IPCC: UN Panel Defends Climate Change Evidence, Rejecting Newspaper Report

AFP:

GENEVA (AFP) -- The UN climate panel has rejected as "baseless and misleading" a newspaper report that raised doubts about the evidence behind a claim that global warming is linked to worsening natural disasters.

Read the whole story: AFP

Comments

[Publicola]

08:35 PM on 02/03/2010

Former Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) ties global warming to national security:

http://insiderinterviews.nationaljournal.com/2010/02/former-sen-warner-ties.php

[ReedYoung]

06:27 PM on 02/03/2010

The facts of "climategate" are finally trickling in, and so far, Penn State's committee of administrators have concluded that Dr. Mann has violated no general policies, and recommends a committee of *scientists* to investigate questions specific to science and beyond the first committee's competence. Nothing more.

==========
Policy RA-10 speaks not just of research misconduct but also of research conduct and is explicit regarding the responsibility that we have as scientists to maintain the public trust...

In sum, the overriding sentiment of this committee, which is composed of University administrators, is that allegation #4 revolves around the question of accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists. Only with such a review will the academic community and other interested parties likely feel that Penn State has discharged it responsibility on this matter.
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf
==========

And in the matter of data theft from East Anglia University and subsequent attempt to defame climate scientists, the leading suspect is now COMMUNIST CHINA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/28/climategate-chinese-hacke_n_404700.html

That's who's on global warming deniers' side.

[Richard2]

11:59 PM on 02/02/2010

The IPCC is defending the indefensible. The glacier story is one example. It isn't logical that Glaciers high in the tallest mountain range in the world should be melting faster than glaciers at lower elevations. Simply doesn't make sense. Also, the glaciers shouldn't have much impact on the water supplies to areas down stream. In a "watershed" area, a glacier is a small thing. What matters is the amount of rain or snow that falls within the entire watershed area. A glacier doesn't reduce the size of the watershed at all!

The IPCC is so far off from reality that the real glacier and watershed experts must be laughing their heads off.

The IPCC is not credible. It should be abolished immediately.

[ReedYoung]

12:02 PM on 02/03/2010

"Also, the glaciers shouldn't have much impact on the water supplies to areas down stream."

Your ignorance is hilarious and calls for no further comment.

[DocSkull]

06:55 PM on 02/07/2010

Glaciers are exactly like human-made reservoirs which supply fresh water to most urban areas.

[marbiol]

07:30 PM on 02/03/2010

The IPCC COULD be credible if they do a thorough QA/QC on the 2007 report and issue a revision--treat the 2007 report as a "draft"--we are certainly getting enough inquiries to merit at least some major editing and revisions. I'm sure the basic tenets shouldnt change much--but this really does appear to be eith a sloppy or politically motivated report. Clean up the science; get rid of conclusions based upon questionable data (or have those data reanalyzed)...then come up with another repoort--a FINAL report that has been thoroughly reviewed by scientists with nothing to gain from its concxlusions.

Then..and only then..bring it to the public and the UNEP...and then and ONLY THEN make policy recommendations based on its findings. we are relying too much on questionable data, cherry-picked data, "models", and politicians. Do it over..and do it right!!

[ReedYoung]

07:46 PM on 02/03/2010

The way science works is that when YOU dispute somebody else's research the burden is on YOU to prove and quantify their error, and to produce a more accurate result and/or more robust prediction.

The IPCC is very credible and your exaggeration of their problems is outrageous.

[ReedYoung]

09:36 PM on 02/01/2010

The lag between temperature and CO2. (Gore’s got it right.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/

[climastrology101]

10:09 PM on 02/02/2010

Let me get this straight. You have a 5,000 year cycle of warming and cooling. CO2 shows the same rise and fall, but starting and ending 800 years after the rise intemperature. So for 800 years of warming something is driving up the temperature, and it has nothing to do with CO2. Then the temperature peaks and starts going down while CO2 is still rising for another 800 years. The temperature finally comes back to it's starting point at the end of the 5,000 year cycle, while CO2 continues falling until year 5,800.

