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)
Richard Betts
AH! Finally ON TOPIC!
I read with interest your comment above:
Perhaps you could expand upon your points above. Just what things did she misunderstand? And I am definitely interested in learning how these gifted young scientists have such a very successful and credible career in science without a PhD.
True, there are some who have, such as Freeman Dyson, but sadly it is said that is the reason why he didn't get the Nobel Prize, which he very richly deserved. But I am not aware of any contributors to the IPCC's reviews lacking a Ph. D. that were either Hans Bethe's student or a FRS. And, of course, we could throw in being appointed to the physics faculty of Cornell University and a life time appointment to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Just what contributions have these "gifted young scientists" made?
These are just some of Freeman Dyson's:
Dyson sphere
Dyson operator
Dyson conjecture
Dyson's eternal intelligence
Dyson number
Dyson tree
Dyson's transform
I agree with Hilary Ostrov you should write review of her book. It would be, I am sure, most informative.
Sorry for the O/T ... http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/donald_trump_brands_alex_salmond_insane_over_windfarms_1_2107670
DONALD Trump is to fund an international crusade against “monstrous” windfarm developments around Scotland’s coast, after launching an astonishing broadside over First Minister Alex Salmond’s plans to streamline the offshore planning process.
In a furious attack, the billionaire US businessman accused Mr Salmond of being “hell-bent on destroying Scotland’s coastline and therefore Scotland itself”.
When I visit Rotary meetings, I say my category is "Ethical Journalist". Why does everyone fall about laughing?
Anyway, I am happy to ask Quadrant OnLine to make this (Mk 11) addendum to my piece:
Footnote: Richard Betts asks for corrections. Three days after...was with hindsight correct. Betts also asks me to give him, and not Donna, the credit for finding the error. Actually, I’d give them joint credit, since Donna also ‘found’ it by stubbing her toe on this landmine on the IPCC website.
As what I hope to be my last word on this subject, may I again just follow Don Pablo and Hilary Ostrow in recommending that Dr Betts write a detailed review of Donna Laframboise's book. In doing so, he might even like to reconsider his comment upthread that Peter Gleik's review was "too simplistic". In fact, Gleik's review was a rant about an entirely different book, because it was as clear as crystal that he had done no more than skim TDT if that. In fact, even utter scientific illiterates such as I were in no doubt that the book had said virtually nothing about the science because what it was actually about was the corruption of the IPCC and, by extension, all who sailed in it, at least up to that point. As I said in my own Amazon review at the time, "It's the politics, stupid".
Dr Betts may consider (quite reasonably) that he doesn't have time for this sort of thing. However, such a review could have been written in less time and space than has been taken up in defending a rather poorly worded, if not poorly considered, Tweet.
A respectful, but not necessarily uncritical, review of TDT without any Gleikeque straw men will go a long way towards restoring his credibility in this forum at least.
My attempts to make more use of Twitter have not been successful. I try to follow people back as a matter of etiquette and, whenever I publish a new blog post, I use Twitter as a broadcast mechanism. I sign on, announce my post via a tweet, and sign off again.
For this reason, my exchanges with others on Twitter are rare. I have, no doubt, missed messages people have sent me. For this I apologize.
As to what occurred back in November, this is my experience: Less than three weeks after my book appeared, I chanced to see a tweet from Richard Betts that read as follows:
I go to great lengths to ensure that everything I say can be backed up in black-and-white. Checking carefully is what I do; it's what my journalistic reputation has always been built on. Yet here was Betts implying that I hadn't bothered to conduct proper research.
I responded by pointing him to where an L. Alexander was listed as a lead author on the IPCC website, and then to a second link that demonstrated that the person identified as L. Alexander was, indeed, Lisa Alexander.
(The page at the first link has since been updated. To see what it looked like at the time this exchange was taking place, see my blog post here: When the IPCC Makes an Error, Is It the Journalist's Fault?)
Betts' reply read as follows:
Betts had publicly accused me of not checking carefully. But when I directed him to the official sources upon which I had depended his story changed. He admitted the error was not mine but the IPCC's.
The next day I blogged about this. It puzzled me that Betts seemed more concerned about an alleged error in my 3-week-old book than about a four-year-old error on the IPCC's website. I'm a voice in the wilderness, a small fish. The IPCC is relied on by governments around the world.
For a few days I stopped paying attention to Betts' tweets. That was a crazy time and there were more pressing matters. On November 7th, Betts said he'd told the IPCC about the error and that they were going to fix it. It was only then that he sent me a link to a PDF that backed-up his assertion that the IPCC's website, as discussed above, was wrong.
He also, on that date, apologized publicly for having accused me of making another non-error:
That was civil of him and on Nov. 9th, I acknowledged his efforts to correct the IPCC record in a new blog post (The IPCC's Fake Review Editor). This second post dealt with a substantive matter - as opposed to the trivial one of whether someone had been an IPCC contributing author as opposed to a lead author.
