The IPCC's "warming bias"

16 February, 2010 by

© Times Online

Robert Watson

It’s curious, isn’t it, that all of the errors that have been picked up in IPCC AR4 over the past few weeks have been in the warming direction? They all exaggerate the effects of climate change to some extent. If there were random errors, then one would assume that there would be a roughly equal amount indicating less warming as more warming. But no, they all indicate more warming.  To my mind this can only indicate one thing: there is a pre-conceived agenda that global warming is real and dangerous, and the IPCC is desperately looking for evidence to back that up. What it should be doing is looking impartially at the evidence and evaluating it free from such preconceptions. But when your organisation’s very existence depends on one particular outcome, it isn’t surprising that that is precisely what you find…

The UN body that advises world leaders on climate change must investigate an apparent bias in its report that resulted in several exaggerations of the impact of global warming, according to its former chairman.

In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.

Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.

The errors have emerged in the past month after simple checking of the sources cited by the 2,500 scientists who produced the report.

The report falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 when evidence suggests that they will survive for another 300 years. It also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.

The Dutch Government has asked the IPCC to correct its claim that more than half the Netherlands is below sea level. The environment ministry said that only 26 per cent of the country was below sea level.

Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”

I think we know the reason.

Read it here.

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John Christy: Is the world even warming?

15 February, 2010 by

So, are you saying the jet blast from two or possibly four turbofan aircraft engines might somehow affect the readings on our temperature sensor a few yards away? Is that important? Rome Airport (from WUWT)

It’s like a house of cards in a (global warming intensified) hurricane. Bits flying everywhere – the fragile structure reduced to its constituent molecules. That’s what the global warming movement looks like right now. All four wheels have parted company from the bandwagon, it’s out of gas, driverless, out of control, sliding towards the edge of a thousand metre drop, and all we can do is look on and watch the ghastly spectacle unfold before our eyes.

THE UN climate panel faces a new challenge, with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and there could be 5-6C more warming by 2100.

New research has cast doubt on such claims.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, and a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Professor Christy and several other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

They believe these stations have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, frequently, being moved from site to site.

Professor Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa and the US states of California and Alabama.

“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

Read it here. Original Times article here. UK Telegraph article here.

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Pachauri's flights stretch to the moon (and back)

6 February, 2010 by

Patchy old Pachy

Hypocrisy Alert: Don’t do as I do, do as I say, and that’s especially true of the IPCC which wants us all to dismantle our economies in order to “save the planet”. Except those edicts don’t apply to the IPCC head himself, old Pachy, as he clocks up half a million air miles in 19 months:

On his international missions, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), called for radical action to stave off environmental disaster.

He urged people to eat less meat, pay aviation taxes and even ban giving iced water in restaurants. But in order to get his message across, the former railway engineer, who lives in Delhi, created an enormous carbon footprint of his own.

Dr Pachauri has been the chairman of the panel since 2002. Documents available on its website showed that in one 19-month period, he clocked up more than half a million miles in the air as he travelled the world on official business.

Between January 2007 and July 2008, he took more than 120 long-haul flights and 43 short-haul trips, taking in countries such as New Zealand, America and Fiji.

Dr Pachauri’s trips would have produced 121.1 tons of carbon dioxide, according to calculations by ClimateCare, a carbon offset provider.

It is estimated that the average Briton produces around 8.6 tons of carbon dioxide a year, while the average Indian produces just over one ton.

Nice work if you can get it.

Read it here.

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India's Ramesh: "There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism"

5 February, 2010 by

Climate sense from Jairam Ramesh

India abandons the IPCC ship, which is listing heavily to starboard, taking on water, and heading for the bottom of the ocean. Rather than base climate policy on the discredited pronouncements of the IPCC, India has wisely decided to set up its own climate research bodies. Hello, hello, testing, testing – anyone listening to this in Canberra?? Nope. Eyes and ears firmly closed.

India has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri.

The Indian government’s move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his glacial melting claims. In Autumn, its environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing in the face of global warming.

Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further.

He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. [Yes, and the IPCC crossed it years ago – Ed] I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses … they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

Read it here.

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ABC labels Pachauri "leading global warming scientist"

5 February, 2010 by

Wrong again

As the IPCC desperately tries to paper over the cracks, the ABC promotes Pachauri:

The United Nations’ top climate official has backed leading global warming scientist Rajendra Pachauri, saying he should ignore calls to resign over errors in a key 2007 report. (source)

Pachauri isn’t a leading global warming scientist. He isn’t a global warming scientist at all. In fact, he isn’t even a scientist. He’s a railway engineer.

Your ABC – for when facts don’t matter.

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IPCC: sea level blunder angers Dutch environment minister

5 February, 2010 by

Only the purple is below sea level

Clog-gate? Windmill-gate? Edam-gate? Yet another error in IPCC AR4, this time relating to sea levels in Holland:

A United Nations report wrongly claimed that more than half of the Netherlands is currently below sea level.

In fact, just 20 percent of the country consists of polders that are pumped dry, and which are at risk of flooding if global warming causes rising sea levels. Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer has ordered a thorough investigation into the quality of the climate reports which she uses to base her policies on.

Climate-sceptic MPs were quick to react. Conservative MP Helma Neppérus and Richard de Mos from the right-wing Freedom Party want the minister to explain to parliament how these figures were used to decide on national climate policy. “This may invalidate all claims that the last decades were the hottest ever,” Mr De Mos said.

