Who is IPCC anyway?

by maggie

28 comments

1 Gary Yohe { 03.30.08 at 3:26 am }

No need to contact me. I will contact you.

FYI, I have been doing climate research since 1982, and I have published more than 80 articles in the peer reviewed literature. Have a look, read what you want, and then be in touch. You will see the time series of a skeptical mind that has been convinced over time that we need to respond. There are SOUND economic arguments (beyond Stern) to respond immediately.

Meanwhile, …. I agree with IPCC conclusions, as do all of the governments who participate in the IPCC and the UNFCCC (since the Summaries for Policymakers are approved unanimously word by word). This includes the United States. We have been represented in negotiations for 7 years by Harlon Watson. He speaks with the President on a regular basis. Ask him what he thinks and why he allows the US to sign on.

For the record, I am NOT an employee of the IPCC. Indeed, most of the people that you listed were paid NOTHING for their time and effort in the IPCC process…. and when you speak to Mr. Watson, he will speak about the integrety of the process.

So… get your facts right before you go after people.

Gary Yohe

2 maggie { 03.30.08 at 7:57 am }

Gary, thank you very much for the explanation. I have updated the text according to your remarks.

However, I will not be convinced by economic arguments. I am still waiting for someone to prove that CO2 drives climate changes.
Neither am I surprised that all of the governments who participate in the IPCC have signed the summary. Governments are usually driven by a quite different agenda.

3 recon { 03.30.08 at 10:19 am }

I don’t see how Ulrike Lohmann can possibly agree with the all of the conclusions in AR4. She has since co-authored two papers on climate sensitivity with Petr Chylek and in both cases they derive a sensitivity below 2.0°C (1.1-1.8°C and 1.3-2.3°C respectively). This is considerably less than the IPCC AR4 best estimate of 3.0°.

So if Lohmann should agree with AR4, she would in effect be invalidating her own, more recent work. It would be very interesting to have her comment on this.

4 maggie { 03.30.08 at 12:15 pm }

Let me quote a few lines from the NIPCC report (S. Fred Singer, ed., Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Chicago, IL: The HeartlandInstitute, 2008. ).

“Another reason for the IPCC’s unreliability is the naive acceptance by policymakers of ‘peer-reviewed’ literature as necessarily authoritative. It has become the case that refereeing standards for many climate-change papers are inadequate, often because of the use of an ‘invisible college’ of reviewers of like inclination to a paper’s authors.
[Wegman et al. 2006] Policy should be set upon a background of demonstrable science, not upon simple (and often mistaken) assertions that, because a paper was refereed, its conclusions must be
accepted.”

5 Thomas { 03.30.08 at 1:15 pm }

Maggie, since you refer to that “NIPCC report”, perhaps you could provide a link to the report? All I’ve seen is the “summary” to a report that doesn’t seem to exist.

The reason we rely on peer review isn’t that everything that is published is correct, much of it isn’t, but that it is a crude sieve to filter out the worst rubbish. If you can’t get a paper through peer review in a reasonably respected journal it’s probably junk.

I’d be interested in you giving an example of what you’d consider sufficient evidence to believe that CO2 drives most of the current climate change, or maybe more significant what you would require to be convinced that the risk of it being true is large enough that it makes sense to act.

Since the IPCC report is a compromise I’d imagine that lots of the people involved in it disagree with individual points, some thinking that IPCC overstates the problem other that it understate it and most on a technical level that has no significant effect on the conclusions.

6 Mats Frick { 03.30.08 at 1:34 pm }

Hi Thomas,

Here’s the link to the NIPCC report:

http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC-Feb%2020.pdf

7 maggie { 03.30.08 at 1:58 pm }

Thomas, touché. I am actually referring to the summary of the report. Thank you for pointing that out. I would definitely like to read the full report.

8 maggie { 03.30.08 at 1:59 pm }

Actually Mats, you are also linking to the summary. I asked Dr Fred Singer though, perhaps he can help us.

9 Tharand { 03.30.08 at 2:25 pm }

“However, I will not be convinced by economic arguments”

Then why do you and your like minded fellows try to convince us with economic arguments like taxes and food prices?

10 Thomas { 03.30.08 at 3:07 pm }

maggie, I’d still like to hear what would satisfy you in the way of evidence.

Good luck with trying to get the full report, I’m fairly convinced it doesn’t exist. If it did the summary would be full of references to it.