As Steve McIntyre had done a year earlier, I called attention to documentary evidence that a senior IPCC official had signed a statement falsely claiming he had served as a review editor when no such duties had actually been performed by him.
Betts and I then exchanged a total of 13 private tweets - the only occasion on which this occurred (9 authored by him, 4 by me). I told him about this fake review editor before I wrote my story. From my perspective, I was giving him an opportunity to be a hero – to make a statement demonstrating moral leadership.
I would have been pleased to quote him declaring that IPCC officials should not be signing false statements – or that this discovery called the integrity of the entire IPCC into question. Anything along those lines would have given me a lovely way of elevating our relationship to a higher level. But, alas, a journalist can only report was is actually uttered.
As part of this private exchange, on November 8th, Betts did say to me:
When Tony Thomas wrote his piece, he was not aware of these words by Betts. The record shows a public accusation but no public apology.
@Richard Betts Feb 13, 2012 at 11:40 PM
Richard, thank you for this "abstract" of the review you chose not to write :-) A few points ...
"too simplistic"?! Surely you jest! Gleick's "review" was nothing but an ill-mannered (albeit very brief) rant - completely devoid of any relevant content, and of any indication that he had actually read that which he was allegedly "reviewing". Or perhaps you'd care to share with us your definition of "simplistic"!
Some concrete examples of that which you believe Donna might have "misunderstood" would have been helpful. But that aside, I notice that you have omitted the broader context of Donna's observations regarding the academic credentials of some authors.
Allow me to refresh your memory regarding this broader context. As Donna had noted in "Chapter 3: The Top Scientists & Best Experts?" [all emphases are mine -hro]:
I suppose if Donna were a writer of ... oh, I dunno ... Gleick's calibre (or Michael Mann's for that matter, considering what I've read so far of his latest opus), she would have terminated this particular discussion at that point, without providing any examples with which to substantiate her assertion that "such claims are bogus".
But, being an "old-school" investigative journalist, Donna chose to present concrete verifiable examples in support of her assertion - of which the academic credentials of some chosen authors was only one (along with the exclusion of those whose expertise in some instances was far greater than that of the chosen - not to mention the examples of gender and nationality "balance" and those who had an affiliation with activist organizations).
Is it your contention that because the IPCC powers that be had determined that these individuals met their (unspecified and undemonstrated) criteria of "best scientific expertise" that this is not to be questioned ... or (perish the thought!) not even mentioned or substantiated?
If not, perhaps you could explain wherein lies the "greater significance than they deserved"?
Hmmm ... forgive me, but I find this conclusion of yours verges on handwaving and is... well, frankly, ... "too simplistic" :-)
Hilary
The acronym for that would be DAGS, which is sweetly apposite.
Praise for deception?
There is no systematic causal relationship between carbon dioxide levels and climate change simply because the greenhouse conjecture is not based on real world physics.
Prof Claes Johnson has proved in Computational Blackbody Radiation* that energy in radiation only gets converted to thermal energy if the peak frequency of the radiation from the source is above the peak frequency of the radiation from the target.
This essentially provides a mechanism which explains why the Second Law of Thermodynamics also applies for radiative heat transfer, as it does for heat transferred by conduction.
There seems no plausible alternative explanation for the observed Second Law, so I suggest we all heed what Johnson has deduced mathematically, being as he is, a Professor of Applied Mathematics.
It is not the net radiative flux (or even its direction) which determines whether (and in which direction) thermal energy is transferred. For example, if the emissivity of two bodies is very different, there can be more radiative flux from the cooler one. But all that flux will be scattered by the warmer one and not converted to thermal energy. Only the flux from the warmer one (no matter how weak) will be converted to thermal energy in the cooler one. This "ensures" that the Second Law is valid in all cases because it depends
on peak frequency which is proportional to absolute temperature - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wien's_displacement_law
Thus the IPCC "backradiation" cannot affect the temperature of the surface and there can be no atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect.
* http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html
Gixxer,
I was going to mention that ... but the phone rang and while my mind was distracted, my mouse hit "Create Post" too soon. Alas, multi-tasking just ain't what it used to be! So, thanks for completing my thought for me :-)
Forgive me if I sound a tad incredulous at Richard Betts' characterisation of Peter Gleick's 'review', but to me that speaks volumes about Richard Bett's. Richard has, up until now, seemed like a nice chap who is willing to engage with those who question the official Met Office/PCC/UK Govt/BBC view, but the sheer silliness of using a medium such as Twitter for communications of serious import is indicative of seriously flawed views on how the world works.
Hilary
No worries. It chimes beautifully with well-known phrases like 'dripping with dags', 'rattle your dags' (off, presumably, which sounds like the modus operandi of Bob Ward) and of course 'a useless dag'.
