review-of-ar5-second-order-draft/
I wrote this post in that thread
Several people replied with posts saying my decision was wrong.
I now feel vindicated.
The AR4 contains nonsense to which I objected but has my name as one of many attached.
The AR5 is to contain nonsense to which reviewers objected but will have their names attached.
Richard
A few take home comments:
The variability of atmospheric ionization rates due to GCR changes can be considered relatively well quantified (Bazilevskaya et al., 2008), whereas resulting changes in aerosol nucleation rates are very poorly known (Enghoff and Svensmark, 2008; Kazil et al., 2008).
Some studies have shown co-variation between GCR and low-level cloud cover using global satellite data over periods of typically 5–10 years (Marsh and Svensmark, 2000; Pallé Bagó and Butler, 2000). Such correlations have not proved to be robust when extending the time period under consideration (Agee et al., 2012), restricting the analysis to particular cloud types (Kernthaler et al., 1999) or locations (Udelhofen and 15 Cess, 2001; Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008)
The purported correlations have also been attributed to ENSO variability (Farrar, 2000; Laken et al., 2012) and artefacts of the satellite data cannot be ruled out (Pallé,2005).
Svensmark et al. (2009) found large global reductions in the aerosol Ångström exponent from AERONET, liquid water path from SSM/I, and cloud cover from MODIS and ISCCP after large Forbush decreases, but these results were not corroborated by other studies who found no statistically significant links between GCR and clouds at the global scale (Čalogović et al., 2010; Kristjánsson et al., 2008; Laken and Čalogović, 2011)
The variability of atmospheric ionization rates due to GCR changes can be considered relatively well quantified (Bazilevskaya et al., 2008), whereas resulting changes in aerosol nucleation rates are very poorly known (Enghoff and Svensmark, 2008; Kazil et al., 2008).
Although all model studies found a detectable connection between GCR variations and either CCN changes or column aerosol properties, the response appears to be too weak to cause a significant radiative effect because GCR are unable to effectively raise CCN and droplet concentrations (Kazil et al., 2012).
The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Agee et al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.
Game-changing admission? The lead author of the chapter in question, Professor Steve Sherwood, director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, doesn’t think so. He says the report shows that “a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is ridiculous.”
As usual, we get spin and distortions on this blog.
Just read this on the ABC(Aus)and I knew where to come for a look.They didn’t name the 2nd well known site,They must not want to give free referrals hehe.
A draft of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked on climate sceptic websites.
The 14-chapter draft report was posted on a US-based blog site called stopgreensuicide and then posted on another site critical of climate science.
The leaker and other climate sceptics have isolated one section of the draft to suggest that cosmic rays such as those of the Sun may have a greater influence on warming than had been claimed.
Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.
“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,” he told PM.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036?WT.svl=news0
Well done Alex Rawls. Putting the draft into the public domain is just the kind of transparency which Pachauri claims is good for the process:
“The review process is objective, open and transparent.
“For the reviews, the Working Group/Task Force Bureaus are required to seek the participation of reviewers encompassing the range of scientific, technical and socio-economic views, expertise, and geographical representation and it is also required to actively undertake to promote and invite as wide a group of experts as possible. Any expert can sign up to review the drafts, making the IPCC report process one of the most open and inclusive in the world of science.”
“Science thrives on debate and discussion and we in the IPCC welcome the opportunity to engage in debate on the subject of climate change.
“Given the fact that the AR5 will undoubtedly have a substantial amount of new information, there would be undoubtedly much debate and discussion of the findings that are produced. I would like to emphasize that the whole process of preparation of IPCC Reports is characterized by discussion which takes place within and across author teams and a rigorous process of review which serves the purpose of incorporating diverse points of view at various stages of drafting of the report.”
http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/pages/gateway/voices/template/news_item.jsp?cid=37250
Just had a look at “Skeptical Science, part of the Guardian Environment Network”
Once again the alarmists denigrate all those that don’t comply with their cherry picking views but then proceed to do exactly that. A case of ‘do as I say and not as I do’! As for some of the posts the less said the better but I hope we can rise above some of the narrow minded vitriol being spouted. In my view once the alarmists descend into name calling they have lost the argument.
