Monday
Feb132012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Praise for the IPCC
Feb 13, 2012 Climate: IPCC The IPCC is on the receiving end of some praise from the slightly surprising quarter of Quadrant magazine in Australia (it's not all good news for the IPCC though). Richard Betts gets a somewhat critical mention.
Reader Comments (87)
I wouldn't read too much in to Richard Betts lack of apology, probably just following the standard procedure at the time for dealing with 'denialists'? So maybe after the exposure he has had here his response today to such an issue would be more cautious?
Anyway, pity the journalist didn't bother to read the games of secrecy that the evil anti-Christ McIntyre has been covering. Then the journalist might not be so charitable about the IPCC's procedures eyc.
Mailman
Mailman
I think Richard has demonstrated his bona fides. Stepping down is hard to do in this arena.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that simply correcting the transposition of two captions (or descriptions or legends) has to go through a convoluted bureaucratic process. Do the original lead authors need to give their personal imprimatur to correcting every typo — because that essentially is what it is — found years later?
I agree that you can't just let anyone do it or you'd end being 'Connellised' but there's no need to make a production number out of it, surely. Just get the guy who signed off on it in the first place ... oops! that might mean someone having to admit to being less than perfect. Sorry.
And some criticism of the IPCC's draft 5th report here.
Discussed at nofrakkingconsensus.
Agreed Your Majesty (or what ever it is you call a bishop:), in fact it appears that admitting one is wrong is an impossibility for a climate scientist.
But all due respect to Richard for coming here in the first place. May it carry on and may more climate scientists dip their toes in the water with us 'deniers'. They may even find the water isn't as hot as they thought it was :)
Regards
Mailman
Some praise? Faint praise. Informative article though, and another reminder to the beast that it is being watched very carefully by impressive journalists. And talking of impressive journalists, Donna Laframboise has noted a sign that crucial scientific matters will be 'taken for granted' in the next IPCC blockbuster. She reports on a draft-reviewer who states All fourteen chapters of the IPCC report start from the assumption that atmospheric CO2 is a dominant forcing agent for global temperature. [ [http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/12/closed-minds-at-the-ipcc/]
Now this might seem like a smart move on the part of the IPCC, since their scientific foundation is so frail and so beset with schemers and dreamers, that is has been substantially eroded in scientific and in moral terms. Like the Earth Summit in Rio, backing away from 'climate change' because their perspective on it is in such a mess, the IPCC may well back away from climate science for the same reason.
That old joke about a famous assassination comes to mind. "Yes, yes, apart from all that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?". We might look forward to lots of discussion, and of course. solemn warnings, about their equivalent of 'the play' at both Rio and from the spin-masters of the IPCC. If so, I hope they will enjoy extensive and deep derision - enough perhaps to finish them off as influential players on the world stage.
Hmm.
Dear Lord, how did they ever become 'influential' - an indictment surely to the enormous and scurrilous politically motivated promotion of the whole sorry delusion [CAGW], which is now fast disappearing up its own fundament.
Vanishing, because of the candid hard-boiled practical minded approach of most of the western world to their [IPCC] siren calls; of hollow and [amateur] error laden, doom mongering guff.
And, when the bbc took up the alarmist battle cry, you just knew it was BS.
The IPCC consensus is not just wrong, it is fundamentally and clearly incompetent. And the truth is, no climate scientist has bona fides, their science is a rather complete sham and they have all failed the public.
Fiction does not need to be corrected by novelists.
Correction of a years old report will not be an issue.The report has long since had the effects it was intended to have had, policies and laws will have been framed based upon it, "education" of impressionable minds will have taken place, it will have been used by the MSM to hammer home the message to the general public.
Quietly changing history with no fanfare costs them nothing. They already have the rewards of their "errors".
Far from praise for the IPCC, the Tony Thomas article was dripping with irony as it exposed the UN agency's propensity for errors and resistance to correcting them. Well done, Quadrant!
Damning with faint praise?
Damning with ironic praise?
I recognize that there are serious difficulties with making corrections to reports done by working groups long ago which have disbanded.
Still, given that the IPCC purports to issue authoritative guidance to all the worlds' govts, journalists, and populations there needs to be a system for rapid re-examination of reported or alleged errors.
One can't have Orwellian re-writings of the history from any perspective, but there ought to be a reliable process for corrections.
correction, *** "all the world's govts...." ***
There does seem to be a problem with the IPCC recognizing and correcting its own errors, though.