Tweets. The communication equivalent of dags.
And yeah, Alexander K, there is something suspiciously vacuous about Twitter. Its popularity among the 'Climate Science Community' is probably a complete coincidence.
Donna's book, as I see it, is one example of the 'expectation of the dangerously naive'. It is not as though she is naive as a person. It is the author trying to ask the question: 'Ok, I admit, you could be as great as you claim to be. What does the available evidence suggest?' The resulting outcome then comes as a jolt: the IPCC does not measure upto to its own hype.
Thick-skinned scientists carry on everyday because they have married their standards to cynicism. No wonder they don't see anything wrong.
With apologies to everyone concerned, what we are looking at here is Donna's tour de force destruction of the claims of the IPCC both in terms of process and the claimed quality of the scientists/contributors. Richard thought he'd found something wrong in Donna's claim about lead authors, and like all of us, or at least the less politically experienced of all of us, he's picked up on it and suggested that Donna should have done her homework more carefully. No doubt this was a sub-liminal response to the fact that Donna has produced a devastatingly excoriating review of the IPCC processes and procedures. A review that in a saner world would have brought the house down on the IPCC, but alas we live in a less than perfect world. To Richard, who like many others is funded to support the IPCC and puts his best, like many others, into it, this attack is unjustified, because there's lots right with the IPCC ( a questionable statement I'd agree, but I'm putting Richard's view as I see it), hence to find a minor error in the devastatingly, excoriating review, might give some hope that she has been similarly slack elsewhere, and that would prove to the world that the IPCC was being libelled. Of course that's not true, it isn't being libelled and is probably the most corrupt scientific UN organisation ever, we can see that in climategate, and, of course there are myriad reviewers who've had their work ignored when it doesn't suit the agenda, and myriads of papers accepted after the acceptance date because they do. This is difficult for anybody who has put their efforts into making a good job of it.
On the point of outstanding students making a contribution, well, it's pretty easy really, we could check their publications in the scientific literature to see if they are making an outstanding contribution to science. Perhaps Donna didn't do that, but she did check their associations environmental NGOs and bingo! I believe that Richard will come to regret his remarks comparing them to Freeman Dyson, I can only believe he's so upset at being, in his view, misrepresented that he has somehow lost his sense of all proportion. From Wikipedia:
"Dyson is best known[8] for demonstrating in 1949 the equivalence of the formulations of quantum electrodynamics that existed by that time – Richard Feynman's diagrams, on the one hand, and, on the other, the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Dyson was the first person (besides Feynman) to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams, and his 1949 paper (written in 1948) was the first paper using them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool, but a physical theory. He developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem. Dyson's paper and also his lectures presented Feynman's theories of QED (quantum electrodynamics) in a form that other physicists could understand and undoubtedly facilitated the physics community's acceptance of Feynman's work. Robert Oppenheimer, in particular, was persuaded by Dyson that Feynman's new theory was as valid as Schwinger's and Tomonaga's. Oppenheimer rewarded Dyson with a lifetime appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study, "for proving me wrong," Oppenheimer said. {Disturbing the Universe, Freeman Dyson.}
The same year, in related work, Dyson invented the Dyson series.[9] It was this Dyson paper that inspired John Ward to derive his celebrated Ward identity.[10]"
Dyson was 26 in 1949, how does he compare to the non-PhDs in the IPCC. A little ahead? A little behind?
Sorry Richard, to compare the non-PhD activists working on the IPCC ARs is going a little too far for my taste.
With apologies to everyone concerned, what we are looking at here is Donna's tour de force destruction of the claims of the IPCC both in terms of process and the claimed quality of the scientists/contributors. Richard thought he'd found something wrong in Donna's claim about lead authors, and like all of us, or at least the less politically experienced of all of us, he's picked up on it and suggested that Donna should have done her homework more carefully. No doubt this was a sub-liminal response to the fact that Donna has produced a devastatingly excoriating review of the IPCC processes and procedures. A review that in a saner world would have brought the house down on the IPCC, but alas we live in a less than perfect world. To Richard, who like many others is funded to support the IPCC and puts his best, like many others, into it, this attack is unjustified, because there's lots right with the IPCC ( a questionable statement I'd agree, but I'm putting Richard's view as I see it), hence to find a minor error in the devastatingly, excoriating review, might give some hope that she has been similarly slack elsewhere, and that would prove to the world that the IPCC was being libelled. Of course that's not true, it isn't being libelled and is probably the most corrupt scientific UN organisation ever, we can see that in climategate, and, of course there are myriad reviewers who've had their work ignored when it doesn't suit the agenda, and myriads of papers accepted after the acceptance date because they do. This is difficult for anybody who has put their efforts into making a good job of it.
