Bishop Hill Andy Lacis comments
Feb 11, 2010 Climate: IPCC Andy Lacis has added some comments to the DotEarth thread prompted by my article here. Here are some excerpts:
First, let me state clearly that I view the IPCC AR4 Report as a very successful and useful scientific summary of our current understanding of global climate and global climate change....
...I believe that the review process needs to be clear and to the point so as not to be misunderstood, i.e., it is both barrels at point blank range, whenever warranted. From this you can see that science, or at least some aspects of the scientific process, make for a significantly ruthless game. If people perceive that your science might be questionable, they are expected to let you know about it in no uncertain terms. That is in part why the scientific review process has evolved to be anonymous. Science is about factual correctness, and not about consensus...
I am actually encouraged by the all criticisms that the IPCC AR4 report is receiving. This means that people are reading, and not ignoring, the report, and are (hopefully) forming a better understanding of the issues involved. Any science document when it is published, is being deliberately put forth as a public target to be ruthlessly attacked to see if it will withstand any and all criticisms that can be mustered. That is the nature of science. Factual correctness, and not consensus, is the objective. Thus, criticisms are welcome, encouraged, and solicited. Any errors large and small, omissions, or other shortcomings need to be identified and corrected. That, after all, is the science objective of the IPCC report.
The other aspect of the IPPC AR4 report is the political posturing component as exemplified by the Executive Summaries. Here, the need for group consensus appears to trump the need for factual correctness. This component of the report is of course a very important. After all, global climate change has important ramifications that are going to impact the environment, economy, and social fabric of virtually all of the nations participating in the report. (Why else would they address policy makers in the report if that were not the case?)
The most severe criticisms of my IPCC review were leveled at this political consensus aspect of the IPCC report that tended to spill back unto how the science was being described and presented. More on this topic later.
I think that's a pretty useful set of statements, and corroborates what I've been saying about politicisation of the reports and the unscientific nature of the alleged IPCC consensus.
Reader Comments (10)
Yes Andy Lacis I am reading, the report, such parts as maybe reported from time to time, such as your comments on this blog.
And this is my criticism of the "science" in your comments:
Your statement "Not all of the forcings and feedbacks are known with unquestionable accuracy... the documented changes in CO2, CH4, N2O, and CFCs are very accurately known .. As a result, the greenhouse effect of the Earth's atmosphere has been made significantly stronger, and there is no alternative but for the global surface temperature to warm in order to re-establish energy balance with the absorbed solar radiation. All this has to be accounted for in the observed temperature record, as of course it has been in many climate change simulations conducted with climate GCMs that include all of the relevant physics and climate forcings.", is obviously patently wrong.
Of course there are alternatives to the global surface temperature to warm in order to re-establish energy balance with the absorbed solar radiation. What you have left out is: there is no alternative but for the global surface temperature to warm in order to re-establish energy balance with the absorbed solar radiation, all other things remaining equal. This is a very big caveat, and in our climate all other things DO NOT remain equal.
From the Earth's climatic history during the last 800,000 years, when the Earth's temperatures have fluctuated like a yo-yo, plunging into 8 ice-ages to emerge, briefly into warm interglacials, like the one we are in now, invariably the Earth plunged into an ice age when the CO2 levels were rising, and continued to rise, while the temperatures plunged.
Clearly there were other forcings and feedbacks far more powerful than CO2. In fact the earlier part of your statement, contradicts the latter part. How on earth can "attribution" become a self-evident conclusion when "Not all of the forcings and feedbacks are known with unquestionable accuracy"?
And as a matter of fact "all this has not been accounted for in the observed temperature record", as you claim, even as of today, as the Earth has not warmed while CO2 has continued to increase.
This post in fact encouraged me to have a look at the comments of the first and second draft and the overwhelming impression I got was of the uncertainty of the science, which AGW protagonists quote with such certainty.
Drawing your attention to Chip Knappenberger's calculation that just 0.061C per decade of warming is left in the post 1950 record when corrected for recently discovered factors:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/02/why-the-epa-is-wrong-about-recent-warming/
This strikes me as a key finding. It implies half a degree per century. Not scary.
Thanks Optimist. Looks interesting.
And this about "Stratospheric Water Vapor is a Global Warming Wild Card"
Remember all climate models predict that warming caused by CO2 will cause water vapour to increase, and hence more warming. That is the positive feedback that all GCM's have built into them. But surprise surprise, data currently in shows what??!! Good grief - "A 10 percent drop in water vapor ten miles above Earth’s"!
“Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect,” says Susan Solomon, NOAA senior scientist and first author of the study.
There are more things in heaven and earth, apparently, than are dreamt of by the IPCC.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100128_watervapor.html
Yeah, I think you are exonerated.
Unbelievable. Lacis is either a good PR spinner or he has consulted with one. "That is the nature of science." Way to frame the scandal. Isn't the scientific vetting/method supposed to happen before the report is submitted to the world as the basis for policy recommendations?
The US Supreme Court used the IPCC AR4 as a basis to force the EPA to buck executive policy. See "chili palmer" comments: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/for-the-ipcc-ar4-weather-events-are-climate-looks-like-another-retraction-is-needed/
or read the 5-4 decision for yourself:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
It had already been set in stone that 'something must be done'. For political reasons this could not be achieved based on the uncertain science which leaves the consensus approach. Many modern politicians have no interest in being 'right' just in leading a herd of sheep. Right off a cliff if needs be but, so long as there is a genuine consensus of opinion they cannot be blamed for the results of those policies.
Politicians and the IPCC quickly came to a consensus amongst themselves but this is too narrow for policy decisions - a true wide ranging consensus is required or conflicting views will bring things to a halt. If voters and taxpayers in particular are not part of that consensus you will not have their support or money for your policy decisions and do yourself out of a job.
Politicians and the IPCC decided to achieve the consensus they need by lying that the science was settled.
Here is a very interesting post:
'IPCC Admits It Doesn't Do Science'
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/12721
That puts a nice perspective on Dr Lacis' comments.
But since his criticism was correct- the IPCC is using press release and and propganda/fund raising junk to make its case, why is he suddenly so happy with it?
It is not like they removed the source of his cimplaint.
"After all, global climate change has important ramifications that are going to impact the environment, economy, and social fabric of virtually all of the nations participating in the report. (Why else would they address policy makers in the report if that were not the case?)"
Wellll, what IF there is not any important ramifications? what if, even witha 2 deg rise, the ol'earth keeps on chgging along spinning on her axis, and wobbling on her axis. There will be another ice age in about 8,000 years or less. We better enjoy the heat while we can.
The whole crux of any AGW argument is that dire, severe, unprecidented things will happen if we don't stop it. Well, what if that doesn't happen? Do we truely think we can control a large scale, open ended dynamic system like the earth's atmosphere?
We think we have power. We make A bombs and H bombs. But a Mt. St Helens shows us just how little power we have. It was the equivalent of 20 A bombs a second (or something like that) for over a couple of hours. I'm nopt certain humanity could raise the temp of the earth by 5 degrees, even if we spent all of our resources trying to do it.
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