And somehow rising CO2 is what causes the temperature to go up, not the other way around? Does that really sound plausible to you?

[ReedYoung]

11:53 AM on 02/03/2010

From the link I already posted to realclimate.org:

>
If CO2 levels on planet Earth also lag the cooling periods, then how can it be that CO2 levels are causally related to terrestrial heating periods at all? I am not sure what the ice core records are related the time response of CO2 to the cooling trends. If there is also a lag in CO2 levels behind a cooling period, then it appears that CO2 levels not only do not initiate warming periods but are also unrelated to the onset of cooling periods. It would appear that the actual CO2 levels are rather impotent as an amplifier either way…warming or cooling.
<

Like the person who asks that question, your misunderstanding comes down to the meaning of the word "amplifier" so I present the analogy of a stereo amplifier, which accepts line-level (low power)signals from record, radio, tape or cd players or A/V equipment, and **amplifies** those signals. (The advantage in home audio is that each component does not need to include the bulky internal electronics of its own amplifier.) An amplifier does not **create** signals, it increases their strength. Without an input, an amplifier outputs **no** sound, no matter how high you crank the "volume" knob.

[climastrology101]

09:53 PM on 02/03/2010

A whole lot of typing Reedy and you still can't whitewash those 800 years.

[fumes]

07:30 AM on 01/31/2010

UN climate panel based claims on student essay: report
January 31, 2010
The UN climate change panel based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain peaks on a student essay and an article in a mountaineering magazine, a British newspaper reported Sunday. The claims risk causing fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to apologise this month over inaccurate forecasts about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
In a recent report, the IPCC stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was caused by global warming and it referred to two papers as the source of the information.
But The Sunday Telegraph said one of the sources quoted was actually an article published in a magazine for mountaineers which was based on anecdotal evidence about the changes they were witnessing during climbs.
The newspaper said the other source was a dissertation written by a geography student who was studying for a master's degree at the University of Bern in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps. http://www.physorg.com/news184127915.html

[realpolitic]

09:55 AM on 01/31/2010

I would say it is fine to use occasional anecdotal evidence for color. They are not simply saying it is cold outside. They are contrasting what is happening now compared with the last several years or longer. It is excellent descriptive evidence. I am not naive enough to believe that the iPCC used only these two sources, a master's thesis and anecdotal evidence, for their information on glacial decline in the Alps, Andes, and Africa and the article does not even mention the specific report it is talking about. Fumes, if you google the Alps, Andes, and Africa there are literally dozens, probably hundreds of sources, which talk of the decline of mountain glaciers in these mountains and others. I have shown you many sources before. You constantly bring these things up as if you do not think at all, but act as a stenographer. Our phrase for today is "critical thinking."

[fumes]

11:46 AM on 01/31/2010

aren't there two sides..

to that ''critical thinking'' coin?

the ''oh look the climate changes'' side..

and the ''oh look we change the climate'' side?

[realpolitic]

06:49 PM on 01/31/2010

Fumes, you can be a creationist. To me after scientists have found other hominids who walk on their hind legs, but who still have ape-like features, the question of evolution is settled. Now to you it still may not be settled. When 94% or more of climate scientists agree that man influences the environment, and temperatures are increasing just like the physics of greenhouse gases expect, then in my mind anthropogenic climate change is established. I think occasionally you should examine your own biases and assumptions and ask yourself what keeps you from recognizing the science. It would be an interesting endeavor.

[realpolitic]

06:52 PM on 01/31/2010

Fumes, do me a favor please. You keep casting doubt on the scientific evidence of anthropogenic mountain glacier decline or any decline at all. Please google Andes mountains and climate change. It will save us a lot of time in the future. Somehow I think you would rather just keep making the quips!.