They cannot seem to grasp the simple fact that the Chapter 7 & 8 authors have contradicted each other.
Oh well, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink (except when it is the marines :-))
RES
You may be misinterpreting the report. The longer quote given by Glenn Tamblyn above does not support the idea that the IPCC is saying that GCRs are responsible, and the author of that section of the report states that it has been interpreted incorrectly.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036
Wow, the “Climate Response Team” were over this so fast you could feel the wind smash against your face!
In my experience, if someone moves that fast to counter something, they’re usually trying to hide something.
Thanks Alec, downloaded in minutes 126MB, Only read a few pages in Chapter 7 to check the download worked. Sure is a fuzzy executive summary. I can see that there is a lot of lack of understanding of basics of heat and mass transfer but I need to plough through it a bit more.
S Green : December 13, 2012 at 5:31 pm
says: “…..How can it be claimed this is game-changing when the report is quite clear that the Sun cannot explain the observed warming?….”
Ok, S..
Take this very simple equation.
x+y = z
If you do not know one of these values it can be calculated by the other. Are you still with this ?
If you do not know two values, then none of the others can be calculated. They can only be guesses.
If you have something like a climate where there are more than two unknown variables, then you can not figure out anything.
There are some books here that may help you.
http://www.dummies.com/store/Education/Math.html
Game changing? I would like to think so and always remain optimistic, but that pertains to honest people and since here in the US significant developments like Climategate and fraudulent hockey stick graphs were largely ignored and with our Fed agencies being staffed and directed by the usual suspects, this or other significant developments will be ignored since they have their own agenda’s. The Lisa Jacksons and James Hansens know they can do and get away with just about anything they desire and have the full backing of our President.
Bob K. (10:21 pm) suggests: “Would be nice to have a ‘preview’ available before submitting comments methink…”
Download Greasemonkey and use Firefox for WUWT and you have a fully kitted out preview automatically in every comments box, Bob.
Perhaps this is a deliberate strategy by the IPCC ?
16 years of ‘no warming’ needs to be killed off in some way, and what better way than to claim the current solar dip is cancelling out the claimed CO2 forcing ?
The next IPCC line will be that we need to act faster before the solar cycle returns back to normal levels causing global meltdown.
Doug Allen says:
December 13, 2012 at 2:31 pm
“….. For instance, you present no evidence for your claim that “President Obama is already pushing a carbon tax…” Your link shows no evidence of that. Do you have any evidence?”
———————————–
Why do you attempt to defend the indefensible?
I believe the Mr Obama said something along the lines of in his version of a cap and trade system energy prices would necessarily skyrocket.
Have you noticed any indications of him changing his mind?
Not if you consider his failure to rein in Lisa Jackson.
Does he need to keep it posted on his teleprompter that he is a true politician and always wants more tax money no matter how much he must lie and steal to get it.
This blog is not about politics but it is about honesty in every form.
Please, don’t be that way.
cn
and the CAGW Gatekeepers are so REACTIONARY!
14 Dec: Guardian: Dana Nuccitelli for Skeptical Science, part of the Guardian Environment Network:
Global warming is not due to the sun, confirms leaked IPCC report
Climate sceptics’ claims that UN climate science panel’s AR5 report show the sun is causing global warming don’t stack up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/global-warming-sun-leaked-ipcc-report
14 Dec: Age, Australia: Ben Cubby and Tom Arup: Human climate link firms
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/human-climate-link-firms-20121214-2bfdi.html
I would like to know how many people leaving the above comments have the requisite qualifications to understand what is in the report. What I mean by requisite qualifications is both a good understanding of the science involved in the debate, an open mind and the ability to discriminate between truth and BS. I venture that the answer is “very, very few”. It’s a bit like reading James Lovelock, a critical mind can see many flaws but a dull, normal mind just accepts what is said in faith. “Would the last person to leave please turn out the enlightenment”? (This Is Serious Mum – De Rigueurmortis)
So now all we have to do is get them to admit that 90%+ of the heat is actually “solar forcing”…