The Economist on the IPCC

L'affaire Greenpeace continues to stir media interest. The Economist's Babbage column is the latest to weigh in, with this:

...the authors of the IPCC chapter involved declined to evaluate the scenarios they looked at in terms of whether they thought they were plausible, let alone likely. Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who was one of those in overall charge of the report, gives the impression that he would have welcomed a more critical approach from his colleagues; but there is no mechanism by which the people in charge can force an author team to do more, or other, than it wants to.

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On the front Lynas - Josh 105

More eyes opening up? Looks like it!

Cartoons by Josh

Quote of the day

[I]f the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’

Mark Lynas deals with criticism head on.

(H/T Barry Woods)

Climate cuttings 55

L'affaire Greenpeace rumbles on. Richard Tol has posted some thoughts here:

That study also assumes rapid technological progress in renewables and none in fossil fuels. That is a silly assumption.

Meanwhile Joe Romm is on Mark Lynas's case. I expect to hear about Lynas's links to big oil very shortly.

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Renewable friends - Josh 104

Cartoons by Josh

Ideological money laundering

This is a guest post by Ben Pile, of Climate Resistance fame.

As everybody now knows, the headlines from IPCC WGIII report on renewable energy appear to have been written by Greenpeace. When the Summary for Policy Makers was published last month, I was one of many who noted the role of Greenpeace, and the extent to which the SPM's authors were involved in the renewable energy industry. Steve McIntyre's discovery has caused further criticism  of the IPCC's letting such overt agendas near its evidence-making for policy-makers, even from the green camp, albeit only because it is such bad PR. But there is yet more to this story.

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Really Useful Reporting - Josh 103

Links and a slightly bigger version here

Plus Lynas

Mark Lynas's willingness to criticise the IPCC seems to have created a great deal of interest. The comments on his blog post are pretty interesting, with Bob Ward on hand to apply the thumbscrews to the waverer and Lynas indicating an interest in reading the Hockey Stick Illusion.

Meanwhile the story has been picked up many others, including the Independent here, and also by Judith Curry, who warns Lynas about what he is getting himself into.

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HSI review at Zone 5

Another review of HSI, this time from an Irish blog called Zone 5.

Montford’s book is essential reading for anyone who interested in a fairer and more objective analysis of this issue, and who can see through the hubris of claiming consensus in such a new scientific discipline and such a politically charged area.

Lynas on the IPCC

Mark Lynas has posted an article on the IPCC/Greenpeace shambles:

The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.

New consensus: IPCC is dumb

Lots of interest on Twitter re the Greenpeace's involvement in the IPCC renewables report. Both sides appear united in their disbelief that the IPCC could be so foolish after everything that has gone before:

Mark Lynas

Having read the post, I think McIntyre is onto something. Kudos to him for spotting this.

Leo Hickman

Looks like IPCC hvnt learnt lessons

Mark lynas

Might have known concl was dictated by Greenpeace Germany!

Leo Hickman

My sentiments echo McIntyre: 'hoped against hope'. V dumb of IPCC to let this happen after evrythng

Climate cuttings 54

There's some really interesting stuff around the blogs at the moment, which I don't have time to write up in full, so here's a collection of links.

Judith Curry's article on overconfidence in the IPCC's detection and attribution studies is a must-read.

Meanwhile Steve McIntyre takes a break from tree rings to look at the IPCC's recent report on renewables. The headline figure seems to be an extreme scenario and one, moreover, that has been snitched straight from a report by Greenpeace. Author conflict of interest raises its ugly head again.

But the story that is getting all the attention at the moment is the news that we are about to go into a period of solar quiescence accompanied by global cooling. Anthony Watts has the story, as does El Reg and there is lots of MSM coverage for those that are interested.

Taking potshots at Plimer

An article in EOS by Terry Gerlach of the US Geological Survey takes aim at Ian Plimer's arguments about the contributions of volcanos to the carbon budget.

Which emits more carbon dioxide (CO2): Earth’s volcanoes or human activities? Research findings indicate unequivocally that the answer to this frequently asked question is human activities. However, most people, including some Earth scientists working in fields outside volcanology, are surprised by this answer. The  climate change debate has revived and reinforced the belief, widespread among climate skeptics, that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities [Gerlach, 2010; Plimer, 2009]. In fact, present-day volcanoes emit relatively modest amounts of CO2, about as much annually as states like Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.

New Scientist on significance

An article in New Scientist picks up on the vexed question of Phil JOnes' recent prognostications of significance in the temperature records. The author, Andy Coghlan links to the story here:

Jones told New Scientist that in the short time since his latest statement on the data's "significance" had been aired in the media, some sceptics had already challenged it in blogs.

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Onset of the LIA

This looks interesting: a new paper from D’Andrea et al describes some climate fluctuations in Greenland at the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the beginning of the Little Ice Age.

Greenland's early Viking settlers were subjected to rapidly changing climate. Temperatures plunged several degrees in a span of decades, according to research from Brown University. A reconstruction of 5,600 years of climate history from lakes near the Norse settlement in western Greenland also shows how climate affected the Dorset and Saqqaq cultures.

H/T Messenger