UPDATE: The real bombshell of the report is now evident, see it here
Below is a collection of reactions today to the IPCC AR5 leak on the website stopgreensuicide.com (now down) but also reported on WUWT here.
Donna Laframboise, author of The Delinquent Teenager book about the IPCC:
The IPCC Leak: This is What Transparency Looks Like
On its Twitter feed the IPCC says it intends to issue a statement about the leak. Perhaps it will keep some prior remarks by its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, in mind (bold added):
“The IPCC is a totally transparent organization…Whatever we do is available for scrutiny at every stage.” – magazine interview, May 2009
“The objective and transparent manner in which the IPCC functions…should convey conviction on the strength of its findings to all rational persons…” – testimony to a US Senate committee, February 2009
“[The IPCC’s] work is carried out with complete transparency and objectivity…” – speech to heads of state, December 2008
“So you can’t think of a more transparent process…than what we have in the IPCC. I would only put that forward as valid reasons to accept the science and the scientific assessments that are carried out.” – newspaper interview, June 2007
From James Delingpole at The Telegraph:
Man-made global warming: even the IPCC admits the jig is up
I look forward to reading your extravagant apologias as to why this is a story of no significance and that it’s business as usual for the great Climate Change Ponzi scheme.
From Tom Nelson, a collection of Twitter and website reactions:
PM – Draft IPCC report leaked 14/12/2012
MARK COLVIN: So you’re saying that you’ve managed to basically eliminate this idea that sunspots or whatever are more responsible for global warming than human activity.
STEVE SHERWOOD: Based on the peer-reviewed literature that’s available now, that looks extremely unlikely.
Twitter / RichardTol: an alternative way to write …
an alternative way to write an IPCC report http://ipccar5wg2ch10.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/first-order-draft-109-markets-and.html …
Twitter / IPCC_CH: The #IPCC is looking into the …
The #IPCC is looking into the publication of material that appears to be draft of an #AR5 report and will issue a detailed statement later
Twitter / RichardTol: because the IPCC refused to …
because the IPCC refused to acknowledge the existence of the internet, we now have an uncontrolled release of material http://skepticalscience.com/ipcc-draft-leak-global-warming-not-solar.html …
Twitter / RyanMaue: Well deserved warm-up on the …
Well deserved warm-up on the way for Astana Kazakhstan, from -40°F to -15°F for highs. Asian cold-vortex! pic.twitter.com/hs3qso3L
Twitter / RyanMaue: IPCC SREX is nary a year old. …
IPCC SREX is nary a year old. Didn’t find anything new in AR5. Why not just cancel the whole thing and blow the remaining budget on Rio?
Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: United States taxpayers have …
United States taxpayers have funded climate science to the tune of well over 80 billion dollars, from this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/13/ipcc-ar5-draft-leaked-contains-game-changing-admission-of-enhanced-solar-forcing/#more-75705 …
Twitter / RyanMaue: Expect climate advocates to …
Expect climate advocates to say IPCC too conservative bc of influence by so-called deniers. Watch as they throw colleagues under bus.
@KenCaldeira on @IPCC_ch: “There’s kind of a…
@KenCaldeira on @IPCC_ch: “There’s kind of a pretense with these IPCC reports that it’s this latest science that’s happened in the last two or three years that’s really going to make the difference, that’s going to tip the balance in favor of action. I think really we’ve been filling in details in the last 30 years and the picture hasn’t changed substantially.”
From physicist Lubos Motl at The Reference Frame:
IPCC AR5 not acknowledging cosmoclimatology
I was agnostic about both claims but now I see that Rawls is surely having a point but my excitement is much weaker than his. In fact, I would say that not much is changing in the IPCC.
From Jo Nova:
What was the point of keeping the IPCC draft secret? The point is so the IPCC can control both the content and the PR. The IPCC wants a free kick, and they get one if the world doesn’t see how they arrive at the conclusion, and if critics can’t specifically point to errors or flaws until weeks after the giant press circus has done its megaphone production.
It’s how the media game works. First they release the “up and coming” scary headline. (Already done for AR5.) Critics can’t criticize what they can’t see.
