Bishop Hill AR5 Second Order Draft leaked
Dec 13, 2012 Climate: IPCC A website called Stop Green Suicide has just published the full second order draft of the Fifth Assessment Report. The big news, it seems, is that solar has been given an increased focus as a climate forcing.
Compared to the First Order Draft, the SOD now adds the following sentence, indicated in bold (page 7-43, lines 1-5, emphasis added):
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.
Read the whole thing. If it's unavailable, try Anthony.
[Updated to link to original source of the leak]
Reader Comments (92)
Geoff,
Here is something. May as well be nothing though.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/human-climate-link-firms-20121214-2bfdi.html
Leo Hickman has just written about it..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/ipcc-climate-change-report-leaked-online
everyone must remember those in paid employment for the MSM, tend to work office hours...
(shame comments are off though)
The IPCC has just issued a statement
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/statement/Statement_WGI_AR5_SOD.pdf
which seems a bit self-contradictory. The first paragraph says that the leak interferes with the review process. The second paragraph says the review ended on 30 November.
For those of you getting excited by this "big news", you might reflect upon the treatment given it by AM. He doesn't give it his usual interpretation or spin, and the news only "seems" to be big. My guess is that this is a big embarrassment to sensible sceptics who would like to be part of the IPCC process - those who want to be seen as responsible and able to be trusted with reviewing the documents without leaking what they think to be juicy bits. As for juice, there is none. This is a storm in a teacup. Again.
Check Roger Pielke's twitter account for various interesting snippets from the IPCC WG1 draft:
"AR4 cnclusns regarding global incrsing trends in hydrological droughts since the '70s r no longer supported"
"Studies that directly attribute tropical cyclone activity changes to anthropogenic greenhouse gases emission are lacking"
"low confdnce in any long term increases in tropical cyclone activity and low confdnce in attributing global changes to any partcular cause"
projected sea level rise to 2100, range of scenarios is 29cm to 82 cm, middle estimate from 2 middle scenarios is 50cm.
Ch2: "there is currently no clear and widespread evidence for observed changes in flooding" excpt timing of snowmelt
Ch2: "low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale"
IPCC draft Ch2 on drought: "The current assessment does not support the AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in droughts"
IPCC on trop cyclones "AR4 assessment needs to be somewhat revised with respect to the confidence levels associated with observed trends"
IPCC draft Ch2 on trop cyclones: "current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency"
Bottom line IPCC trop cyclones same as SREX: "low confidence that any reported long term increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust"
"unlike in AR4, it is assessed here..there is low confidence of regional changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones"
Ross Lea
Thanks for the Jasper Kirkby interview link in the Guardian.
Kirkby has managed over long hard years to tread an incredibly difficult diplomatic tightrope- getting major international government funded climate research for a full experimental facility to investigate the natural cloud forming processes with the potential of completely derailing the anthropogenic CO2 paradigm, and at the same time avoid being pilloried as a sceptic.
sHx ,
Climate Change has nothing to do with communism or socialism because there isn't an iota of reference to class struggle in the debate.
===================
It's got to do with the idea of the big state and a command and control economy. These things aren't necessarily a feature of communism or socialism but all attempts to implement these have turned out that way. Practically, communists, socialists and leftists are keen on the idea of the state controlling all things and CAGW is a glorious excuse. It would be a problem which could only be tackled by global government action.
There's a religious aspect to this, but I've seen little to suggest it's specifically Christian, although Christian groups may have been bandwagon jumpers.
It's more like a New Age religion and harps back to the persistent idea of romantic primitivism. They seem to want to return us to a sentimental version of the Middle Ages.
Dec 14, 2012 at 2:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterBitBucket
So you say. Sounds more like knee jerk wishful thinking on your part than a well thought out opinion. The release allows us to see the draft before the politicos get down to polishing the turd. No one claims that this is a release of climategate proportions, it is just a peek behind the curtain.
I hope the good bishop won't mind me quoting Gen 8:22 on this subject:
"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
I wonder if anyone with knowledge of Hebrew would think it wrong to render 'cold and heat' with 'cooling and warming'?!
Let's hope the night - with reference to this issue - is gradually being replaced by day.
Religious discussions are not intended to be the subject of this post or indeed, of this blog.
@ Bish
But ecofascism is a religion.