On the point of outstanding students making a contribution, well, it's pretty easy really, we could check their publications in the scientific literature to see if they are making an outstanding contribution to science. Perhaps Donna didn't do that, but she did check their associations environmental NGOs and bingo! I believe that Richard will come to regret his remarks comparing them to Freeman Dyson, I can only believe he's so upset at being, in his view, misrepresented that he has somehow lost his sense of all proportion. From Wikipedia:
"Dyson is best known[8] for demonstrating in 1949 the equivalence of the formulations of quantum electrodynamics that existed by that time – Richard Feynman's diagrams, on the one hand, and, on the other, the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Dyson was the first person (besides Feynman) to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams, and his 1949 paper (written in 1948) was the first paper using them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool, but a physical theory. He developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem. Dyson's paper and also his lectures presented Feynman's theories of QED (quantum electrodynamics) in a form that other physicists could understand and undoubtedly facilitated the physics community's acceptance of Feynman's work. Robert Oppenheimer, in particular, was persuaded by Dyson that Feynman's new theory was as valid as Schwinger's and Tomonaga's. Oppenheimer rewarded Dyson with a lifetime appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study, "for proving me wrong," Oppenheimer said. {Disturbing the Universe, Freeman Dyson.}
The same year, in related work, Dyson invented the Dyson series.[9] It was this Dyson paper that inspired John Ward to derive his celebrated Ward identity.[10]"
Dyson was 26 in 1949, how does he compare to the non-PhDs in the IPCC. A little ahead? A little behind?
Sorry Richard, to compare the non-PhD activists working on the IPCC ARs is going a little too far for my taste.
Bishop Hill
In what way? I, for one, am completely unimpressed.
As Mique points out:
Frankly, I doubt he can do such a thing, but I would like to see him justify his statements with solid evidence that Donna misunderstood some things or gave them greater significance than they deserved .
@Richard Betts Feb 14, 2012 at 12:11 AM
Richard, Sorry, I missed this earlier ... You had written:
I'm not sure that this reflects the entire picture wrt COI implementation. As Richard Tol noted on his blog:
IOW, it's a case of TAU ["transparency" as usual] at the IPCC ... Clearly, the powers that be just don't get it!
By contrast, Richard Tol also notes (in the same post):
Hi Donna
Thanks for your statement. For the public record here, as opposed to the private tweet, I'm sorry my original message gave the impression that the mistake was yours not IPCCs.
Hi Tony,
Please do add that addendum - indeed the new final statement is quite witty! Thanks.
Cheers
Richard
I see Richard Betts has been contributing here so it's time for another summary of what is wrong with the models. Go to Figure 2.4 of AR4 and you will see 1.6 W/m^2 net AGW is offset by 0.7 W/m^2 'cloud albedo effect' cooling and another 0.5 W/m^2 from bare aerosols. To explain lack of present warming, Hansen has just increased total aerosol cooling to 1.6 W/m^2, with extra heat to the oceans.
He apparently justifies the AIE change using an exercise from Michigan that claims satellite measurements are a factor of 3 to 6 times too low compared with the models. The problem is the Sagan/van der Hulst aerosol physics is wrong. The satellite data are converted using this incorrect physics. The model predictions are wrong.
People in official bodies like the Met. Office had better appreciate that the failure of this and other basic physics in the models [‘back radiation’ and the 33 K supposed present GHG warming] renders them useless, also the quantification of the satellite data.
The reason is that nearly half low level clouds, with bimodal droplet size distribution, have a second optical process. The effect of aerosol pollution is to turn this off. This explains the end of ice ages and much present warming, a consequence of the Arctic melting, part of a 50-70 year cycle. CO2-AGW is much lower, possibly slightly negative.
It’s not just me saying this. The IPCC models can never predict climate.
Did I hear the word "defamation" being bandied about?
"Did I hear the word "defamation" being bandied about?" I don't think so mac, it's simply a question of Richard hoping the excoriating description of the IPCC in TDT was wrong, and clinging to what he saw as an error to try to believe there was some basis for the rest of the book being wrong. Common enough mistake, I''ve made it myself many times.
Richard, who seems to me to be a jolly good all round egg, is going through the trauma of seeing his words used, in his view selectively, in public to his disparagement. He should be a sceptic, like Watts, McIntyre, McKitrick, Lindzen etc. they go through the same thing squared with no recourse to response. Even the Bish does, saintly though he is.
Geronimo: you've made a good analysis. The CAGW threat became such a part of intellectual thought that it is taking a long time for people to unlearn the false assumptions that made it credible. I confess that I too was a true believer, and used the supposed threat to drum up grants and investment.
However, following CG1, I decided to establish the truth, in effect a 2nd PhD thesis such is the learning curve. I'll also add that I am good at this, having worked in multinational industrial research where we didn't have the academic privilege of studying an item to death whilst gathering the pile of dung.