Mac
Science fiction writers, to be taken seriously, must be fairly careful about the science they are using. These clowns simply ignore basic scientific principles and well established laws of physics. Only J. K. Rowling can get away with boiling water by throwing ice into it, and even then she admits to using magic.
The IPCC likes the money they get, and the climate scientists love their part in it. Neither of them wants to have the gravy-train stop and they'll fight tooth and nail not to diminish the alarmism. It's a huge amount of money each year. The sad part is the tax payer is never asked if they're willing to fund this.
This link shows FOI information received recently in the UK from Universities etc, that adds up to about 300 million GBP annually taken from taxpayers to fund climate "research". What do the sceptics get again??
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/uk-universities-receive-72-million-p-a-for-climate-research/
That article is incorrect. I did tell the IPCC about the error (which is why they corrected it) and I also told Donna I was doing that. The writer of that article has not contacted me for comment on this.
If you take out the story line you are left with the scientific props and none of it makes sense.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100014867/vat-on-household-fuel-must-be-scrapped-as-hypothermia-deaths-double/
Check this story out about fuel poverty
Can we move to make VAT on fuel VIEWED as a green tax
Richard: Agreed, the writer should have contacted you.
But, the writer was also critical of the communication you had with Donna.
IIRC, and memory is a funny thing, did you also not criticize Donna for not checking the facts listed on the IPCC web page?
Richard Betts
What goes around, comes around, Richard.
Richard Betts
the issue is that you made a public declaration that Donna made an error and then made no apology when you found it was not her error.
Have you made both a public and personal apology to Donna for mis-identifing who made the error?
Quardrant reports:
"...Simultaneously, IPCC insider Dr Richard Betts, from the UK Met Office, and himself a 2007 lead author, had been reading her book and snapped that she needed to ‘check more carefully’ about the researcher’s title.
Donna checked the actual IPCC report on the web and confirmed that the error was by the IPCC itself.
Betts then conceded to her, via Twitter, that the IPCC had wrongly categorised five "Contributing Authors" as "Lead Authors", and omitted names of a dozen "Lead Authors".
That was it. He made no apology..."
Feb 13, 2012 at 8:11 PM | Les Johnson
I wasn't as critical as the article makes out, and it was me that spotted that the error was actually on the IPCC's own online version of AR4 and I told Donna that. I thought that Donna and I had cleared the air on that, so I'm not happy about this Mr Thomas (the journalist) making it look like I behaved unreasonably, nor the implication that I was somehow going against IPCC protocols.
May I ask people to refrain from commenting further on the portion of this newspaper article which mentions me? I believe it to be inaccurate and reflecting badly on my character.
May I also ask Bishop Hill not to let any such comments pass moderation, if anyone ignores my request?
(Thank you for your supportive comments above, about me having "demonstrated my bona fides")
Feb 13, 2012 at 8:37 PM | Ed Forbes
No that is not the issue. You are simply believing what Mr Thomas has written, without questioning it. This is how gossip and defamation get spread.
I am not going to discuss this matter here. I will be looking back through Twitter records to see what Donna and myself actually said to each other.
In the meantime, please do not repeat or discuss any of the remarks made in that article about me.
In fact, Bishop Hill, to stop matters getting more complicated for us all, please can you simply remove from your blog any posts which repeat any remarks about me from that article? Thanks!
Feb 13, 2012 at 8:37 PM | Ed Forbes
No that is not the issue. You are simply believing what Mr Thomas has written, without questioning it. This is how gossip and defamation get spread.
I am not going to discuss this matter here. I will be looking back through Twitter records to see what Donna and myself actually said to each other.
In the meantime, please do not repeat or discuss any of the remarks made in that article about me.
In fact, Bishop Hill, to stop matters getting more complicated for us all, please can you simply remove from your blog any posts which repeat any remarks about me from that article? Thanks!
Ricahrd: yes, memory is a funny old thing, isn't it?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/11/04/when-the-ipcc-makes-an-error-is-it-the-journalists-fault/
OK, I am not here to praise the IPCC, but to bury it.
I have a post up on why the current IPCC global energy model is complete fiction, using the latest images from NPP Soumi to illustrate its short comings.