11 Thomas { 03.30.08 at 4:28 pm }

Another point on the members of the IPCC. Only WG I works exclusively with climate science. Ogunlade Davidson, for exemple, was co-chair of WG III, dealing with mitigation. In 1992 he wrote a book “A new, environmentally-sound energy strategy for the development of sub-Saharan Africa” suggesting he might have some experience in the area.

You haven’t even included Stephen Schneider, one of the best known climatologists in the world, among your approved ones, and he has been working with climate science since 1971!

12 maggie { 03.30.08 at 7:59 pm }

Thomas, as I said, I could be wrong. I am only surprised that out of four working groups only one deals with climate science. After all, isn’t that the base of all the alarm?

By the way, I got an answer from one of the names in the list. That person says there is no question in his/her mind that the Earth is warming and that human activities have been a major driver of the warming of the last 50 ys. That second statement actually exceeds the official IPCC version, doesn’t it, the “very likely”? I wonder how anyone can be so sure of something based on so little information.

13 Tharand { 03.30.08 at 8:17 pm }

“I am only surprised that out of four working groups only one deals with climate science. After all, isn’t that the base of all the alarm?”

If you read the IPCC report summary, you’ll find that it also calculates potential risks for agricalture, ecosystems, economy, migration eg. To calculate that kind of threats other experts than climate scientists are needed. The effects of the potential change are certainly as important as the change in itself!

And if I should make a similiar counting of the favourite experts of you and your fellow like minded, actually as many of them would not be experts of climate science in specific.

14 Thomas { 03.30.08 at 9:23 pm }

The climate science is the basis for the alarm, but once you have the alarm you also need to know the consequences (WG II) and what to do about it (WG III&IV).

When it comes to competence, Maggie might also want to check the list of the NIPCC writers. I know one works with welding, one in string theory, one chemistry, one nuclear physics etc.

And I’m still waiting for a response to my question as to what maggie would accept as evidence for global warming.

15 Mats Frick { 03.30.08 at 10:14 pm }

Hi guys,

Maggie works in advertising with digital strategy, why not ask her what “AstroTurfing” means!?

16 maggie { 03.31.08 at 5:11 am }

Thomas, I do not deny that the world has been warming. After all, we are still recovering from the Little Ice Age. However, I am questioning the mechanisms behind the warming. Given the complexity of the climatic system it is very difficult to isolate the effects of CO2, the sun, the oceans etc. Only way to do it is by modelling and thus creating a virtual reality.

I find it unlikely that something that constitutes 0.03 percent of the atmosphere should have a greater effect than the Sun, which is 330,000 times the mass of the Earth.

17 maggie { 03.31.08 at 5:12 am }

Mats, what a scoop! However, you forgot to mention that I am also a copywriter. The plot thickens…

18 Thomas { 03.31.08 at 6:56 am }

Maggie, now you are trying to sneak away from the original question, which was: “I’d be interested in you giving an example of what you’d consider sufficient evidence to believe that CO2 drives most of the current climate change, or maybe more significant what you would require to be convinced that the risk of it being true is large enough that it makes sense to act.”

I get a strong impression that there is nothing that can convince you until afterwards, which is far too late.

“I find it unlikely that something that constitutes 0.03 percent of the atmosphere should have a greater effect than the Sun, which is 330,000 times the mass of the Earth.”

This is such a nonsense statement. A soundbite that maybe is useful in advertising but has nothing to do with science. If this is your level of understanding you really ought to listen more to scientists and be less arrogant that you understand enough to decide for yourself they are all wrong.

You could as well turn it around and say that it is unlikely that something 150 billion meters away should have more influence than something right around us. Obviously if you turned off the sun the Earth would cool dramatically, being heated only by a little geothermal, but so what? The sun isn’t going to go dark. On the other hand, the carbon dioxide levels are rising rapidly.

19 maggie { 03.31.08 at 7:49 am }

Thomas, you are right about one thing. There is little you can say that can convince me. So you might as well stop trying.

20 Peter Stilbs { 03.31.08 at 8:02 am }

I do not think the fill NIPCC reprort is yet available. The Summary was released during the recent New York Climate meeting. Meanwhile - you can study the following Independent assessment of the IPCC TAR4 material from February 2007:

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/COMMERCE.WEB/product_files/IndependentSummary5.pdf

With that in mind, and with actual information on how totally flawed the IPCC review process really is (the following information became available only through the US Freedom of Information Act):

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_originals/peerreview.html

there is not much left of credibility in any IPCC’s statement.