[Richard2]

12:06 AM on 01/31/2010

Since the UN's IPCC was completely wrong about the glaciers in the largest mountain range in the world, how can it be credible about the glaciers in the smaller mountain ranges around the world?

The UN picked the wrong mountain range to tell falsehoods about. The Himalayan Mountains aren't going away, and neither are the glaciers high in those mountains. It will be hard for anyone to believe that the UN's IPCC really knows anything about glaciers, anywhere.

[realpolitic]

10:00 AM on 01/31/2010

Yes, the Himalayan glaciers are going away and scientists know it, a few of the very highest glacial peaks may remain where temperatures never climb below freezing. Scientists have talked about the process of glacial decline in the Himalayas and report many, many more glaciers are retreating while just a mere few are advancing. Even our defense department is planning for water shortages in those Asian countries fed by rivers that begin in the Himalayas. Then you go on to spout your usual propaganda.

[realpolitic]

06:40 PM on 01/30/2010

Now we are falling behind China in clean energy technologies. Thanks deniers!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html?pagewanted=1&hp

[climastrology101]

08:53 PM on 01/30/2010

If only we'd bought the big lie...

[realpolitic]

09:56 PM on 01/30/2010

Yes, you won't believe in climate change until Rush Limbaugh gives you permission.

[ReedYoung]

10:36 PM on 01/31/2010

climastrawman says:
"All I've done is put forward my belief, based on all the scientific evidence I've seen, that CO2 from humans is not causing the earth to warm as predicted..."

Predicted by whom? Name ONE prediction with the source cited properly, and provide proof the prediction has been falsified.

[fumes]

10:39 AM on 01/30/2010

say rp.. u2 reedy..

mioffe's got a book out that you might enjoy reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Economy-Climate-change-KGB-agent/dp/1450013414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264865615&sr=8-1

[realpolitic]

06:22 PM on 01/30/2010

Why ? Does the book say cap and trade will ruin the economy? I just read "Climate Change Picturing the Science" by Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe. It was fascinating with a lot of good data and very clearly written. There was another book out I wanted to read about how climate change was resulting in species loss and then we were losing potential medicines, but know I can not find the name of it. For example, polar bears store considerable fat before hibernating, yet they do not get diabetes. If lost in the wild we will never find out why. In zoos they do not hibernate. Well, enjoy the book, Fumigation!

[realpolitic]

07:40 PM on 01/30/2010

I didn't know who Mioffe was at first. Are you going to read it? Is it accurate and interesting? Pretty impressive, overall!

[fumes]

10:22 PM on 01/30/2010

mioffe is a lot of fun..

did you catch the mioffe-onevoice debates a while back?

[realpolitic]

09:03 AM on 01/30/2010

"The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show."

"The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said."

"James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, “we find global warming is continuing unabated.”"

"The NASA data released Thursday showed an upward temperature trend of about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) per decade over the past 30 years. Average global temperatures have risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since 1880."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/science/earth/22warming.html

What say you, deniers? NASA is on the take too, along with the CRU, and the IPCC and everyone else? Instead, did you ever consider maybe it is you guys who are just a little nutty!

[fumes]

10:10 AM on 01/30/2010

hi rp..

i don't think anyone denies that the climate changes..

or that the globe warms or that the the globe cools!

no really.. it's just that anthropogenic catastrophic hyperbole that is in question.

[realpolitic]

05:44 PM on 01/30/2010

Yes, Fumes but it is only in question by the crazies and not by the scientists. How many deniers here over credible evidence that man has no effect on warming? What they offer is conspiracy nonsense and that there was some mistake in the footnote of a report on p.85 and therefore it is all a hoax. Yet they have no scrutiny at all for the right-wing nonsense websites they cite.

[realpolitic]

08:50 AM on 01/30/2010

Deniers who are always bragging that the NASA surface stations are tainted by the greenhouse effect are, of course, wrong, as deniers usually are.

