This is a translation of an article in the Norwegian newspaper Forskning. The original article was by Bjørnar Kjensli and the machine translation was tidied and corrected by readers Messenger and Geir Hasnes.
A German climate researcher says that people are beginning to lose faith in climate research, pointing to the IPPC as one of the main causes. Norwegian IPCC veterans disagree about what the organization should do about it.
After a winter of setbacks and disclosure of mistakes, many different ideas have been put forward about what can be done about the IPPC and these ideas abound in newspapers and in journals such as Nature and Science. One of the most vociferous critics has been Hans von Storch. He is a professor of meteorology at the University of Hamburg, director of the Institute for Coastal Research at GKSS in Geestacht and was the main author of the chapter on regional climate in Working Group 1 (WG1) of the Third IPCC Assessment Report (AR3), which was published in 2001.
On 22 April 2010 he was in Oslo, where he addressed the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in a lecture containing a number of objections to the IPCCs current way of working. The presentation of the lecture, you can see here.[link]
Not skeptic but a critic
Von Storch has long been critical of the way the IPCC has dealt with scientific uncertainty, and was himself described in less than flattering terms in some of the disputed emails released from the CRU at the University of East Anglia last November.
The man behind the hockey stick curve, Professor Michael Mann wrote, among other things, in an email to Phil Jones, the head of the University of East Anglia Climate Centre, that "Von Storch is a strange guy", and that it would not surprise him if he was really a climate skeptic. Von Storch says he has nothing against being a strange guy, but he is not in any doubt that anthropogenic emissions are leading to climate change. He is however very critical of the internal processes of the IPCC and the role of chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.
Von Storch also says that the current low confidence in the IPCC and climate research field is not because people do not believe that greenhouse gases affect climate, but that the main problems are the politicisation[printing error?] of the field of climate research and poor handling of criticism and objections.
A need for stronger guidelines
The IPCC was established to give advice to politicians about climate science and policy, and one of the panel's main goals is to be "policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy prescriptive". This means that the panel should not put pressure on authorities to implement specific measures nor prescribe how nations should choose to do them.
Von Storch and colleagues wrote in an article in the German newspaper Der Spiegel that the IPCC had failed its mission in this area, and that this can be illustrated by some of Pachauri's initiatives over the past year. Pachauri has urged people to eat less meat; said that 350 ppm is an appropriate measure for the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, despite the fact that the IPCC itself has not agreed to such a goal, and he has also encouraged the U.S. to strengthen their policy positions in relation to action against climate change.
Von Storch believes it is urgent that the IPCC have better guidelines about possible conflicts of interest and that the distinction between politics and science must be made clearer.
We cannot ignore the IPPC's use of grey literature
Knut H. Alfsen, research director at CICERO, [NOTE: Cicero is founded and funded by the Norwegian government to combat climate change and is wholly faithful to the AGW theory] was one of 10-15 main authors of the third part (WG3) of the fourth and most recent IPCC report (AR4). This chapter looked at how to limit emissions and included much grey literature - reports and studies not published in peer-reviewed research journals.
The report of Working Group 2 (WG2), which included the chapter entitled "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability", was the one which used the most grey literature [this is not true, 34% against 57% og WG3, but the numbers are correct, 2849 refs against WG3’s 2307] and it was also the one where the error of exaggeration of the likely glacier melt in the Himalayas was discovered in December. The assertion that the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt away by 2035 proved to be derived from a quote from an Indian expert in an article in the New Scientist, although much of the grey literature used has been found to be from industry and interest groups such as WWF and Greenpeace.
Alfsen says it would be hopeless to exclude the knowledge that exists in industry and elsewhere but that has not been published in a scientific journal [scientifically can include books and reports]. He has confidence in the IPCC guidelines, which, among other things, says that all grey literature should be openly available.
Of course, this is problematic from a purely scientific standpoint, although for Working Group 1 at least there was no problem, for all their material was taken from published and peer-reviewed research [Ed: I don't think this is true].
IPCC may employ its own scientists
Alfsen is also committed to getting the budget of the IPPC increased, currently representing about 40 million krone annually, which would allow them to use some of the money to hire full-time scientific researchers.
In any discussion on the reorganization of the IPCC, it would have to be decided how much we could actually devote to this. If one had had more resources, one could think of having several employed researchers, or you could find other ways to bring them on board.
He states that, the IPCC cannot be seen in the same way as any other organization and that criticism of the IPCC, which runs on the conflation of politics and science, is because people do not fully understand what the organization is trying to do.
The main point of the IPCC is to try to create a bridge between science and politics, and this has meant that the IPCC has had enormous success in persuading all the world's governments to accept the facts they have put forward.
- The down side of this, it has been alleged, is that politicians in a way control what the IPPC are able to say. I believe this is not the case, and that it is the IPPC reports alone which indicate that that the part of the process that science alone controls is well founded, and that it is this that is the main part of the reports of the IPCC.
However, Alfsen said he thinks we will shortly see a comprehensive IPCC reform.
-Policy analysis does not fit well with pure scientific analysis, and it will probably be necessary to separate these two types of activities.
After the media storm experienced at the IPPC, he can imagine that the volunteer scientists involved eventually get tired of dealing with it. One essential reform, Alfsen concludes, would be for the IPPC to have its own communications department.
Better media management
Eystein Jansen, of the Bjerknes Centre, [NOTE: This also is founded and funded by the Norwegian government to work with AGW] was coordinating lead author in Working Group 1 (WG1) of the IPCC assessment report referred to by Alfsen, and worked on the chapter on paleoclimatology. He supports the proposal to strengthen the IPCC's media management and dissemination of information, and believes the organization has now recognized that it is essential to have more professionalism in these areas.
The IPCC has realized that they will have to increase the budgets for central staff, including those that deal with the media, and I believe, among other things, this has been realized as a result of all the furore there has been in the last few months.
Jansen also said, "I think the organization has underestimated the need to communicate in a professional manner, and I also believe that the dissemination of the contents of the reports could have been done better."
The danger of internal group-think
Jansen, however, is strongly opposed to the IPCC employing their own researchers.
With internally employed researchers there is a danger that they will form an internal cult, and I rather support the open recruitment method employed today.
Read more about how the IPCC reports are put together here.[link]
He says that three-quarters of the personnel of the Working Group 1 was changed between the third and fourth assessment reports, and he thinks it is important to maintain such a degree of renewal each time.
Stricter guidelines for grey literature
In his lecture at the Academy of Sciences Von Storch appeared puzzled that all the serious flaws in the latest IPCC report had apparently been made by working group 2. In one chapter several errors and exaggerations were detected concerning sea level rise in the Netherlands and glacier melt in the Himalayas. Jansen says some of the problem was caused by too little use of experts in Working Group 1, and that there was insufficient time for the researchers to spend on technical cooperation.The results were seen specifically in the Himalayas case.
"If we had gone an extra round and had enough time, we would have detected this error immediately."
He says that this issue was addressed in the evaluation made in the previous assessment report, and that before the next report is completed in 2014, the two groups should be given more time. In addition, he believes that Working Groups 2 and 3 are going to have to refine the guidelines for the use of grey literature."
They must be stricter in this area" says Jansen. "It is better not to draw conclusions, if one finds that there is no basis in the scientific literature".