Discussing climate pysence without mentioning religion is like discussing chips without mentioning potatoes.
Now that the Draft AR5 is in the public domain, we should start reviewing the report. Last night I have a quick look through the first few pages of SPM. Major points were.
1. No admission of lack of a recent rise in the surface temperature record.
2. But the lack of recent rise might accounted for by a step change in the warming rate in the Southern Ocean during the 1990s.
3. AR4 got it wrong on decreasing precipitation in the tropics (which underlay Africagate), and they got it wrong on increasing hurricanes.
4. Sea level rise is not accelerating. In fact the recent rise since 1993 is similar to the 1930-1950 period.
5. Global ice melt is not accelerating. Himalayas do not even get a mention.
6. AR4 massively overstated aerosols. The implication is that CO2 can no longer be shorthand for anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
7. Medieval Warm Period gains more recognition than in AR4. However, recent studies will render AR5 out of date before it is even published.
From the Guardian piece by Nuccitelli:
"On top of that, the hypothetical GCR process is a relatively rapid one. Cloud formation from GCR seeding should occur within days, and clouds have very short lifetimes. For GCRs to have a warming effect, solar activity must be increasing right now. It is not, in fact solar activity has been essentially flat and slightly declining in recent decades. Changes in solar activity from 60+ years ago have no bearing whatsoever on GCRs today."
He claims there is no time lapse between a change in GCRs and a change in cloud formation. Would someone please explain why that assumption is reasonable?
He points out that solar activity has been flat in recent decades and, therefore, could not explain warming. What about the flat-lining of warming we have seen for fifteen years?
I shall have buttons made.
"Trust not sceptics"
Dana Nuccitelli and the Guardian are made for each other.
Dana Nuccitelli has about 3 pages full of previousmention so far on the Bishop Hill search button, and rising. But for me the coup de grace comment he will forever be remembered for is the Amazon book review thread retrieved by Roger Dodd and posted on Sep 23, 2011 at 4:19 PM on page 3 of the Cook Timeline thread, where Dana Nuccitelli is cornered for not having read the HSI despite writing a disparaging Amazon book review of it.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/9/21/the-cook-timeline.html?currentPage=3#comments
J4R -
I think the Bish meant that discussions on (for example) the interpretation of the Bible have no place here - not that it was forbidden to discuss how belief in human-caused climate change has aspects to it similar to religious belief.
I think these include:
- Belief in human caused climate change as faith without evidence.
- A belief that only the Priesthood is qualified to pronounce on the subject.
- Similarity to South Pacific cargo cult religions, with a belief that the right rituals and incantations will result in great riches arriving from afar.
Ross Lea, Pharos
Jasper Kirkby has good reason to be cagey.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/08/26/lawrence-solomon-science-now-settled/
Bishop Hill,
Religious discussions are not intended to be the subject of this post or indeed, of this blog.
=======
Some bishop you turn out to be.
Yes I know, but I couldn't resist it.
clipe
Interesting. So is Lawrence Solomon. I liked his Wiki page. To have Wiki allow this in a bio profile must be worth credo-
' Solomon has written that he has had negative experiences editing Wikipedia. He has written columns criticizing Wikipedia's articles on global warming and other topics, including his own Wikipedia biography page, saying that they were edited by "zealots" and that Wikipedia was "modern propaganda."[22][23][24][25][26] He has also criticized the Wikipedia edits of William Connolley.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Solomon
I've only just seen this story - a busy patch of work, you know. Thanks to Paul Matthews for the fact-based reports throughout (so helpful to the lurker in a hurry), including the quotes from Pielke.
Martin A:
Without wishing to incur the Bish's ire, I think this is a key matter to think about - both the parallels and the contrasts. The translation of the Hebrew and Greek scriptures into everyday English was the moment in British history when the priesthood's iron grip was broken. Perhaps the leaking of AR5 SOD will come to mean the same. Plus Climategate, which showed the private doubts of the priesthood.
Dec 14, 2012 at 8:23 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A says: "I think these include:
"...- Similarity to South Pacific cargo cult religions, with a belief that the right rituals and incantations will result in great riches arriving from afar."
But Martin, great riches did arrive. Al gore's reported net worth is now over $100 million, over $80 billion of U.S. taxpayer money and on and on.
