Monday
May032010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Interacademies panel announced
May 3, 2010 Climate: IPCC H/T to Marcel Crok, who has noted the announcement of the Interacademies Panel, the group appointed by the UN to look at management and organisational issues at the IPCC in the wake of Climategate. There is a dedicated website for the review here.
The group will be headed by a Princeton economist, Harold T Shapiro, whose deputy will be Roseanne Diab, an emeritus professor of Environmental Science from South Africa. The rest of the panel are as follows:
- Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of the Foundation for the Support of Research in the State of São Paulo, Brazil and professor at the Gleb Wataghin Physics Institute at the University of Campinas;
- Maureen Cropper, professor of economics at the University of Maryland, senior fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C., and former lead economist at the World Bank;
- Jingyun Fang, Cheung Kong Professor and chair, department of ecology, Peking University;
- Louise Fresco, University Professor, University of Amsterdam, and former assistant director-general at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization;
- Syukuro Manabe, from Tokyo University and currently a senior meteorologist, Princeton University;
- Goverdhan Mehta, National Research Professor and Bhatnagar Fellow, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Nobel laureate
- Mario J. Molina (co-winner of 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and creator of a center in Mexico City for strategic studies of energy and the environment;
- Peter Williams, honorary treasurer and vice president, The Royal Society, London, chancellor of the University of Leicester, and chairman of the National Physical Laboratory;
- Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, secretary general, Human Frontier Science Program, Germany; and
- Abdul Hamid Zakri, senior adviser to the prime minister of Malaysia, and Tuanku Chancellor Chair, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Reader Comments (22)
more whitwash needed then you know the stuff costs £1000s and never does a good jot of hiding the decline
Should be interesting, but I am wondering what is the history of all these "eminent" people. And what their other connections are.
Since this was put together by the UN to examine itself, I have my doubts. At least they don't have Tom Sawyer on the panel, by name anyhow.
At least Goverdhan Mehta, of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, should be sensitive to IPCC's 35-year prediction of Himalayan glacier melt, and Pachauri's arrogant dismissal of the Indian government's correction as "voodoo science." I'm also glad to see that some of the panel members are from outside the close-knit 'climate science' field.
"I confess that I am increasingly uncomfortable with what is being called the travelling climate circus: this incessant and expensive series of conferences about the climate," Professor Louise O. Fresco wrote on December 12, 2008, in Der Spiegel. "I am far from being a climate skeptic," Fresco added. "But if I have to choose between alleviating hunger and poverty today and preventing CO2 emissions tomorrow, then I choose the former, in the firm conviction that only prosperity will lead to a change in mentality and the financing of energy-saving measures," she explained. "The elements of hype and carelessness I have come across are increasing," she wrote. "Attempts to present these issues as dramatically as possible come from the understandable frustration about the lack of success in the climate negotiations. The louder the calls for change, the less credible they become; and the slower the progress in the negotiations, the louder the calls. The climate problem is complex and tenacious and is not helped by an inaccurate presentation of the facts," Fresco wrote.
It appears to me that all of these people are far more interested in and skilled with policy and politics than they are in or with science and research.
First glance. Harold T. Shapiro chaired a "Committee on America's Energy Future" for the National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12710&page=R1
The forward includes this note: "Concerns are mounting about global climate change—a result, in large measure, of the fossil-fuel combustion that currently provides most of the world’s energy." Will there ever be a panel to investigate the IPCC, CRU, et al., anywhere, chaired by someone other than a global warming enthusiast?
5 from developing countries, 1 Japanese, 1 German, 1 Dutch : only two from the 'core' US-UK countries supporting the global warming assumption
Not too bad apparently, unless these gentlepersons are unconditional supporters of the IPCC process
Molina and Manabe are both big AGW advocates and shouldn't be on this panel.
"It appears to me that all of these people are far more interested in and skilled with policy and politics than they are in or with science and research."
May 3, 2010 | Redbone
As well they should be. The panel is not tasked with reviewing the science and research. Management experience is what's needed:
"...the InterAcademy Council is requested by the United Nations to undertake an independent review of the policies and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
"It appears to me that all of these people are far more interested in and skilled with policy and politics than they are in or with science and research."
May 3, 2010 | Redbone
As well they should be. The panel is not tasked with reviewing the science and research. Management experience is what's needed:
"...the InterAcademy Council is requested by the United Nations to undertake an independent review of the policies and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
May 3, 2010 | Jack Maloney
Then the purpose of the panel will not be to strengthen the scientific underpinnings of the IPCC, but only to provide guidance on how to strengthen the process by which the current conclusions are promoted.
