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Josh Dec 2, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Sceptics Donna Laframboise Josh ;)
As I finish putting the scans together from Wednesday I felt this deserved a post of its own - also my favorite from the day.
More at Cartoons by Josh
Josh Nov 30, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Parliament Josh A packed Committee Room 14, House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK, on Wednesday 30th Nov 2011, heard from Dr Philip Stott, Rev Philip Foster, Prof Ian Plimer, Donna Laframboise, James Dent, Ruth Lea and Matt Ridley. Josh sketched some notes.
Bishop Hill Nov 24, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Jones Phil Jones has been "putting the emails in context". This one made me laugh. (Emphasis mine)
Email 0714: “Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital - hence my comment about the tornadoes group.”
This was related to the selection of contributing authors, not IPCC-appointed chapter authors over which I have no influence. It means scientists we could trust to write succinct and clear text.
Bishop Hill
It's noticeable that CRU doesn't actually give the context for Jones's comments. In the previous email in the thread, Trenberth says
The question is whether these [two possible presentations] might help get us on the same wavelength or highlight disparate views. To the extent we can get on the same page, so much the better. I also have some draft material, adpated from last time, on letters to CAs recruiting them to do the task required (to be sent by email). Question, should the LA send these or us? It may carry more weight if we send them.
It may also give us more control.
Succinct and clear text, my foot.
Bishop Hill Nov 23, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: McKitrick With timing that can either be seen as perfect or perfectly awful, Ross McKitrick has published a report on the IPCC under the auspices of the GWPF.
I am pleased to announce the publication of a report I have written that provides systematic detail on the procedures of the IPCC and makes the case for reforming them. My study, called What is Wrong With the IPCC? A Proposal for Radical Reform, was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the U.K., and includes a foreword by the Hon. John Howard, former prime minister of Australia.
I haven't read the report - lots to read at the moment - but, as the headline suggests, McKitrick's case is that doing nothing is not an option.
McKitrick has an op-ed in the Financial Post, which includes a link to the full report.
Bishop Hill Nov 18, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Pachauri Climate: WG2 Guardian Eco publishes an interview with Raj Pachauri, which very surprisingly returns to the subject of the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The [IPCC] report included an estimate that "if the present rate [of melting] continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high (IPCC-speak for 90 percent-plus likely) if the earth keeps warming at the current rate." This prediction came from a 1999 magazine interview with India's leading glaciologist, Syad Iqbal Hasnain, not an article in a peer-reviewed journal.
So, yes, a small lapse, and within 24 hours the IPCC had acknowledged it. But how significant was the error? It happened that I had interviewed Hasnain in New Delhi in 2009; he told me that he had slightly modified his projections on the basis of new data compiled over the intervening decade. What he said now was, "If the current trends continue, within 30 to 40 years most of the glaciers will melt out." It was hard to be more precise, he said, because so much of the affected region in India, Pakistan, and Tibet is off-limits to researchers for national security reasons. So most of the glaciers are very likely to be gone by 2040 to 2050, rather than all the glaciers are very likely to be gone by 2035.
If I were one of the 1.5 billion Asians whose future survival depends on meltwater from the Himalayas, I'm not sure I'd grasp the fine distinction.
Now, my understanding is that even on the inflated IPCC estimates, the correct figure is 2350, not 2040 or 2050. If so, then the Guardian's decision to publish this is...astonishing.
Bishop Hill Oct 23, 2011 Climate: IPCC Greens From here.
WWF has refuted as "ludicrous" claims in a new climate change denial book that it had "infiltrated" the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the respected international body charged with advancing knowledge on climate change and its impacts.
Bishop Hill Oct 23, 2011 Books Climate: IPCC H/T to Hilary O for this review of the Delinquent Teenager in the Financial Post in Canada.