Here's an example of a member of the German climate establishment showing his incomplete understanding: http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/13/institute-director-eicke-weber-reveals-stunning-confusion-over-climate-science-in-interviews/
This is the Director of a Solar Energy Institute who, whilst not involved in Climate Science, should keep up with it. The link between CO2 and the end of ice ages was broken in 1997 and since then the subject has had to establish another amplification mechanism for the end of ice ages, not done, and calibrate CO2 climate sensitivity against modern warming, hence the fake hockey sticks.
So, what we are dealing with, as shown by Gore's fraudulent use of the CO2 rising with T myth in his film, is propaganda: the proponents parroting the facts as they believe they should be rather than what they are.
[Stott 2007 shows warming starts 2 ky before CO2 rises, which has led me to original research proving the real warming mechanism, with CO2 possibly not warming at all!]
@Geronimo Feb 14, 2012 at 11:45 AM
with no acknowledgement of the folly of his initial contribution to the whole incident - or of the need for a public apology from him - is considerably less than honourable, in my books.
To my mind, this was compounded by his rather peremptory response to Donna's comment of Feb 14, 2012 at 1:39 AM (but finally a public apology! Well, public as long as anyone who might have seen the broadcasts of his original accusation thinks to check this thread!)
Additionally, it is disappointing that Richard has chosen not to acknowledge the requests from several of us that he provide some substantial justification for his claims that "Donna misunderstood some things or gave them greater significance than they deserved" - not to mention his "elevation" of Gleick's rant and his own simplistic conclusion regarding the evidence found in TDT.
Sometimes one learns more from that to which an individual chooses not to respond than from that to which s/he does. Although, after reading through the all comments in this thread, I suppose it's good to know that Richard "remain[s] happy to be a part of the [IPCC] process". Too bad, though, that he seems to go to such inordinate lengths to sustain his happiness.
Sorry messed up the blockquotes ... let me try that again [Your Grace, if you're reading this thread, pls delete original ... also, the posting server-reset gremlins seem to have returned :-(]
@Geronimo Feb 14, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Perhaps so. Although one would have thought that rather than attempting to continue to maintain the validity of his choices (and position?!) by searching out and posting a somewhat one-sided record of tweets [Feb 13, 2012 at 9:32 PM] in order to sustain his contention that:
with no acknowledgement of the folly of his initial contribution to the whole incident - or of the need for a public apology from him - is considerably less than honourable, in my books.
To my mind, this was compounded by his rather peremptory response to Donna's comment of Feb 14, 2012 at 1:39 AM (but finally a public apology! Well, public as long as anyone who might have seen the broadcasts of his original accusation thinks to check this thread!)
Additionally, it is disappointing that Richard has chosen not to acknowledge the requests from several of us that he provide some substantial justification for his claims that "Donna misunderstood some things or gave them greater significance than they deserved" - not to mention his "elevation" of Gleick's rant and his own simplistic conclusion regarding the evidence found in TDT.
Sometimes one learns more from that to which an individual chooses not to respond than from that to which s/he does. Although, after reading through the all comments in this thread, I suppose it's good to know that Richard "remain[s] happy to be a part of the [IPCC] process". Too bad, though, that he seems to go to such inordinate lengths to sustain his happiness.
On a past BH thread in which Richard Betts was contributing comments, I made a passing comment, something like ‘In the end, scepticism is the climate scientist’s conscience and best friend’. Richard said he quite liked it, and used it in a ‘tweet’. Whether or not he privately embraces scepticism, he must surely appreciate the basis for our scepticism concerning IPCC impartiality, despite his apparent defence of current IPCC procedures.
I welcome his sporadic engagement with sceptics here, and am certain that he will understand why our sceptical antennae twitch furiously when the legitimacy of the entire IPCC process is defended. The whole process and mission of the IPCC was from the outset conceived as a vehicle to build a ‘scientific’ justification to support the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions create progressively deleterious impacts on ‘climate,’ and to provide scientific legitimacy to justify radical proscriptive political legislation. Step by step, through the successive IPCC reports, the participants have predictably fulfilled their mission with monotonous and predictable outcomes.
Although veteran sceptics were always aware of the flawed foundations of the IPCC, serious concern about the IPCC process surfaced in public (although suppressed in the press) after a rather comprehensive review by a House of Lords Committee in 2005. Viz
Para 44. We draw attention to this literature for several reasons. First, we heard little about the positive effects of warming from the scientific witnesses. Second, we observe that this category of benefit is mentioned only in passing in the IPCC Working Group II assessment of impacts, where it is noted that economic impact studies “may have overlooked” positive impacts We conclude that there are weaknesses in the way the scientific community, and the IPCC in particular, treats the impacts of climate change. We call for a more balanced approach and look to the Government to take an active role in securing that balance of research and appraisal.