The incorrect figures which date back to 2007 were revealed on Wednesday by the weekly Vrij Nederland. The Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency told reporters that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) added together two figures supplied by the agency: the area of the Netherlands which is below sea-level and the area which is susceptible to flooding. In fact, these areas overlap, so the figures should not have been combined to produce the 55 percent quoted by the IPCC.

The discovery comes just a week after a prediction about glaciers in the Himalayas proved wrong. Rather than disappearing by 2035, as IPCC reports claim, the original research underlying the report predicted the mountain ice would last until 2350. (source)

The Dutch environment minister isn’t impressed:

Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer says she will no longer tolerate errors by climate researchers. She expressed her anger to Dutch researchers who presented their annual report on the state of the climate on Wednesday. (source)

Can you imagine Penny Wong having the guts to say the same? No, me neither, because she, like Rudd and Co, is blinded by dogma.

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Pachauri: hopes sceptics "apply asbestos to their faces"

4 February, 2010 by

Nothing like a bit of asbestos for the complexion

To all those commentators calling for Pachauri’s resignation from the IPCC: please stop. The longer this loony remains in charge, the more damage will be done, and the less chance of it ever recovering. From a recent Financial Times interview:

FT: In recent weeks, many articles in the British media have questioned aspects of the IPCC reports and criticised your conduct personally as the chairman. Do you think there is an organised effort to demolish your reputation and the reputation of the IPCC?

RP: It doesn’t take a genius to arrive at the conclusion that apparently this is carefully orchestrated. These things are certainly not happening at random. The one unfortunate thing that has happened is the mistake that the IPCC made on the glaciers. We have acknowledged that; we have put that on our web site.

But there is absolutely nothing [else] but I would say [there are] nefarious designs behind people trying to attack me with lies, falsehoods [alleging] that I have business interests. I have clarified that in very precise terms. Once I did that, they shifted their focus on [to] my institute, which, may I say – with all humility but some degree of pride – is an institution that the world now looks up to and admires. We function under the laws of this country. We are looked up to by everybody in every section of society, including the highest levels of government not only over here, but in other parts of the world.

What they are indulging in is skulduggery of the worst kind. I’m reasonably sure that very soon people will realise the truth and they would also question the credentials of some of the people who are behind them.

And are you all sitting down for the best bit?

I don’t want to get down to a personal level [but I will anyway – Ed], but all you need to do is look at their backgrounds. They are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – I hope that they apply it to their faces every day – and people who say that the only way to deal with HIV/Aids is to screen the population on a regular basis and isolate those who are infected.

There is clearly a very obvious intent behind this whole thing. I’m certainly not going to be affected by it. I’m totally in the clear [Ha, ha, my aching sides – Ed]. I have absolutely nothing but indifference to what these people are doing.

Excellent work, mate. All I can say is “Keep it up”.

Read it here (subscription may be required) (h/t Tom Nelson)

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School Gate? IPCC claims based on "student essay"

31 January, 2010 by

Latest IPCC source?

What next? Will they find some 8 year-old’s science homework [Surely “religious education homework?” – Ed] buried in there somewhere, corners ripped from where the dog tried to eat it? Beyond parody, and revealed by the tireless work of the UK Sunday Telegraph which seems to have regained its proper compass:

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

0/10 – Must try harder.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Baker’s Delight are on the same track with their latest advert – but they believed it to be fiction, of course:

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Shock: SMH publishes sceptical climate article

27 January, 2010 by

Turning sceptical?

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are to the global warming religion what L Ron Hubbard is to scientology, so to see even a few shards of agnosticism creeping in is fairly surprising, and encouraging:

The claims made about the science have been rash, asserting dogmatic certainty about human-induced warming when the reality is that the overall picture is quite unclear. This has now backfired, with the IPCC admitting mistakes in its 2007 report, and the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, which the IPCC has drawn heavily upon, shown to have been, at the least, devious in the results it has made public.

There may be some link between the rashness of the global warming campaign and the haplessness of the politics that has followed. The best current bet is that, after Copenhagen, emission controls is dead as a serious international issue. And further, only some environmental disaster that can be convincingly linked to climate change will rekindle it. The ”sceptics” have won the politics.

The clumsy politics is international and local. An emissions trading scheme, as proposed by the Australian Government, is very bad policy. It is a form of taxation on carbon under another name. To tax carbon will lead to thousands of pages of regulation – a godsend to bureaucracy, but paralysing for initiative and industry.

Read it here.

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Today's "Gate" – Amazongate

26 January, 2010 by

Still there?

Another day, another spurious paper from IPCC AR4, as reported by James Delingpole in the UK Telegraph:

AGW theory is toast. So’s Dr Rajendra Pachauri. So’s the Stern Review. So’s the credibility of the IPCC. But if you think I’m cheered by this you’re very much mistaken. I’m trying to write a Climategate book but the way things are going by the time I’m finished there won’t be anything left to say: the battle will already have been won and the only people left who still believe in Man Made Global Warming will be the eco-loon equivalents of those wartime Japanese soldiers left abandoned and forgotten on remote Pacific atolls.

Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies [Cockney rhyming slang, “pork pie” = lie – Ed] about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.

This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:

At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees:

This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. According to IPCC rules, it should not have been used as a primary source.

There’s much more. Read it here. There is also a list of other WWF papers cited in IPCC AR4 at No Frakking Consensus.

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