"There’s been an ongoing attack on the credibility of federal climate monitoring efforts that has been partly inspired by Anthony Watts. In 2007, Mr. Watts, a former TV weather forecaster, began recruiting legions of volunteers across the United States to inspect the thousands of weather stations — some in people’s back yards or in parking lots — that have for generations produced the raw data feeding into federal and independent efforts to track climate trends."

"The revelations fueled charges that all that asphalt and the like was inflating temperature estimates and thus conclusions that the nation’s climate was warming over all."

"Now, though, a new study by Matthew Menne and other scientists at the National Climatic Data Center, the federal office charged with tracking climate trends, directly challenges the underpinnings of arguments that Bad Weather Stations = Faulty Climate Conclusions. In essence, the paper, On the Reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (pdf), concludes that the instrument issues, as long acknowledged, are real, but the poor stations tend to have a slight cool bias, not a warm one."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/on-weather-stations-and-climate-trends/

[SFTor]

03:53 PM on 01/30/2010

Stations that have been overtaken by urban sprawl have a slight cool bias?

How on the living earth do you make that out? It is wrong on its face.

[realpolitic]

05:56 PM on 01/30/2010

Why don't you read it and find out? I know, it would be asking too much.

"The findings are robust enough that a frequent critic of climate overstatement, Chip Knappenberger, has provisionally endorsed the findings and thrown cold water on the idea that bad weather stations undercut the picture of a warming continent."

Knappenberger went on to say....

"I’ve seen a lot of Anthony Watts’ presentations and pictures of poorly sited thermometers, but never an analysis to conclusively show that there is a warm bias in the adjusted U.S. temperature record as a result. Yes, many sites are poorly situated and the temperature they read is impacted by things other than the larger-scale weather — but also, such things are being corrected for (or at least an attempt is being made to correct for them) by the various producers of a U.S. temperature history (i.e. Menne et al. at NCDC). So, while the raw data are undoubtedly a mixture of climate and non-climatic influences, the adjusted data presumably have more of a climate signal. The recent paper by Menne et al., seems to bear this out. .... The results from Menne et al. suggest that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it is the data which actually tells the story."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/on-weather-stations-and-climate-trends/

[realpolitic]

06:07 PM on 01/30/2010

The recent why the sites described as "poor" sites had a cool bias was the type of thermometer used. You will have to do some reading if you want to find out the details.

Why did the poorly sited stations measure cooler temperatures?

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1419

[SFTor]

04:05 PM on 01/30/2010

Further readings show that the Menne paper is based on 43% of unchecked data that were simply lifted from surfacestations.org, Watts's web site. Watts himself has said that the data were not properly controlled for quality.

This paper was meant to pre-empt the paper from Watts and Pielke, which is forthcoming on the issue of surface stations.

Fishy, fishy, fishy.

[realpolitic]

06:03 PM on 01/30/2010

According to Dr. Jeff Masters...

"While Watts' publication by the Heartland Institute is a valuable source of information on siting problems of the U.S. network of weather stations, the publication did not undergo peer-review--the process whereby three anonymous scientists who are experts in the field review a manuscript submitted for publication, and offer criticisms on the scientific validity of the results, resulting in revisions to the original paper or outright rejection. The Heartland Institute is an advocacy organization that accepts money from corporate benefactors such as the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry, and publishes non-peer reviewed science that inevitably supports the interests of the groups paying for the studies. Watts did not actually analyze the data to see if taking out the poorly sited surface stations would have a significant impact on the observed 1.1°F increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century. His study would never have been publishable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal."

[realpolitic]

06:04 PM on 01/30/2010

"Fortunately, a proper analysis of the impact of these poorly-sited surface stations on the U.S. historical temperature record has now been done by Dr. Matthew Menne and co-authors at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Dr. Menne's study computed the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures from the good sites and poor sites. The results were surprising. While the poor sites had a slightly warmer average minimum temperature than the good sites (by 0.03°C), the average maximum temperature measured at the poor sites was significantly cooler (by 0.14°C) than the good sites. As a result, overall average temperatures measured at the poor sites were cooler than the good sites. This is the opposite of the conclusion reached by Anthony Watts in his 2009 Heartland Institute publication."