Les Johnson
Thanks for that reminder link to Donna's site. Love the conclusion, which is the key point in my opinion:
"All of this, of course, is a tempest in a teapot. The fact remains that we’ve been told the IPCC is a collection of the world’s top scientists and best experts. Yet Lisa Alexander, who helped write the 2001 and the 2007 climate bible, didn’t even earn her PhD until 2009.
If she is one of those rare geniuses who deserved to be part of the IPCC while she was still working as a research assistant (in the Faculty of Arts at an Australian university) it is incumbent on the IPCC to make that case."
My question is simple. How can any self respecting genuine scientist NOT resign from the IPCC? And, no, I do not buy the 'fix it from within' excuse.
Ah, yes. Right, Richard.
OK, I've found my tweets to Donna:
Richard Betts @richardabetts
. @NOconsensus You need to check more carefully - Daithi Stone was *not* a lead author in AR4 (and neither was Lisa Alexander!) 5:53 PM - 2 Nov 11 via web · Details
Richard Betts @richardabetts
Hi @NOconsensus it's a mistake on AR4 website bit.ly/qcvvLP they missed Ch3 LAs and listed CAs as LAs. See citation @ bottom of page.
12:00 AM - 4 Nov 11 via web · Details
Richard Betts @richardabetts
@NOconsensus Actual ch3 LAs: Trenberth, Jones, Ambenje, Bojariu, Easterling, Klein Tank, Parker, Rahimzadeh, Renwick, Rusticucci, Soden, Zha
12:03 AM - 4 Nov 11 via web · Details
Richard Betts @richardabetts @NOconsensus The list of contributers bit.ly/u04Jtd includes contributing authors as well as LAs and CLAs
12:07 AM - 4 Nov 11 via web · Details
And after that, Donna published this article (which Les has pointed to above - thank you). It's clear in both the tweets and in Donna's article that it was me who told her that the error was IPCC's, not Donna finding this out for herself as Mr Thomas has claimed. I didn't "concede" anything, it was me who found it out in the first place.
The point of the original "check carefully" tweet was that reading the official document of record (the paper copy) would have given the correct information - and also, anyone familiar with the layout of the different types of author would have spotted the error in the online version.
I definitely do not think I "snapped" at Donna as Mr Thomas has claimed.
And later, we can see that I did tell the IPCC about the error and publicly told Donna this:
Richard Betts @richardabetts Close
@NOconsensus I emailed IPCC WG1 TSU to tell them about the errors on the website.
10:00 AM - 7 Nov 11 via web · Details
Richard Betts @richardabetts
@NOconsensus Just had an email from WG1 TSU saying that the author list errors on the website are being dealt with by the IPCC secretariat
1:03 PM - 7 Nov 11 via web · Details
(BTW Thank you Barry Woods for the retweets of these!)
So again Mr Thomas is completely wrong to claim I made no "advice that he would do anything about the error. He definitely hadn’t imbibed the letter or even the spirit of the IPCC’s May 2011 error protocols."
This article is both inaccurate in its reporting and unfair in its representation of my engagement in the discussion.
I agree that there is no suggestion of "snapping". I read Donna's characterisation of this as a storm in a teacup, and I think that's right.
Richard Betts
So perhaps I missed it, but where do you apologize to Donna? She does make the very valid point in her article:
I think she was correct in her assessment that it was a "tempest in a tea cup" but I fail to understand how this became a raging volcano for you. I think she has a much more serious issue than you, and she is "taking it like a man." Over reaction perhaps?
twitter confusion remains - and I from memory I agree with Richards account..
Though it would perhaps been easier for both parties to email each other (ie twitter tone can be mis-interpreted
With respect to a date of a paper (missing the IPCC cutoff) if I recall Donna was correct on that, Richard did you acknowledge that - Think I saw a tweet?
I do agree. Let us not get too precious here, or elsewhere, about such details of who said what and when on a relatively minor matter that involves no ill-intent on the part of anyone - just an ordinary to and fro to get something corrected.
twitter confusion reigns - and I from memory I agree with Richards account..
Though it would perhaps been easier for both parties to email each other (ie twitter tone can be mis-interpreted
With respect to a date of a paper (missing the IPCC cutoff) if I recall Donna was correct on that, Richard did you acknowledge that - Think I saw a tweet?
BH wrote:
Agreed. Indeed it's a storm that could easily have been averted through the simple mechanism of a good old-fashioned observation via email - rather than an accusatory (and ill-founded) broadcast via twitter.