Loose the hounds!
The purpose of the panel has nothing to do with the "scientific underpinnings of the IPCC." Its purview is restricted to IPCC policies and procedures.
One of the biggest problems with the IPCC - perhaps THE biggest - is that their procedures have not followed their own published policies.
This blog and others have revealed repeated IPCC failures: to enforce deadlines, respond to comments and corrections, check facts, distinguish between 'peer-reviewed' and 'gray' literature, acknowledge uncertainties, represent sceptical views, and respect the full spectrum of opinion within climate science. These failures have contributed greatly to the global collapse of respect for the IPCC. And Chairman Rajendra Pachauri's arrogant dismissal of critiques has backfired as he has been proven wrong repeatedly.
The Interacademies Panel has been called in by Ban Ki Moon to attempt some damage control and rescue the IPCC from self-destruction.
I do believe that Harold T. Shapiro has described climate change as 'moral' issue. So it would be interesting to find if any other panel members subscribe to that view.
Shapiro is an economatrician -- interesting
President Shapiro also announced today that the Ford Motor Company will be providing $5 million to the project. This is part of an emerging partnership between BP and Ford to address climate change concerns. "This farsighted grant from BP to launch the Carbon Mitigation Initiative is the largest single corporate commitment in Princeton’s history. Over the next ten years it will engage a large and diverse group of Princeton scientists and students who will focus their research on the impact of excess carbon on our environment. I am doubly pleased that the Ford Motor Company has joined with us and BP, affirming both the critical importance of reducing carbon and the need to combine resources to achieve it."
"I am doubly pleased that the Ford Motor Company has joined with us and BP, affirming both the critical importance of reducing carbon" May 3, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterbfbuddah
Ouch! I bet B.P. faces are a little red when they read that guff! They seem to have spilt a little "Carbon" over the last week!
We have a problem Houston:
It would appear that in Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker we have someone who believes that climate change science is 'absolutely unshakeable'.
http://www.bayer-foundations.com/en/News-Detail.aspx?id=8159
Winnacker was commenting on the work of Professor Peter Lemke after he won the Bayer Climate Award. Lemke is a scientist who believes that the IPCC 'underestimates' the impact of climate change.
Peter Lemke on winning the award, “I am delighted to have won the Bayer Climate Award. First, I very much appreciate the recognition of the contributions my colleagues and I have made to climate science. Second, an award of this kind also encourages me to keep going and continue my research to obtain a better understanding of the links between sea ice and the climate.”
Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, Secretary General of the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, remarked that Lemke’s research work has focused for more than 30 years on issues that have been brought to the center of the general public’s attention as a result of the ongoing debate on climate change: Changes in sea ice serve as a barometer for climate change. Referring to the skepticism that the results of climate research and the challenges of climate change sometimes meet, Winnacker aptly noted: "While misleading information from some other quarters may generate an atmosphere of hysteria and confusion, it's clear that the data gathered by Lemke on the links between sea ice, ocean and the atmosphere are scientifically grounded. For what will soon be over four decades, Peter Lemke has carried out outstanding, solid scientific work that has proved to be absolutely unshakeable."
Absolutely unshakeable?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
How can there be a review of IPCC processes and procedures when the basic science is not being questioned?
People like Lemke have made a career out of a flawed hypothesis that sea ice globally is receding fast. To have people like Winnacker state that such science is 'absolutely unshakeable' reveals a closed mindset to the problems that currently beset climate science.
We have the growing likelihood of another WHITEWASH review.
Some covered by others but here we go:
Harold T Shapiro
Member of Bretton Woods Committee
http://www.brettonwoods.org/members/
"We approach this review with an open mind," Shapiro said in a statement of the committee appointed by the Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council (IAC), which groups national science academies. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6422X620100503?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Trustee, Alfred P Sloan Foundation
http://www.sloan.org/pages/6/board-of-trustees
Roseanne Diab
http://www.geography.ukzn.ac.za/staff_academic.asp?RecordVAR=87
Support for the Triple Trust Organisation in developing community trainer’s skills for environmental education
Funders: WWF-SA Primary Grant Holders: Roseanne Diab and Jennifer Houghton
http://www.geography.ukzn.ac.za/cem/reports/CEM%20Annual%20Report%202002-2003.pdf
PROJECT TITLE: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLAN TRAINING FOR TOURISM ENTERPRISES
CLIENT: WORLD WIDE FUND FOR NATURE-SOUTH AFRICA
DONOR: EUROPEAN UNION
DURATION: JUNE 2003-FEBRUARY 2004
BUDGET: Total Income: R 342,000
Maureen Cropper
Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, http://www.rff.org/About_RFF/Pages/Staff.aspx
RFF Board of Directors includes David G. Hawkins Director of the Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council and Kathryn Fuller, former president of WWF-USA, now Chair of the Ford Foundation
Cropper is an "Environmental Economist", she has written about Global Environmental Sustainability—Protecting the Commons, a major feature of Contract and Converge, transferring wealth from rich countries to poor countries. She wrote this in 2008: She quotes extensively from AR4 and makes these comments:
"..failure to mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the earth’s climate may lead to disastrous changes in temperature and precipitation and an increase in extreme weather events.