Re Theo Godwin
It's a reasonably reasonable assumption. GRC's create CCNs which may then agglomerate into clouds and provide a positive or negative feedback. That happens over a time span of minutes to hours. Dana then assumes that because these effects are rapid and chaotic, climate models should be able to simulate the effects between now and 2100. Climate modellers know that clouds are notoriously difficult to model over long intervals, hence the need to salt the models with aerosols which the FOD has just cast more doubt on.
I think a pretty big proportion of True Believers (in CAGW), even if they have studied "climate science", have studied it in a rote-learning fashion rather than as, say, physics students would study a subject, being taught to derive things from first principles. It is therefore beyond their comprehension that someone with, for example, a degree in chemistry, can quite easily (if they wish to devote the time to plough through) make sense of the subject and read its papers.
This explains the frequent comment by Believers along the lines that (to take just one example), since Andrew Montford is an accountant, it is a laughable that he should write a book detailing the shakiness of some aspects of climate science.
The doubts expressed in the CG1 emails were convincing to you and me that that the priesthood had its doubts. But don't forget that that has never reached the consciousness of most Believers.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:WxZ7RBJdxLoJ:probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/CERN-graph.doc+cern+graph+doc+solomon&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg02X1_wxQUVEikf8lKWQeI8UIs_V2e2WM3pXKz3dnMeEBdI6t4PhoMUxMNZzzllZfdwKxnJEvlQUZ0_SsNk5n0kCi_5jdb5yJxh56V4-3NmIwwbppo2VwIo95lbtbqyfVKTuYQ&sig=AHIEtbSOjrYiMJX_TS9ZUT5D3Kct3Wgfjg
Alex Rawls signed on as an IPCC reviewer and then broke his confidentiality agreement.
Having demonstrated that a willingness to lie for the cause is an acceptable tactic, how can he, and by association other sceptics, expect to be taken seriously henceforth when talking about the science?
Entropic man: if the science is OK, it should be able to overcome the publicity. If it is bad, it should die.
Agree entirely on the way the Believers tick Martin - but there are less of them than there were. There will always be some, I expect, throughout my lifetime. But their grip and that of the priests they revere has weakened. On the other hand there are many scamsters on the make, who don't necessarily believe at all, they just go along to get along. This was the same lethal combination that made the Nazis such a force (never ignore the base commercial motive, even in the heart of the Holocaust). But it won't turn out like the Nazis - for one thing it's global, based around UN institutions, and that's another part of the religious angle. Cheerful thought. But it's also (I'm tempted to say praise Jesus) weaker as a belief system by now than Naziism was in Germany by the 30s.
The other thing that occurs is that perhaps the real use of my analogy with translation of the scriptures into common English is the total opening of up of the GCMs and their executions, that currently take months to produce published results, on affordable machines, so that anyone can play around with them in any way they see fit. The mystery and apparent authority would disappear very quickly, if this happened, I believe. And another kind of priesthood would soon be down the dole office.
Entropic man,
May I call you Entropix?
It's no longer about "Alex"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/
"There is nothing in the new IPCC report about solar forcing that isn't already well known from the peer-reviewed literature."
-Michael Mann
Given what the IPCC is supposed to be, this is a tautology.
I congratulate the authors at WUWT for a) having framed the debate b) having leaked everything out so that the IPCC doesn't control the message, as Jo Nova points out.
I also read the SPM and it is little different from AR4 or earlier alarmist versions. This is all that most people ever read -- if they read anything. It is however the first order draft.
John O'Sullivan picks apart the contradictions in the leaked IPCC report which can be downloaded at the end of this article.
Careful reading required of the Guardian article:-
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, said that Rawls appeared to have broken the confidentiality agreement signed by reviewers: "As a registered reviewer of the IPCC report, I condemn the decision by a climate change sceptic to violate the confidentiality of the review process. The review of the IPCC report is being carried out in line with the principles of peer review which operate throughout academic science, including an expectation of high standards of ethical behaviour by reviewers. It is disappointing, if not surprising, that climate change sceptics have been unable to meet these high standards of ethical behaviour."
Perhaps Bob wrote it himself.
Stop Green Suicide can be forgiven for combining the scientific acumen of James Dellingpole with the journalistic ethics of Rebekah Brooks, but not for being wrong.