Which reminds me ... unless I'm mistaken (it has been known to happen!), in one of the unthreaded threads here at the time, Richard's explanation of the route he chose was that his intention was to write/post a review of The Delinquent Teenager ... - and that his tweets were more or less notes to himself (or something along those lines).
I wonder what might have happened to this review.
OTOH, I did notice over at Tamsin's when he was challenging a particularly blinkered advocate from the warm-side to broaden his horizons by reading one or more of a good number of books from the cool-side (as he has done), that TDT was not on Richard's suggested list.
One wonders if perhaps Richard has changed his mind about writing a review, or perhaps he hasn't finished reading the book ... or perhaps an edict has been issued by the powers that be at the IPCC that it would be in the best interest of Lead Authors and Coordinating Lead Authors to pretend (as the IPCC has done) that TDT does not exist (or at the very least to do whatever it takes to divert attention from the main arguments in the book).
Twitter percieved tone can lead to misunderstandings- I do understand why she was a perhaps a bit tetchy on that, if I recall Richard said
richardabetts . @NOconsensus You need to check more carefully - Daithi Stone was *not* a lead author in AR4 (and neither was Lisa Alexander!)
Ie Donna HAD checked carefully, using the IPCC website, etc (just that it was wrong)
So to a journalist, implications of not checking carfully are particulary sensitive..
Richard did say where:
richardabetts Hi @NOconsensus it's a mistake on AR4 website http://t.co/noLW4hBC they missed Ch3 LAs and listed CAs as LAs. See citation @ bottom of page.
Additionally, Richard said Donna had got it wrong about a cut-off date about a paper of his...
And I believe Donna was proved correct on this and perhaps was a bit annoyed:
richardabetts BTW @NOconsensus in ch15 why do you think my paper cited in WG1 Ch2 flouted cutoff dates? It was in press by SOD http://t.co/iczuOLDX 12:20 AM Nov 4th, 2011 from web
richardabetts BTW @NOconsensus I see you chose not to highlight my other tweet showing you incorrectly claimed that my 2007 paper missed the cutoff date!
BUT Richard found out that he was in fact in error and Donna correct:
richardabetts @NOconsensus Very sorry, my mistake, Betts et al (2007) was accepted after cutoff date http://t.co/b7he9znr 1:45 PM Nov 7th, 2011 from web
So, a journalist is equally (rightly) sensitive to acusations of mistakes, especially on the accuracy of research in a book that was just published. Subject to Peter Glieck's legendary review..
Especially when papers after cut-off dates being a particular concern about the IPCC
I had hoped that they could chat about this via email. But I imagine Donna was a bit annoyed about 'suggestions publically' that she had got cut-off dates wrong..
Upto 3200 tweets can be found here:
http://snapbird.org/
Totally off topic but my previous scribbling on Quadrant OnLine concerned the likelihood of the Maldives and Tuvalu submerging beneath the waves. Barely days after this appeared poor Mr Mahomed Nasheed the President of the Maldives, was overthrown. Spooky!
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/01/going-going-not
An example of the limitations, dangers and general pitfalls of twitter. As a weapon of expression it conveys all the nuanced meaning of firing a shotgun into the roof.
To clarify, I don't have a problem with Donna's part in our conversation or her own blog post. As BH says, it was a storm in a teacup - and indeed a positive outcome was that I was able to point to the incident as a argument for making the official version of AR5 to be the electronic version (which is the one everyone will use) rather than the paper version. Not sure if this will happen or not though, I think it is still under discussion.
What I do have a problem with is Mr Thomas now turning it into something bigger, adding his own misrepresentation and inaccuracies. Something that was best forgotten has now been revived and magnified, and that kind of thing has a habit of getting out of control, or if left unchallenged, coming back to haunt you later (possibly with further embellishments) when the true version of events have been lost in the mists of time.
Tony Thomas,
Please can you retract or correct your article? See my reasons above.
Many thanks,
Richard
I agree with you completely Gixxerboy. Expressing yourself in 140 characters is dangerous.
Twitter-->Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Storming?!
Richard Betts
If something is best forgotten, then let it be so, instead of making such a dramatic case of it. Time to drop it, Richard.
Hi Hilary
I did finish Donna's book, and I can tell you that some senior IPCC figures also read it (some of us discussed it one evening at the WG2 lead authors' meeting in December). I didn't write a review because it would have been rather involved (I thought that Peter Gleick's was indeed too simplistic) and I thought my efforts were better spent on helping to make the Fifth Assessment Report as good as possible rather than harking over issues with the fourth, third or even earlier reports (issues which do not affect the overall credibility of the reports).