Barring rapid developments in geo-engineering, reducing the probability of large changes in climate calls for stabilizing the stock of GHGs in the atmosphere. This will require significant reductions in GHG emissions from non-mitigation levels. We discuss recent trends in total emissions and in the emissions intensity of GDP. While equity requires that total emissions and emission per capita be allowed to grow for developing countries, emissions per unit of GDP must eventually decline if emissions are to be stabilized and world GDP is to continue to grow.
The world has made progress in dealing with climate change through establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The impacts of human activities on climate are already occurring and will continue even if immediate action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Louise O. Fresco
She is a member of the Socio-Economic Council of The Netherlands, the highest advisory body of the country. Beyond her scientific work serves as a non-executive director of Unilever International and as a board member of Rabobank, one of the largest cooperative banks in the world.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/economicnews/view/1022585/1/.html
Dec 2009
"The global carbon trading market could grow to over a trillion US dollars in the next five years, from its current size of over US$100 billion.
The carbon trading market is currently heavily reliant on the Kyoto Protocol - which allows industrialised countries to purchase carbon credits from green business initiatives to balance out carbon emissions.
Jotdeep Singh, regional head, Renewable Energy & Carbon Credits, Rabobank International said: "I think in the coming weeks and months with the clarity that emerges from Copenhagen, even if there is no final legally binding mechanism that emerges, I think the momentum at the moment appears to be in the right direction."
http://www.ecbs.org/banks/netherlands/rabobank/view-details.html
The Rabobank Group facilitates emissions trading through CLIMEX, an electronic trading platform. CLIMEX also organises auctions of CO2 credits for a range of European public-sector organisations. Rabobank International’s Commodity & Weather Derivatives Group trades in CO2 rights and certified emission rights for large corporate customers.
Syukuro Manabe
http://en.invest.china.cn/english/environment/137958.htm Aug 2005
The first scientist in the world to build computer models predicting climate change, Professor Manabe, from the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University, is known as the forefather of greenhouse gas.
"As the concentration of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor, increase in the atmosphere, more water on the earth's surface will evaporate, he said. And because the air can't hold that much water, there will be more precipitation. "But the change is not uniform everywhere. Some places get drier while other places get more water," Manabe said."
Goverdhan Mehta
Past President of the International Council for Science (ICSU) http://www.icsu.org/5_abouticsu/INTRO.php
"Currently, there are four global environmental change programmes co-sponsored by ICSU—the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) and DIVERSITAS (an international programme on biodiversity). Together, these programmes promote, coordinate and integrate over 2 billion euros of research and provide the scientific basis for major international assessments and conventions, including the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
In a powerpoint slide from an Earth System Science Partnership, (ESSP), presentation, in 2008, Susan Solomon says almost half of the contributors to IPCC AR4 are WCRP/IGBP/IHDP/Diversitas associated scientists.
http://unfccc.int/files/methods_and_science/research_and_systematic_observation/application/pdf/essp_part_1.pdf
Here are Solomon’s very revealing figures:
· 91% of Co-ordinating Lead Authors on AR4 were members of this grouping
· 66% of Lead Authors on AR4 were members of this grouping
· 68% of reviewers on AR4 were from this grouping
· 31% of contributing authors were from this grouping
World Climate Research Program, (WRCP) an offshoot of the WMO.
Kevin Trenberth is Chairman of WRCP Observations and Assimilation Panel. Trenberth is currently head of Climate Analysis at NCAR.
www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/wcrp/documents/S10_WCRP_ReanalysesLtr.pdf
International Geosphere – Biosphere Program (IGBP) http://www.igbp.net/
ICSU appointees to IGBP include Ray Bradley, Jean Palutikof, a former Director of CRU and now spreading the message in Australia.
http://www3.griffith.edu.au/03/ertiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=16801
International Human Dimensions Program on Global Climate Change, (IHDP), is more global governance by the UN, http://www.ihdp.unu.edu/
Diversitas is another group-think eco-catastrophe outfit with Paul Ehrlich on its advisory board. http://www.diversitas-international.org/ Its founding sponsors are the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) and the International Union of Biological Science (IUBS)
The Indian Institute of Science has many links with Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute and originally was set up as a Tata foundation.