Then they release the Summary with a three ring display of terrifying headlines. The black box that justifies it is shown off in all its mysterious glory: 4,000 experts labored for 5 years, produced 2,000 papers, 2 million emails, and rigorously, savagely dissected the science to give you this ominous, frightening message. Pay us your tithe! We will stop the Storms! The inner workings of the black box are held in the Sacred Vault. Those who question it are “deniers, nutters, conspiracy theorists, believe the moon landing was faked, are simultaneously paid by Exxon and suffer from ideological mental deficits — they wouldn’t accept any evidence anyway because they are old white male conservatives (that’s why we have to save the world by hiding the science — it simply is not a fair competition: the IPCC only has billions in funding, the support of the UN, most large banks, all western governments, most university money managers, the thought police in the press, the $176b carbon trading market, and the $257b renewables investment scene. Skeptics have wit, evidence, and the world wide web.)
Then finally they release the long paper with a few more headlines, but the circus has moved on. The people “know” the message. The press is bored, and the critics will need weeks to study the massive document in any case.
From NYT’s Andrew Revkin:
Leak of IPCC Drafts Speaks to Need for New Process – NYTimes.com
A WikiLeaks-style Web dump of drafts of the 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides fresh evidence that the organization’s policies and procedures are a terrible fit for an era in which transparency will increasingly be enforced on organizations working on consequential energy and environmental issues.
From Jeff Condon at the Air Vent
From Dr. Roger Pielke Jr on Twitter
IPCC AR5 draft shows almost complete reversal from AR4 on trends in drought, hurricanes, floods and is now consistent with scientific lit
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Wait a minute… Ken Caldeira resigns as IPCC lead author?! Wow! And he explains that “it is not clear how much additional benefit..” he can get from all this razmataz… Wow again!! Finally, after getting tenure, after dining and wining with powerful and famous, after making into a chapter of freakomonics, after becoming fearless leader of this Institution of something… finally, he is done with it. No need for geoengineering… What’s next? May be study of whether our entire universe exists inside of a computer simulation, like in “The Matrix”… Though it will be a competition with University of Oxford philosophy professor Nick Bostrom who thinks that, “we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.” But wait… there will be study of climate in this simulated universe and the effect of the “computer” people activities. Nobody proposed such thing yet and, perhaps, one of the rock star friends will help with funding until taxpayer dollars kick in.
Solargate or is it a tad too trite nowadays?
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) December 14, 2012 at 8:00 am says:
The problem is, Professor Tol, it is all spin. Having read some of the SPM last night, I conclude that there is no evidence presented for a future of catastrophic global warming. In fact the opposite. There is a tacit admission of no evidence for worsening hurricanes or extreme weather events, nor of more drought in the tropics. There is also the admission that AR4 was too extreme on aerosols, and lots of very shaky evidence for warming of the oceans. Further, there is no evidence presented of accelerating ice melt, nor accelerating sea level rise. In economic terms, there is no evidence of a costly future catastrophe that can justify any policy to reduce CO2, even if that policy were near-zero cost and effective.
What true scientists should be calling for, and applying, is proper objectivity. That is confronting the weaknesses in one’s own arguments, and recognizing that other arguments are possible. Given that the evidence will always be weak, (even if the evidence were unambiguous) the last people you want running the show is a bunch of activists and spin doctors.
“The Sun Deniers” would be a great name for a rock band.
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/klimabericht-der-uno-ipcc-report-im-netz-veroeffentlicht-a-872984.html
German climate taliban are telling the public that “climate sceptics” are picking nonsense arguments to blame the IPCC.
So what.
The IPCC could abbreviate their reports to the bleeding obvious;
Another 4 years, still no evidence. Need more money and parties.
@ManicBeanCounter
I was just putting my remarks cited by Anthony in context.
Reasoning from the IPCC perspective, they tried to control the message by secrecy and instead lost control of the story. Regardless of your or my other views of the IPCC, this is a PR failure.
Just watch the hubris now from the Solar Skeptics…
Richards Betts, UK Met off. climate impact director, speaking to the BBC. ” This is a draft it will change. Yeah right
Richard Tol,
I quite agree with you that it is a PR failure. However, it would not nearly be so bad if they had a more rigorous approach to evaluating the evidence. I was a management accountant in industry for over twenty years. I learnt that it was fine to have loads of complex spreadsheets, or pages of justification. But if you did not review the results critically, and keep sight of the total picture, the whole lot would quickly unravel. The IPCC AR5 fails in critical evaluation (as it did with the extreme elements of AR4) which is why a great deal of effort is put into shutting off any avenue to ask the critical questions. If climatology was a healthy science, with plenty of robust evidence, PR would unnecessary. But like with a business with dodgy accounts, the smoke, mirrors and bluster of the IPCC is absolutely crucial.