Para 115. Given the global scale of the IPCC process, it should be expected that it will attract the best experts. In his evidence to us, Professor Paul Reiter raised doubts about the extent to which this is the case. He refers to the Second Assessment Report of Working Group II in 1995, Chapter 18 of which is concerned with human health impacts of warming. A significant part of this chapter discussed malaria. Yet, according to Professor Reiter, none of the lead authors had ever written a paper on malaria, the chapter contained serious errors of fact, and at least one of the chapter’s authors continues to make claims about warming and malaria that cannot be substantiated.
Para 171. We can see no justification for an IPCC procedure which strikes us as opening the way for climate science and economics to be determined, at least in part, by political requirements rather than by the evidence. Sound science cannot emerge from an unsound process.
More scrutiny following Climategate, and most recently the LaFramboise analysis, only reinforces suspicion yet further.
An addendum to my IPCC Take a Bow article has been published as follows:
ADDENDUM:
Richard Betts, who is head of the Climate Impacts strategic area of the UK Met Office, 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.
Betts also asks me to give him, and not Donna, the credit for finding the error. Actually, I’d give them joint credit, since Donna also “found” the error by stubbing her toe on this landmine on the IPCC website.
Betts has now written to Donna: “For the public record here, as opposed to the private tweet, I'm sorry my original message gave the impression that the mistake was yours not IPCCs.”
Perhaps I was remiss in leaving off one the most astute observations:-
Para 173. We are concerned that there may be political interference in the nomination
of scientists to the IPCC. Nominees’ credentials should rest solely with their
scientific qualifications for the tasks involved (para 116).
Gixxerboy: as a fellow Kiwi, and from a rural background in which I spent my long Summer school holidays 'rousieing in sheep-shearing gangs, I can assure you that 'Rattle yer dags' is a euphemism for 'get moving and bloody quickly' - a sheep carrying a heavy quantity of dags literally rattles when it runs. And someone characterised as 'a bit of a dag' is usually someone who has a mildly entertaining line of patter or a slightly odd personality - 'a real bloody dag' is one who tends to work quite hard and successfully, to entertain his or her fellows or,is more than a little demented.
Alexander K
'a real bloody dag' is one who tends to work quite hard and successfully, to entertain his or her fellows or,is more than a little demented.
Aka a popular winner of the Darwin Awards each year.
Alexander K
Indeed. And Bob Ward cannot be accused of failing to rattle his dags whenever The Cause is under attack.
Talking of dags, or Daggs, it strikes me that no-one has suggested use of The Separator for carbon capture and storage. Should work a treat with a bit of tweaking.
Feb 14, 2012 at 9:11 PM | tony thomas
Thank you!
Richard
Hilary,
eh? I think you are over-analysing again here. I write blog posts, like tweets, rather quickly because I don't wish to spend hours on the internet (which is also why I "chose not to acknowledge the requests...."). If you don't like the nuances, try to look beyond them and consider the wider context.
See above - I have other calls on my time which, with the very greatest of respect to our host, are of higher priority than writing on blogs. Especially when it's nighttime, or the half term holiday, both of which explain my "lack of response".
Misunderstanding: the point in the conclusion about "The refusal of the IPCC to enforce its own conflict of interest policy". This directly contradicts my own experience, which includes being told in person that I must complete and submit the COI declaration, and that the TSU would chase up if we did not.
Greater significance than deserved: authors not having PhDs. This is actually quite common, especially for scientists in government labs who have joined straight after their undergraduate degree. You don't have to be a Nobel near-miss like the great Dyson to have long experience and expertise which is valuable despite having a PhD.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing Donna's book in the slightest - as I said, she does make some important points, and I do think IPCC authors (and climate scientists in general) should read it.
Richard Betts:
Our host should go even further. He should replace the unpopular 'captcha' interface with one that forwards all putative comments on all threads to Met Office staff for moderation.
@Richard Betts Feb 15, 2012 at 12:14 AM
Did I say that?! OMG, indeed I did! But speaking of considering the "wider context" ... It was part of my response to a comment from Geronimo:
[HRO - Feb 14, 2012 at 6:31 PM (p. 2)]
I suppose you're right though, Richard. It's may well be unreasonable to expect a busy tweeter such as yourself to even acknowledge (in however peremptory a fashion) several requests in this thread along similar lines.
But, just for the record since you appear to have missed my actual reply to you (and because I'm a Bridgeplayer!), let's review the bidding, shall we?!
[HRO - Feb 13, 2012 at 10:27 PM (p. 1)]
To which you had replied:
[RB - Feb 13, 2012 at 11:40 PM (p. 2)]
To my ear, the parenthetical parting shot in this particular paragraph sounds remarkably like a (far from nuanced!) variation on a tune we've heard far too many times before ... almost as if it was written in the key of Mann! You also wrote:
In the interest of not taking up too much of your time, I had let that one go by.. But, just for the record I would note that there are many matters of process that still need improving. For example, I still do wonder about the "improvement" that will be accomplished by virtue of "disappearing" a rule (albeit one that was rarely followed) that grey literature be flagged in the references. But, as I'm sure you'll recall, we've been round that mulberry bush before!