Mario Molina
http://physicalsciences.ucsd.edu/news/archives/2009/viva_la_vida_greenfutures.pdf
Green Futures Special Publication on Mexico’s search for a sustainable future, supported by the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Dialogues, WWF, TUI Travel PLC, Grupo Bimbo and Unilever.
"Mario Molina shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his work on CFCs and the depletion of the ozone layer. Long associated with efforts to improve air quality in megacities, he has more recently become an internationally recognised voice on climate change.
A member of WWF-México’s Senior Advisory Council, he is involved in shaping current Mexican policy on this issue. And, as Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California at San Diego, he has also joined US President Obama’s transition team, leading a group on science and technology policy."
Sir Peter WILLIAMS FRS
Vice President and Treasurer of the Royal Society
Ernst-Ludwig WINNACKER
Former President of the German Research Foundation (DFG), also a member is John Schellnhuber, of the Potsdam Institute and Climate Adviser to Chancellor Merkel.
Abdul Hamid ZAKRI
Executive Board of International Council for Science (ICSU).
Director, Centre for Global Sustainability Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia
As you can see, a nicely independent panel, sharing a wide diversity of views, bringing an objective approach to the task of reviewing the IPCC
In a lecture in 2008 Harold T Shapiro stated that climate change was a 'moral' issue.
It is hard to believe that someone can have an open scientific mind on an issue of substance whilst taking a moral stance.
Thank you DennisA -- nicely done, and not in the least surprising.
I wonder how thick they will slap on the white wash this time?
I found it interesting that RTE Nationwide did a 25 minute show on the weather in Ireland, in which several people stated that the past winter was the coldest on record, including one woman at the Met Éireann.
http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1071874
They had a Donegal postman who correctly predicted the winter weather last fall using folklore forecasting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gallagher_%28postman%29
Now, here is a post man able to predict the weather far more accurately than all those fancy models can. Makes you wonder about the money we are wasting on it.
http://www.presse.bayer.de/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/D621100BE4512544C125770D003989B2?Open&ccm=000&presskit=1
Above is the speech given by Prof. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker at the presentation of the Bayer Climate Award 2010 for Professor Peter Lemke. One particular paragraph gives an insight into Winnacker's thinking of the role the IPCC undertakes:
"Two highlights particularly worthy of mention are his (Lemke) six years as Chair of the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme from April 2000 to March 2006, and his role as coordinating lead author of Chapter 4 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report entitled "Observations: Snow, Ice and Frozen Grounds". The latter also marks the very first time the cryosphere had been included in an IPCC report. There are extremely close links between these two areas of activity. The World Climate Research Programme develops the scientific basis required for the analysis of the world's climate. This in turn feeds into the IPCC's reports in order to inform and influence climate policy."
Here we have a good example of how an Inter-Academy panel member (Winnacker) views the actions of a leading climate scientist who is also a lead IPCC author (Lemke). A view that results in Winnacker to state that the science is 'absolutely unshakeable'.
However WG1 Chapter 4 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report entitled "Observations: Snow, Ice and Frozen Grounds" uses grey literature, 15% in total references, to substantiate its claims.
Now that is in stark contrast to IPPC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, who recently stated, "the IPCC relies entirely on peer reviewed literature in carrying out its assessment."
So the process that Winnacker claims produces 'absolutely unshakeable' science is actually seriously flawed.
Now if Winnacker can be that blinkered on actual process what are the chances that the other Inter-Academy panel members will be too?
The Inter-Academy panel's stated 'open-mindness' is seriously compromised by having Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker as a member.
My two cents' worth: The panel will advise the IPCC to avoid the obvious shooting-oneself-in-the-foot practices, most notably in the use of grey literature. And to include some token contrary opinion in the supporting sections.
However, the executive summary of IPCC's AR5 will maintain the same overstated certainty about the exaggerated negative effects of an inflated temperature change. There are plenty of peer-reviewed articles to cite, with more being churned out monthly, without having to cite WWF or their ilk, so there is really little difficulty in maintaining the IPCC bias while avoiding egregious references.
Cynical? I guess so, although I submit that it is quite plausible.
I found it interesting that RTE Nationwide did a 25 minute show on the weather in Ireland, in which several people stated that the past winter was the coldest on record, including one woman at the Met Éireann.
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francis gibbin
Football Academys