And here’s Bloomberg’s reaction:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-14/un-leak-shows-more-evidence-humans-cause-global-warming.html
Amazingly this made it onto the ABC1 (Australia) 7pm news report, I actually heard the words “Cosmic rays” and “Climate Change” in the same report.
[The IPCC’s] work is carried out with complete transparency and objectivity…” – speech to heads of state, December 2008
==================================================================
I suspect that what the IPCC (and Obama) mean by “trasparency” is “You can’t see what we’re doing.”
“The IPCC is a totally transparent organization…Whatever we do is available for scrutiny at every stage.” When you read this you instinctively know that it isn’t transparent. Sort of like those countries that called themselves The Democratic Republic of XYZ” – you just know that they’re not democratic. These peoplet do realize that it is others that decide if they are transparent but they are arroganrt enough to try to get away without being transparent. Trust me, I’m a scientist…
I just read the guardian article. I’m surprised I ever made it back here because I nearly drowned in a vortex of spin. I also clicked on the earlier article by Skeptical Science’s Dana Nuticcelli who signs off with a flourish thus:
“In fact, in attempting to argue to the contrary, Rawls has scored an own goal by showing that if anything, GCRs are currently amplifying a solar cooling effect.”
They are so confident that their readers think temperatures are rising, that they can make this brazen remark which is proves Rawls correct.
Both articles are so steeped in half-truths and witheld truths that I hardly knew where to start my usual laborious dissection, correction and nailing them to the floor…but I didn’t have to worry- comments weren’t allowed.
Absolutely brilliant comment by Jo Nova. The Republicans should hire her to run their media operation.
IPCC sausage-making turns out to be a very unhygienic and careless process. Colour me unsurprised.
Russ R. says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:09 pm
And here’s Bloomberg’s reaction:
“The period from 1981 through 2010 was “very likely” the warmest 30 year period in at least 800 years, the researchers wrote in the latest draft of a 26-page summary for policy makers, the main document that will guide lawmakers.”
Is this an admission the MWP could have been warmer than today?
@ManicBeanCounter
I’m glad we agree on the PR bit.
Some parts of the IPCC are hard science, other parts are soft as butter. The IPCC has found it extremely difficult to determine, let alone communicate, which is which. Levels of confidence as expressed in the Summaries largely reflect the power play between IPCC authors.
All is typically silent in NZ. True to low wattage intellectual form, not a squeak from the delinquent and biased MSM.
izen speaks out after a tough week.
Richard Tol (@RichardTol):
In your post at December 14, 2012 at 10:57 pm you say to ManicBeanCounter
No!
Levels of confidence as expressed in the Summaries largely reflect the power play between the government representatives who approve each statement in those Summaries from the InterGOVERNMENTal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Also, the IPCC’s Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are published first and the IPCC so-called Scientific Reports are published after they have been amended to not-refute the already published SPMs.
Richard
Unless and until a substantial cohort of thirty-something academic researchers muster the cojones to flip Pachauri and his excrescent IPCC The Bird, totalitarian New World Order types like Holdren, Linkola, Schellnhuber will be ransacking public fiscs from now ’til the next Mayan Apocalypse.
@richard Courtney
My conclusion is based on first-hand observations of the IPCC process as an author (contributory, lead, principal, and convening) in WG1, WG2 and WG3 for AR2, AR3, AR4 and AR5. Confidence levels are largely set by the authors.
Richard Tol (@richardTol):
Your post at December 15, 2012 at 7:25 am refers to
(a) your post at December 14, 2012 at 10:57 pm
and
(b) my rebuttal of it at December 15, 2012 at 1:51 am.
Your post at December 15, 2012 at 7:25 am says in total
Well, I have sat in an IPCC Meeting and watched what I said being done.
But, assuming your claims are correct (in reality, I know my explanation is) then you will be able to explain the ‘Chapter 8’ scandal, especially since your claims say you were involved in Santer’s alterations to the text.
I and many others would welcome the explanation which you say you can provide and we have wanted for many years. Please provide it.
Richard