As I had noted above, you appear to have missed my reply:
[HRO - Feb 14, 2012 at 1:55 AM (p. 2)]
Since you obviously took exception to my very un-nuanced use of the word "elevation" - and since I have not mastered the art of reading your mind, only your words ... is there a MET/IPCC approved "redefinition" of simplistic? Or would you prefer that I amend "elevation" to "whitewash"?! IOW, where's the "nuance" in "I thought that Peter Gleick's [review] was indeed too simplistic"?
My response continued:
For the record, I do acknowledge that you have now repeated your claim; but - considering the "wider context" - you have not explained wherein lies "the greater significance than they deserved"?.
I would also note, for the record, that your COI implementation claim as an example of "misunderstanding" fails to take into account the fact that Donna's book was published in October - and your "experience", as I recall, did not occur until December. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that if anyone has "misunderstood" anything about COI or the IPCC's implementation of such a policy - considering the "wider context" that Richard Tol had reported (as I had noted Feb 14, 2012 at 7:07 AM (p. 2)) - it most certainly was not Donna!
I'm sorry Hilary, but you are getting far too frustrating to engage with. Despite me having made some fairly balanced comments, saying that Donna made some important points (which is more than Peter Gleick did!), you nit-pick over the bits you don't like. You clearly don't want to talk to anyone who does not agree with you 100%, which is a shame because that's the way to group-think.
And BTW I have expanded on my point that some things were given greater significance than they deserved - see my post at Feb 15, 2012 at 12:14 AM. The example I gave was the one about some IPCC authors not having PhDs - this is irrelevant since many professions scientists do not have PhDs, especially if they work outside of universities.
For what it's worth, another point of contention I have is the number of "non-peer reviewed articles". I checked, and for some reason "non peer-reviewed" includes previous IPCC reports and chapters, which is of course nonsense. And citation of grey literature has always been allowed in IPCC, especially in WG2 and WG3 - OK not always the best articles are chosen, but often the most relevant articles for this "practical" of of the field are industry reports rather than journal articles. As you yourself have said in our previous discussions, the purpose of flagging up non-journal reports by Citizen Audit (or whatever its called) was (supposedly) to simply raise an awareness of such material having been used, and not necessarily to imply that anything outside of a journal is unreliable. However the citation of grey literature (which as I say somehow includes IPCC reports!) is now being used as a badge of unreliability. This is what I mean when I say things are assigned greater significance than they deserve, and that the general underlying conclusions of AR4 are not particularly affected. They may affect the details, and indeed it is important to get these right and also make sure that things are presented clearly and without confusion (admittedly they are not always), but its details not the fundamental substance.
Hmmm ... not only do you not want to take responsibility for your very own words, you won't even take ownership of your "frustration", but have to pin the blame on me! Nonetheless, I think I get the picture, Richard!
You''re too busy (scouring hot-off-the-scandal-manufacturing-machine "reports" for evidence of "undermining" on the part of those would dare to question the authority of the IPCC, perhaps?!) to give thought to your words before you post them, and I'm supposed to read your mind rather than question or dispute your actual words. Because if I do, then I'm "nit-picking" and/or I "don't want to talk to anyone who does not agree with [me] 100%".
Regarding "grey literature" ... As I believe I've mentioned in our past discussions on this, the purpose of the Citizen Audit was to examine whether or not the oft-repeated claim that the IPCC reports were based solely on "peer reviewed" literature can be sustained by the evidence. The answer we found was, well, unequivocal: "No, it cannot."
Furthermore, as the IAC report noted, a similar peer-reviewed study of AR 3 demonstrated results similar to those we found in AR4.
Had I designed Donna's audit, I would have had a separate category for IPCC (and some other organizations') materials cited. But they still would not have been counted as "peer reviewed" literature.
But I think I now understand your idea of "balance". It consists of:
1. Highlighting (and repeating!) your objections without explaining wherein lies the "greater significance than they deserved" - or even suggesting how one might go about according them less significance ... other than perhaps not even mentioning them as part of a wider context.
2. Acknowledging that there are valid points - while carefully refraining from letting the reader know what they might be.
3. Concluding that the evidence presented does not support the case.
Yet another refrain of a tune that has Mannian undertones:-)
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Hilary
My frustration is with what I perceive to be an undertone that you have. You seem to take every opportunity to make a tiny little insinuation against me, nothing substantial, but a little dig-dig-dig which quite frankly gets right on my nerves. Maybe I'm paranoid and this is just your normal way of talking to everybody? :-)
You keep mentioning Peter Gleick. Funnily enough, he (amongst others) has warned me to think carefully about engaging with sceptics because (a) it will only waste my time and (b) my words will be misrepresented and used against me. I initially disagreed with him, but to my mind you are proving him right. It would be nice for a change if you could put aside your apparent suspicion (or whatever it is) and join me (and others here) in proving him wrong!
