Climate Change Controversies: How Wrong Is The IPCC?

Mother Jones:

What's going at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? After a rash of stories about inaccurate data in the reports produced by the world's preeminent climate science research organization, Kevin Drum wonders what impact the recent scandals have had on public opinion. The controversies over the IPCC's data haven't challenged the fundamental agreement among the vast majority of scientific bodies that climate change is happening and caused in large part by human activity. But they're feeding public distrust of climate science and science in general, largely because they've provided plentiful ammunition for skeptics and climate change deniers. And it's getting worse by the day.

Read the whole story: Mother Jones

Comments

[ReedYoung]

03:02 PM on 04/09/2010

Phil Jones is exonerated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-hoggan/climate-scientist-phil-jo_b_519298.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/climategate-investigation_n_519644.html

He did **nothing** wrong and the disparaging comments he and the other legitimate scientists at CRU made about oil geologist Steve McIntyre and his barrage of frivolous FOI requests
http://www.desmogblog.com/climatgate-autopsy
... were still better than McIntyre deserves for his defamatory statements against Mann for the MBH98 paper, which has been completely upheld. It turns out that, as I have said all along, the only crime in "climategate" is the theft of data and the rush to judgment by the corporate media. I wish it was just the "right-wing" outlets, but it wasn't. It was the leading, formerly authoritative corporate media, which now unequivocally are not worthy of the honorific "Press."

[FTracy3]

10:44 AM on 02/15/2010

Now Phil Jones (he of the East Anglia scandals) says there may have been no global warming since 1995, and the earth may have been warmer in medieval times than now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

[realpolitic]

11:38 AM on 02/15/2010

NOAA: "The 2000-2009 decade will be the warmest on record." On December 8, 2009, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, "The 2000 -- 2009 decade will be the warmest on record, with its average global surface temperature about 0.96 degree F above the 20th century average. This will easily surpass the 1990s value of 0.65 degree F."

[DocSkull]

04:58 PM on 02/15/2010

The article in the conservative paper makes those conclusions. However, they aren't based on Jones' statements. There has been warming over the last 15 years, it just isn't statistically significant to the 95th percentile if you only consider that one small chunk of time. In context, warming continues to the highest statistical certainty. Secondly, Jones was talking about IF it was warmer in the past. It demonstrates open-mindedness since his own research suggests that it was not warmer then than now AND that warming was restricted to northern Europe. Not the entire globe.

[realpolitic]

05:31 PM on 02/15/2010

Great comment!

[SFTor]

05:46 PM on 02/15/2010

DocSkull (your screen name seems more appropriate all the time):

Here is Phil Jones in his own words. He talks about the MWP being most prominent in North America, the North Atlantic, Europe, and parts of Asia. After you have satisfied yourself, please stop repeating misleading statements.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

[ephoenix5]

08:40 AM on 02/15/2010

How wrong were they? I would say pretty wrong and in many levels. I mean it wasn't just science though they did cook the numera or "apply the trick to hide the decline" in temperature, but they also squashed descent by keeping competing papers out of publication and ruining reputations. Oh yeah it is bad on many levels. It was actually a pretty evil fraud on the population.

[DocSkull]

05:00 PM on 02/15/2010

What about their explanation of the sentence fragment "hide the decline" from the stolen emails did you not like? What effect did it have on our knowledge of global warming? Wouldn't a decline in temperatures for the period involved make the recent warming even more alarming?

[SFTor]

05:48 PM on 02/15/2010

"hide the decline" calls the entire tree ring proxy into question. And you know that that changes a lot.

[SFTor]

03:03 PM on 02/16/2010

I didn't make myself clear. If tree ring proxies were wrong in the 1960s, why are we sure they would be right in 1860, or 1460, or 1060?

[realpolitic]

11:18 AM on 02/14/2010

WMO: "2000-2009, The Warmest Decade." In a December 8, 2009, press release, the World Meterological Organization stated, "The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989)." WMO also stated, "The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850."

NOAA: "The 2000-2009 decade will be the warmest on record." On December 8, 2009, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, "The 2000 -- 2009 decade will be the warmest on record, with its average global surface temperature about 0.96 degree F above the 20th century average. This will easily surpass the 1990s value of 0.65 degree F."