Martin A
Many of the "True Believers" appear unable to grasp the concept of the autodidact - and presumably don't read widely themselves.
What is happening in climate science is that the field is being retaken by true scientists from 'The True Believers'. The immediate reaction is from the shills for the carbon traders, like Bob Ward and the Committee on Climate Change.
But the really interesting part is the scientists who are turning, These comprise two groups. There are the older contrarians, of whom I am one, who having been trained before computers took over thought processes, have used absolute physics to prove the subject has been built on foundations of sand. Then there are the younger people who are sufficiently bright to be able to see past their indoctrination by the lefty academics who took over when it became compulsory to believe in Hansenkoism.
We are now getting the agonised reaction of people like Entropic man above, who see their religion being attacked by infidels. But the problem is science is absolute.If experiment disproves rancid theory, and this is truly rancid because it can only be believed by people with a poor physics ' education, then it dies.
Russell - nope, I think many honest scientists will welcome Alec Rawl's action. Go and read Forrest Mimms post at Watts Up for one example. And before you respond with a slur on his scientific acumen, I suggest you visit his site and peruse his CV and achievements.
And don't fail to read the rest of the collected works of Alec Rawls:
http://callofthepatriot.blogspot.com/search/label/Alec%20Rawls%20Error%20Theory
@Russell
since you're so keen on enlightenment - I daresay you've read the leaked AR5 stuff and can pass on a rational and referenced critique of what's there? Even an iddy biddy bit would be appreciated.
Alecm
Please tell my wife I've got religion. She's been trying to turn me Catholic for a third of a century!
I've been following the climate change debate since 1974 when John Hampson's concern over nuclear winter made people look at climate seriously. As far as my education and abilities allow, I judge the evidence to match the IPCC's interpretation quite well. I do not "believe" in it; that would be unscientific.
A tip for debaters,; resorting to rhetoric and insult in a scientific debate encourages one's opponents. It indicates one has run out of useful arguments.
Jo Nova reports on a critique of the AR5 draft by Christopher Monckton: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/12/unleashed-monckton-releases-his-ar5-reviewer-comments/
She notes 'Because the AR5 report is now leaked into the public domain, Christopher Monckton has released his AR5 review comments on the Lord Monckton Foundation site. Notably, Monckton does his absolute best to help the IPCC operate as a useful honest public service. In the most statesman like manner, Monckton even works from the principle that the IPCC’s credibility could theoretically be rescued. (How generous is he?) Monckton also provides a few peer reviewed papers that the team of hundreds of experts has missed — just the odd 450 references or so. As always, meticulously researched, carefully thought out, and with impeccable logic. The IPCC must be paying him well for this rigorous input… oh wait... '
The leaking of an AR5 draft report (why could it not be automatically available at every stage of its development?) and the exposure that this has given to substantial weaknesses in it will no doubt lead to a lot more spinning and obfuscation to help the IPCC make the best of a bad job. I wonder if the schemers behind the IPCC in the first place and whoever has picked up that baton since are getting a bit dismayed by it. It has been successful for them as a vehicle for enhancing political impact - wonderfully so from their viewpoint, depressingly so from mine. But now it may be seen as merely exposing the substantial weaknesses of the case that climate science workers have devised and defended for so long. Will the IPCC survive long enough to publish AR5? Probably - a too hasty extinction might get even environmental correspondents puzzled. But perhaps it can de-emphasise all that troublesome stuff, and just go big on sustainable development and 'solutions'? A commenter called Paul Marko on WUWT [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/19/why-doesnt-the-ar5-sods-climate-sensitivity-range-reflect-its-new-aerosol-estimates/#comments] draws attention to this, in my view sinister, comment in the once Scientific American:
'The final draft isn’t due until next fall and the leak highlights a need to consider updating the IPCC process. Global warming no longer needs confirmation—instead the world needs solutions to climate change’s challenges.'
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=leaked-report-confirms-human-induce-12-12-16]
The comment is from an associate editor of Scientific American, one David Biello. That magazine has been so strong on climate alarmism that it may well be a preferred outlet for testing the temperature, so to speak, of opinion on such a development. The recruitment of IPCC workers based on sex and geographical location rather than on scientific expertise was decided upon quite a while back. We may be seeing, in this SciAm quote, merely another phase of a grand plan.