[realpolitic]

08:47 AM on 01/30/2010

How come deniers never mention when their denying heroes are found out to be frauds?

"Richard Lindzen, the meteorology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology best known for his longstanding rejection of research pointing to dangerous climate disruption from human-generated greenhouse gases, has been bluntly challenged over a popular paper in Geophysical Research Letters last year that he co-wrote with post-doctoral researcher Yong-Sang Choi. The paper, ..., asserted that the climate system was far less sensitive to human actions than the predominant view had it."

"In a followup paper accepted for publication in the same journal that examines the same question using the same sea-temperature data sets, four scientists say the Lindzen-Choi conclusions are “seriously in error.” When one flaw is fixed, they say, the analysis produces a much warmer estimate of future climate. But the result gets hotter still, they add, if an objective method is used to select the sea data in place of the choices made by the M.I.T. team."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/a-rebuttal-to-a-cool-climate-paper/

[SFTor]

03:51 PM on 01/30/2010

OK, rp, I see the scientific method in action. What the Lindzen paper points to is water vapor as a negative forcing, not to Lindzen owning Exxon stock. If the Lindzen paper doesn't hold water it will be refuted.

If a person who heads the IPCC is involved in organizations that benefit from its activities he has a conflict of interest and needs to remove himself from either side of the table.

Do you see that?

[realpolitic]

06:09 PM on 01/30/2010

Four other scientists said that the denier Lindzen's work was "seriously in error" almost as if he set out to get a desired result. Of course, that is what deniers do. Again, the IPCC does not do its own research.

[SFTor]

03:06 AM on 01/30/2010

Are you really sure you want to defend this guy?

Here, from the Telegraph online (not owned by Rupert Murdoch):

"What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.
These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.
Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what has become known as the international ‘climate industry’.
It is remarkable how only very recently has the staggering scale of Dr Pachauri’s links to so many of these concerns come to light, inevitably raising questions as to how the world’s leading ‘climate official’ can also be personally involved in so many organisations which stand to benefit from the IPCC’s recommendations."

More here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html

[fumes]

03:57 AM on 01/30/2010

SFTor..

you know what has always bothered me about those train engineers..

is how they fit those huge trains down the tracks when those tracks converge..

at the horizon!

[realpolitic]

08:14 AM on 01/30/2010

Fumes, speaking in metaphors again?

[SFTor]

02:41 AM on 01/30/2010

From Andrew Bolt, writing on January 30 (AU):

Asked whether he [Pachauri} had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at (his IPCC) Copenhagen (summit last December), he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit...”

However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error…

Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.

"Mr Bagla said he had informed Dr Pachauri that Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University and a leading glaciologist, had dismissed the 2035 date as being wrong by at least 300 years. Professor Cogley believed the IPCC had misread the date in a 1996 report which said the glaciers could melt significantly by 2350.

Mr Pallava interviewed Dr Pachauri again this week for Science… In the taped interview, Mr Pallava asked: “I pointed it out [the error] to you in several e-mails, several discussions, yet you decided to overlook it. Was that so that you did not want to destabilise what was happening in Copenhagen?”

[realpolitic]

03:14 AM on 01/30/2010

You guys never get past this sort of nonsense. As the Union of Concerned Scientists said, it is because you have no science on your side.

[SFTor]

03:46 PM on 01/30/2010

rp, this is not trivial. It is not about grasping at straws. The climate change record over the last century shows variability, not runaway warming.

Major decisions are made based on the Assessment Reports. If they are not accurate you have millions and in some cases billions of dollars that can be misspent.

This is taxpayer money, rp. Somebody spent hours behind a check-out stand, delivered mail, or did factory work to pay for it. Don't take it lightly.

