The Guardian on “Climate Consensus Under Strain”

February 7, 2010 by Policy Lass 30 Comments

Thanks to Ron Cram’s link to a Guardian article: “Climate consensus under strain”.

You can read it in its entirety but I thought I’d post a few comments from various writers and open it up for discussion.

Here is the roundtable question:

We ask a range of experts: what damage has been done by recent criticisms of climate science credibility?

George Monbiot:

These scandals have done tremendous damage. This is not because they threaten the canon of climate science – that would require similar exposés of tens of thousands of scientific papers – but because they create an atmosphere of opacity and evasion. Rajendra Pachauri’s initial dismissal of questions over the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Himalayan glacier date suggests a failure to listen, which is inimical to scientific discourse. I am also amazed to learn that the IPCC doesn’t pay its chairman, obliging him to work elsewhere, which has caused the other scandal in which he’s embroiled. Anyone would think that running the organisation was a full-time job. This isn’t a task for amateurs. Continue reading →…

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Anatomy of a Story: Africagate

February 7, 2010 by Policy Lass 3 Comments

There’s a new IPCC “gate du jour” circulating in the blogosphere.  It’s called “Africagate”.

Here’s the bottom line: there is continuing debate about the effects of global warming on Africa. It’s a large continent and current research and modeling suggests that some areas will benefit from warming and increased rainfall and others will experience increased drought and loss of crop production.

What does the IPCC report state about impacts on Africa?

Here is the relevant section from the IPCC Synthesis Report :

3.3.2 Impacts on regions

Africa

􏰖 By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised. This would further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition. {WGII 9.4, SPM} Continue reading →…

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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

February 6, 2010 by Policy Lass 4 Comments

I’ve always been a fan of Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli, and this is one of the first concepts we learned in University level statistics course.

It’s interesting to see how people play with statistics, using them to make claims that those in the know can tell are really deceitful.

Let’s look at an example of someone “playing” with stats. Continue reading →…

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Santer – Douglass Smackdown/Matchup

February 4, 2010 by Policy Lass 50 Comments

ETA: I’ve revised the headline to reflect that this is still … still … still ongoing as we are waiting for Douglass et all to provide a peer-reviewed reply.

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Yet another chapter in the continuing saga “As the Denialists Spin” for your reading enjoyment:

Here’s a copy of the Douglass and Christy et al article A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions.

ABSTRACT: We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society

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Mann Exonerated

February 3, 2010 by Policy Lass 13 Comments

Penn State issued the findings of its inquiry into the conduct of Dr.Michael Mann in response to allegations raised by the CRU Email hack/leak.

The inquiry investigated four allegations:

1. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

2. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

3. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

4. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

Continue reading →…

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More Questionable IPCC Sources

January 30, 2010 by Policy Lass 48 Comments

Now, this is really silly…

According to a report in the Telegraph, the IPCC AR4 included references to a climber’s magazine article and an MA Thesis to support its claims about glacier loss and global warming impacts.

The IPCC WG2 report, Chapter 1, Section 3.2 on “Observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere cites a “loss of mountain climbs” as evidence of the effects of global warming on the cryosphere. It cites Schworer (1997) and Bowen (2002). Continue reading →…

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