In a meticulously referenced and deservedly praised page-turner, Ms. Laframboise, an accomplished journalist who turned to the skeptical blogosphere, demonstrates how the IPCC is a thoroughly political organization. Far from objectively weighing the best available science, it cherry-picks egregiously to support its main objective: to serve its government masters. Its lead authors are not the world’s leading scientists but frequently wet-behind-the-ears graduates, and/or ardent activists. They are also selected on the basis of gender and country “diversity” rather than expertise. The organization, Ms. Laframboise demonstrates, has also been thoroughly infiltrated by environmental NGOs, in particular the World Wildlife Fund.
Getting some MSM coverage can make a big difference to a book. The review in the FP is the first time I've come across an MSM outlet reviewing a self-published book, and to my mind this shows just how important Donna's work is.
Bishop Hill Oct 19, 2011 Climate: IPCC Judith Curry's thoughts on Donna Laframboise's book are well worth the read - especially this bit:
In terms of the broader audience, I have to say that I hope that this book leads to the discontinuation of the IPCC after the AR5 report (which is already well underway, and is arguably sufficiently tarnished that it is likely to have much less influence than previous reports.)
Bishop Hill Oct 9, 2011 Climate: IPCC I am mentioned in passing at Judy Curry's blog, where Andrew Lacis has written a post about one of his papers.
If you were to go and read the acknowledgment that is at the end of the Science paper, you would see the very standard “thank you” for helpful comments from numerous GISS colleagues, and a “thank you” for funding support from NASA program managers.
But, you would not see there any mention of Bishop Hill. Why so? And, would the Science editors have really let that happen?
Bishop Hill Sep 17, 2011 Climate: IPCC Sci blogger Martin Robbins:
Has anyone coined a handy term for the tactic (favoured in alt med) of haphazardly citing 100s of papers and hoping people won't check them?
Barry Woods:
IPCC working group 3
Bishop Hill Sep 5, 2011 Climate: IPCC Journals Roy Spencer has penned some further thoughts on the campaign being waged by the Team and he is worried:
We simply cannot compete with a good-ole-boy, group think, circle-the-wagons peer review process which has been rewarded with billions of research dollars to support certain policy outcomes.
It is obvious to many people what is going on behind the scenes. The next IPCC report (AR5) is now in preparation, and there is a bust-gut effort going on to make sure that either (1) no scientific papers get published which could get in the way of the IPCC’s politically-motivated goals, or (2) any critical papers that DO get published are discredited with any and all means available.
Bishop Hill Sep 4, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Pachauri Climate: WG2 David Stockwell has a fascinating post about a paper in Nature by Thomas et al. Thomas is Chris Thomas of the University of Leeds and his co-authors include a bevy of academics as well as NGO people from bodies like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Conservation International.
The subject is the effects of climate change on biodiversity and the paper appears to be quite monumentally bad - one naturalist described it as the worst paper he had ever read. Thomas et al not only use climate models that have no proven skill at the habitat level as the basis for their projections but then assume that any species whose range expands under climate change will...go extinct. Amazing.
Bishop Hill Sep 2, 2011 Climate: IPCC Russell Cook at the American Thinker carries the fascinating news that IPCC vice-chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele was working for Greenpeace while in position at the IPCC. This makes M. van Ypersele's constant refrain about sceptics being in the pay of Big Oil look, well, a tad rash.
Bishop Hill Jul 16, 2011 Climate: IPCC A devastating paper by Jane Goodwin on Iowa State university is discussed at Judy Curry's blog. The subject is the IPCC consensus:
We shall argue that consensus among a reference group of experts thus concerned is relevant only if agreement is not sought. If a consensus arises unsought in the search for truth and the avoidance of error, such consensus provides grounds which, though they may be overridden, suffice for concluding that conformity is reasonable and dissent is not. If, however, consensus is aimed at by the members of the reference group and arrived at by intent, it becomes conspiratorial and irrelevant to our intellectual concern.
Both the paper and the blog post are must-reads.