[ReedYoung]

11:35 PM on 01/30/2010

SFTor, if you were really concerned with wasted money, this is what you would be vigilantly inspecting.
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-22-fossil-fuel-subsidies-dwarf-clean-energy-subsidies-obama-wants

Kochsucker.

[realpolitic]

12:08 AM on 01/31/2010

Yes, I can not stand the guy either. He uses every silly populist argument. Before he says I was trying to scare people with info. on mountain glaciers, yet his argument is that they have been disappearing for 300 years and not just 30.

[fumes]

09:00 PM on 01/29/2010

say rp.. about those glaciers.. and that IPCC..

Climate Chief Was Told Of False Glacier Claims Before Copenhagen
January 30, 2010
"The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt. Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists. The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change. Dr Pacharui has been accused of using the error to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

[realpolitic]

10:31 PM on 01/29/2010

Fumes, please do not quote anything owned by Rupert Murdoch. The guy's newspapers have no ethics and no integrity. The article is clearly mistaken as it says some Himalayan glaciers are advancing and others retreating. Many more are retreating than advancing. When scientists say they are retreating at the same pace they have been for the last few decades it means they are still retreating. That last sentence about Dr Pacharui using the error to obtain grants is just silly. Why would grants be premised on one bit of information when the IPCC reports contain an encyclopedia of information?

Finally, with regard to the Indian government report that says glaciers may not be melting as much as feared, I would suspect it too. Tensions between India and Pakistan are very high and both lay claim to the province of Kashmir. The Indus river supplies Pakistan with fresh water and forms in the mountains passing through Kashmir before it reaches Pakistan. If the freshwater supply of Pakistan is decreasing India may not want to publicize it. Fresh water is a very valuable resource and something wars are fought over. The tension over Kashmir will grow even hotter. Many countries in the region depend on the glaciers in the Himalayas for their water. Therefore, the Indian government may be down playing and minimizing glacial retreat.

[SFTor]

02:21 AM on 01/30/2010

rp, you can't be serious.

Pachauri knew the information on Himalayan glacier melt was wrong before Copenhagen. Live with it.

Why would grants be premised on that one piece of information you say? Because the grant (to TERI, director: none other than our friend Rajendra Pachauri) was bestowed precisely for further studies of Himalayan glacier melt.

[SFTor]

02:26 AM on 01/30/2010

rp, I'm sure we agree that the Daily Mail is not the greatest paper in the world either, but at least it is not owned by RM. Here:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.
Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.
‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0e4uJf90V

[fumes]

05:36 PM on 01/29/2010

"These findings show that stratospheric water vapour represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change," the scientists say. They say it should lead to a "closer examination of the representation of stratospheric water vapour changes in climate models".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/29/water-vapour-climate-change

water vapor is a driver!

[fumes]

05:39 PM on 01/29/2010

who knew?

[ReedYoung]

02:11 AM on 02/01/2010

Water vapor is a feedback mechanism, not a driver.

[realpolitic]

10:39 PM on 01/29/2010

Stratopheric water pressure may be a driver and do not forget it has not cooled so much in the last decade. It was the warmest on record and last year was tied with others for the second warmest year on record, according to NASA.. According to the article,

"The new research, led by Susan Solomon, at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who co-chaired the 2007 IPCC report on the science of global warming, is published today in the journal Science, one of the most respected in the world."

"Solomon said the new finding does not challenge the conclusion that human activity drives climate change. "Not to my mind it doesn't," she said. "It shows that we shouldn't over-interpret the results from a few years one way or another.""

"These findings show that stratospheric water vapour represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change," the scientists say. They say it should lead to a "closer examination of the representation of stratospheric water vapour changes in climate models".

"Solomon said it was not clear why the water vapour levels had swung up and down, but suggested it could be down to changes in sea surface temperature, which drives convection currents and can move air around in the high atmosphere."