[Lemmy]

10:23 AM on 02/16/2010

It's over dude. You are the true deniers . . .

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html#ixzz0fiFzk9TJ

[realpolitic]

12:54 PM on 02/16/2010

No, Dr. Jones said that the Medieval Warming Period was a regional phenomenon which did not affect the whole world uniformly, for example, it did not affect the southern hemisphere and therefore could not be compared to the man-made warming of the today.

‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.

‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

He also said there has been warming the last 15 years, but not at the 97% level of significance.

[DocSkull]

05:28 PM on 02/16/2010

"The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory."

That is true. They were two different workings of the data. As were the dozen or so studies since.

You are attempting to discredit Halogen light bulbs by attacking Thomas Edison.

[realpolitic]

11:18 AM on 02/14/2010

"Met Office data also reportedly shows 2000-2009 was warmest decade on record. Bloomberg reported on December 8, 2009, "This decade is set to be the warmest on record though 2009 won't be the hottest year," and, "Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine occurred in the 2000s, according to the Met Office, which said it expected temperatures to keep rising as a result of greenhouse-gas emissions." The article further reported, "Global temperatures are expressed by the Met Office as an 'anomaly' from the long-term average. The 2000s were about 0.4 of a degree warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average, eclipsing the record 0.23-degree temperature anomaly of the 1990s, it said.""

"Scientists have identified a long-term warming trend that spans several decades. In a February 11, 2009, Guardian op-ed, Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre, explained that claims about the pace of global warming based on less than 10 years of data are unreliable, "since natural variations always occur on this timescale.""

[Lemmy]

10:26 AM on 02/16/2010

Keep rocking back and forth on the edge of your bed with your fingers in your ears repeating the phrase, "But there is global warming! But there is global warming!"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

You have been owned.

[realpolitic]

12:47 PM on 02/16/2010

During his Q&A with BBC, During his Q&A with BBC, Dr. Jones stated that from 1995-2009, there has been a positive warming trend that is "not significant at the 97% significance level." When asked, "Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant cooling?" Jones stated, "No," adding that a cooling trend during this period "is not statistically significant."

Jones: "[T]here's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity." Jones was asked by BBC, "How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?" Jones stated that "I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed" and that "I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity."

[realpolitic]

01:17 PM on 02/16/2010

"Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms" is "less likely for shorter periods." When asked, "Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming," Dr.Jones stated:

"Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods."

RealClimate.org: "It is extremely difficult to establish a statistically significant trend over a timer interval as short as 15 years." In a February 15 post, RealClimate.org's staff, which is comprised of several working climate scientists, similarly stated that "it is extremely difficult to establish a statistically significant trend over a timer interval as short as 15 years."

Met Office: Climate shows "continued variability, but an underlying trend of warming in the previously steady long-term averages." [Met Office, accessed 9/22/09]

[John Mainstream]

06:23 PM on 02/12/2010

NASA is monitoring sea level rise. Over the coming decades we'll get a heads up if man made pollution begins to increase the rate of sea level rise.

[Rhiana]

01:55 PM on 02/13/2010

So we just just keep on keeping, who cares about energy independence, overall pollution, dwindling natural resources or any of that.

[John Mainstream]

06:20 PM on 02/12/2010

As always, a misrepresentation of the facts. Over the past 100 years sea level rise has been at a rate of about 3.3 mm per year. There has NOT been a significant rise in sea level due to human activity. Therefore, global warming is NOT man made.

[DocSkull]

11:28 AM on 02/17/2010

Your numbers are screwy, but how could humans contribute to rising global temperatures and it not result in sea level rise?

[FranklinCat]

02:50 PM on 02/12/2010

I gather from the article that most mistakes/problems (as few as the are) appear to be administrative rather than down on the level of hands-on-scientific-work. Ain't that funny?

[SFTor]

01:36 PM on 02/12/2010

There has been enough natural variability in recent years to know that CAGW is not a question you can settle with mere pronouncements. The dire predictions are overblown. They always are.