My own view is that Donna made some fair points but also either misunderstood some things or gave them greater significance than they deserved (e.g.: authors only recently having obtained their PhD does not imply they are inexperienced - it is perfectly possible to have a very successful and credible career in science without a PhD, as indeed is exemplified by Donna's hero Freeman Dyson!) I can see that Donna wanted to build a case that the IPCC was broken beyond repair and that AR4 (and earlier reports) were fundamentally unreliable, but I didn't think the evidence supported that view.
While I agree that there were some matters of process that needed improving or clarifying from previous reports (one of which being clarity on use of "grey literature") I think these things can be, and indeed are being, improved. At the WG2 author meeting I was impressed with the clear effort being made on the part of the leadership to avoid mistakes of the past. I remain happy to be a part of the process.
Twitter is for kids. Grownups should know better than to use it for business purposes. Or to use it at all, for that matter.
I don't think Mr Thomas needs to retract a single word. For him to do so implies that Dr Betts has demonstrated that the article was other than fair comment. I don't think he has. Indeed, I think he is deepening the hole. All I would think MrThomas ought to do is draw Quadrant's attention to Dr Betts' objections, which the Editor might then choose to add to the on-line article.
As Don Pablo says, it's time for Dr Betts himself to drop it. Increasingly petulant objections about how third parties interpreted his Tweets to Ms Laframboise do nothing for his credibility.
Richard
To me, you seem to be tip-toeing around Donna's criticisms of the IPPC and delicately avoiding the most important one - that the IPCC was infiltrated and suborned from its early days by environmental activist groups.
Although Donna did highlight the extraordinary youth and lack of academic qualifications of many IPCC contributors - she clearly made the link that they got their positions by virtue of their political opinions.
To read and comment on her book and its criticisms of the IPCC, whilst studiously avoiding any mention of the most damning one, seems a bit obtuse or disingenuous of you.
Richard Betts the trouble is the issues seen in the early reports are still there, for instance there is still no conflict of interest policy in place , so you can't just ignore IPCC history has seem to have learnt nothing they still put considerable effort into secrecy not openness . AR5 already looks like it will be front loaded to ensure that the IPCC's very reason for being , AGW, remains unchallenged and never mind the facts.
And given IPCC 'leadership' has not changed at all why should we trust someone who when caught with their pants down attempted to call others 'Voodoo scientists' and another who made it clear the objectives of the IPCC were not scientific but political in nature with the 'facts' merely used to support that aim. While the 'gatekeepers' and 'Team' members are still in place .
The only difference is that from day one AR5 will be questioned , but the 'players' and the 'objectives ' remains the same .
I am happy to ask Quadrant OnLine to make this addendum to my piece:
Footnote: Richard Betts asks for corrections. Three days after Donna Laframboise posted her gripe about being criticized for what was in fact an IPCC error, and after she demanded an IPCC correction, Betts advised her via Twitter that he had emailed the IPCC advising them about the error, and the IPCC emailed back that it was fixing it. To this extent, my comment that Betts hadn’t said he would do anything about getting the error fixed, was with hindsight incorrect. However, a Twitter/email exchange is a very far cry from the IPCC’s 12-page protocol and flow charts for corrections laid down at Abu Dhabi, May 2011. Betts also asks me to give him, and not Donna, the credit for finding the error. If the discovery was indeed his, his failure as an AR4 and AR5 author to have followed the IPCC error protocol is even more puzzling.
Feb 14, 2012 at 12:05 AM | KnR
Actually the IPCC does have a conflict of interest policy in place, and indeed I tweeted from the AR5 WG2 plenary session to say that the disclosure forms had just been handed out for us to sign! There was a brief discussion between myself and Richard Tol on this blog at the time.
Feb 14, 2012 at 12:09 AM | tony thomas
Thanks for responding.
However, the error protocol applies to the content of the report. The mistake we are talking about here was in one version of the report, the html version, which was not the "document of record", so the error protocol does not apply - the secretariat just had to make the html version consistent with the document of record. While I'm glad you've recognised one of your errors, you still seem to be implying either improper or incorrect behaviour on my part, and doubting the fact that it was me that pointed out the error to Donna (despite the evidence being there for you to see!).