Actually I think I spent a grand total of about 10 minutes looking at the Heartland stuff. I don't go in for conspiracy theories. I contributed once to the existing discussion thread here on BH, addressing the Bish's point about "serious allegations", but I did add the caveats "assuming this is genuine" and "we haven't heard from Heartland yet". Now Heartland are saying that the particular document I quoted is a fake, and as far as I'm concerned that's then end of the matter unless someone proves otherwise. The continuing discussion is about funding sources and I don't care about that - everyone has to get their funding from somewhere, and anyway I get fossil fuel industry funding too so am hardly in a position to complain about others! :-)
If I agonised over every word I'd never write anything (maybe that's what you really want?) :-) You're not supposed to read my mind, but I would appreciate it if you gave me the benefit of the doubt, in order to maintain a constructive dialogue. By all means question what I say, but that means question (and nicely) not make little digging remarks! :-)
But on what I was actually busy on these last few days - well, it was work, including (for example) peer-reviewing a paper on the influence of land cover change on climate, and discussing an extensive piece of work that my team have carried out, commissioned by a major mining company.
Yes, fine. That claim should not be made. But it doesn't undermine the overall conclusion that human emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the climate. Most of Donna's book is about WG2 (impacts) and most of the grey literature was also in WG2 and especially WG3 - there was very little in WG1 (and some of that is mid-identified) and it is WG1 where the extent of human influence on climate is assessed.
So one of the useful things Donna has done is reveal that the IPCC needs to be more joined up, and the physicists of WG1 should not live in their own little world and bang on about peer-reviewed literature, and leave WG2 and WG3 to their own devices. It's all very well WG1 being proud of their own report, and thinking that WG2 and WG3 are somebody else's problem, but what WG1 didn't realise is that the external community does not make such fine distinctions. Mistakes in WG2 reflect badly on the whole IPCC not just WG1.
This is an example of one of your apparently suspicious little comments that I ask you to stop making please :-)
I only repeated them because you and other asked, and kept pushing the point!
I only didn't expand on that because nobody asked, you kept going on about the other bits!
FWIW one specific example is the elevation of the "30% of species assessed so far being at increased risk of extinction" based on just one study. I agree with Donna that the extent of literature did not justify that as a highlighted statement. But this is one of the things that WG2 are now making careful efforts to fix, by being very clear to authors that the strength of evidence should be considered.
Pardon me, but I believe I am perfectly at liberty to do that if it's an area I know about, and as an "IPCC insider" as I have been called, I think I'm in a pretty good position to know about much of the subject matter of the book. It is admirable that Donna has laid out the evidence for her case in such detail so that it can be examined, and challenged if necessary or acted upon where appropriate. I applaud her for that.
I don't know why you keep mentioning Mike Mann. I think it's pretty clear that he and I have different views on talking to "deniers" (a word he uses but I don't) and on the issue of fossil fuel funding (see above).
But I really do hope that you and I can find a better rapport. Can we agree to start afresh and try to talk nicely to each other?
Hi Richard,
I stepped into this thread briefly once before. At the time, I hadn't paid attention to your 'I was the one to correct Donna' claim. Which is pretty mindboggling.
How could you be correct about Donna being the one making the mistake, and get IPCC to correct the same mistake?
Your explanation about print vs online is immaterial to the question above.
Secondly, Donna's criticism is directed at the IPCC as an institution. The presence of good people in the IPCC does not invalidate the criticism; nor should the good people take such criticism as though directed at them.
You say this above:
" But it doesn't undermine the overall conclusion that human emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the climate"
This is the same mistake as Amazongate. 'Wrong conclusion, using wrong sources, but overall correct'. The overall conclusion is made up of the smaller bits. If there are problems with the smaller parts, it affects the overall conclusion. If we think back, there are 'small problems' with the way the IPCC handled its climate sensitivity section, in WG1. This pretty much invalidates that entire chapter. I hope you are aware of this issue, which unfortunately, was raised only in blog post form. I remember the author's disparaging remarks, which were made at Bishop Hill. In my mind, it affects the overall conclusion. We all know how the hockey stick chapter in WG1 got written. This affects the overall conclusion. I've pointed out (to your satisfaction or otherwise) the element of circularity in the derivation of anthropogenic attribution. Again, this affects the overall conclusion. WG1 is not as strong, or watertight, as you might think it to be.
Anyway, I do think your misunderstandings with Hilary can be sorted out. The good scientists (you and your colleagues) are not the IPCC; you should therefore not see yourself as such.