Time to call for a reorganization of the IPCC and for a tightening of scientific rigor in the field. Revisiting CAGW can be done in a few years' time. Perhaps then we have a clearer picture. I agree that there needs to be research---it's an important question. In the meantime there are real issues to deal with.

[SFTor]

02:18 PM on 02/12/2010

An

The liberal left is hurting its credibility with its insistence on CAGW. We have three major policy issues to deal with at this point: financial reform, health care reform (universal health care, please), and campaign finance reform (no person status for corporations). If we can get some progress on those fronts we'll live to fight another day.

[realpolitic]

05:02 PM on 02/12/2010

SFTor, I would like to agree when you say something sensible, but I think your credibility is too damaged after all your misinformation about global warming. Our memories are not that short. In the future, to be taken seriously, it is best to stick to factual argumentation and not to just quote the farthest right website you can and then leave the thread when inconvenient. Further, your tendency to point to the liberal left when you are speaking of the scientific community is disingenuous. Science is not a battle between left and right, believe it or not.

[realpolitic]

04:44 PM on 02/13/2010

No cred and I don' mean street cred!

[FranklinCat]

03:24 PM on 02/12/2010

"There has been enough natural variability in recent years. . . ."

What are you talking about?

[SFTor]

04:08 PM on 02/13/2010

Next question, same article:

C - Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
Jones: No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

[SFTor]

04:20 PM on 02/13/2010

Here, FranklinCat:

Q&A: Professor Phil Jones (BBC)

Q: Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Jones: An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I've assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

[slithers]

01:48 AM on 02/12/2010

The ipcc will continue to lie so that it can continue to exist

[realpolitic]

08:48 PM on 02/11/2010

All deniers can meet again this week for your weekly book burning session. Start with a few climate science books, build the fire with some books on evolution, and then when the fire is smoldering throw in Fahrenheit 451.

[mamacat]

07:53 PM on 02/11/2010

What scandal?
In a 3,000 page report, the date given for the melting of the last glaciers in the Himalayas was obviously wrong. Instead of 2035, it will be later than that. So what?
There is no scandal, unless one counts the constant harping on one small section of a much larger report by some segments of the MSM.

[realpolitic]

08:40 PM on 02/11/2010

Yes, it is mistake that is agonized over by IPCC members in a section which tells the truth about glaciers in the Himalayas. They are melting. On the other hand, on the denier side, every denying blogger makes numerous errors without ever revisiting them and then just goes on to more disinformation. I mean, deniers on these threads are a font of disinformation.

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

10:44 PM on 02/11/2010

Yes they are

[Harrywr2]

03:37 PM on 02/11/2010

All the climate models assume fossil fuels don't price themselves out of the energy mix.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dff34cb2-1519-11df-ad58-00144feab49a.html
"Credit Suisse recently raised its average 2010 thermal coal price forecast to $90 a tonne, an increase of 28.6 per cent on the previous year."

[DocSkull]

04:54 PM on 02/11/2010

All of them? Rising fuel prices haven't done much to curb increasing Co2 production.

[research]

03:14 PM on 02/11/2010

This is how science has always operated, and WHY it works so well.

Science is about creative concept of how the world works,

Tested using the scientific method.

The problem to day is that so many Americans have been rejected Science, The Enlightenment, and Liberalism

for a Big Lie version of Conservatism.

Liberal Republicans and Liberal Democrats should be working together against Conservatism.

"America, the first modern liberal state was founded, without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.[8"

"Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. The French Revolution, which implemented some of these new ideas, was a seminal event in the history of liberalism. John Locke is often credited with laying the philosophical foundations of liberalism.[3][4][5] "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Conservatism was founded and continues to be for Destroying the Republic and the Democracy and selling it to the plutocracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Ever wonder why the Right make Liberal such a dirty word?

Conservatives run both parties, though the GOP is much worse.

[Jimboy17]

03:02 PM on 02/11/2010

Nothing is wrong. Go back to your monitors. Please keep producing. Do not mind any change in income. Certainly, do not look behind the curtain, or question a philosophy that at once tells you you can be anyting, yet are nothing, and also not responsible for anything in the world. By all means necessary, keep CONSUMING. Don;t let ev//il win.