21 JMD { 03.31.08 at 2:26 pm }

Here’s the problem with the IPCC:

“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. – IPCC Home page — http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm

These people have a single focus — human-caused global warming. Other causes of global warming/climate change are not on their radar.

22 JMD { 03.31.08 at 2:33 pm }

Re Thomas post 5:

How about some evidence that is distinguishable from natural climate variability? Paleoclimatologists tell us that everything that is happening with climate now has happened before so today’s changes lies within the norm for climate swings. So why can’t today’s climate changes have natural origins just like those in the past?

That is the challenge for alarmists, Thomas. They must show that today’s conditions are abnormal and so far they have been unable to do that.

23 Mats Frick { 03.31.08 at 4:04 pm }

Hi Maggie. I know I’m knocking down an open door. I don’t think your’e a hired gun of some lobby group but it might be a good idea to make a disclaimer so that your employer doesn’t have to answer a lot of questions. I has happened before:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06215/710851-115.stm

24 Bob { 03.31.08 at 5:30 pm }

The question that is commonly overlooked about all of this is simple.

The “Green” people make the statement that something is “Wrong” and we need to fix it.

This implies that they KNOW what is right.

That is where the problem lies. What is right for Central America may not be right for Africa or Siberia, nor may it be right for the entire planet.

But they can NEVER know what is right, because it entirely depends on the observer. To even begin to calculate what is right requires knowing the beginning and the end, of which we, as humans, know neither.

If you’re not familiar with paradoxes that revolve around assumptions based on an observer, please refer to Einsteins Theory of Relativity. What appears “correct” to one may not be “correct” to the other, and is in fact, entirely dependant on the observer.

You say +5 degrees of temp is bad, I say that I’m thrilled about never shovelling snow again!

To assume that one’s versoin of correct is the ONLY TRUE correct is merely a restatement of every religion in the history of mankind.

“Do you believe in God?”
“No”
{Dead}

“Do you belive in God?”
“Yes”
“Do you belive in MY God?”
“No”
{Dead}
“My belief is correct and yours is wrong!”

25 Dr. Gerhard Loebert { 03.31.08 at 7:48 pm }

A Compilation of the Arguments that Irrefutably Prove that Climate Change is driven by Solar Activity and not by CO2 Emission

Dr. Gerhard Löbert, Otterweg 48, 85598 Baldham, Germany. March 6, 2008.
Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics.
Program Manager “CCV, F 104G” (see Internet).
Program Manager “Lampyridae, MRMF” (see Internet)
Conveyor of a super-Einsteinian theory of gravitation that explains, among many other post-Einstein-effects, the Sun-Earth-Connection and the true cause of the global climate changes.

I. Climatological facts

As the glaciological and tree ring evidence shows, climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times in the past, both with the magnitude as well as with the time rate of temperature change that have occurred in the recent decades. The following facts prove that the recent global warming is not man-made but is a natural phenomenon.

1. In the temperature trace of the past 10 000 years based on glaciological evidence, the recent decades have not displayed any anomalous behaviour. In two-thirds of these 10 000 years, the mean temperature was even higher than today. Shortly before the last ice age the temperature in Greenland even increased by 15 degrees C in only 20 years. All of this without any man-made CO2 emission!

2. There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different temporal behaviour in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner, with a mean period of 70 years, the CO2 concentration has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s. The sea level has been rising and the glaciers have been shortening practically linearly from 1850 onwards. Neither time trace showed any reaction to the sudden increase of hydrocarbon burning from the 1950’s onwards.

3. The hypothesis that the global warming of the past decades is man-made is based on the results of calculations with climate models in which the main influence on climate is not included. The most important climate driver (besides solar luminosity) comes from the interplay of solar activity, interplanetary magnetic field strength, cosmic radiation intensity, and cloud cover of the Earth atmosphere. As is shown in Section II, this phenomenon is generated by the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the core of the Sun.

4. The extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean global temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth in the past 150 years (see Fig. 2.2 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm), which has been ignored by the mainstream climatologists, leaves little room for a human influence on climate. This close correlation results from the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the Sun and on the Earth (see Section II). Note that temperature lags rotation by 6 years.

5. From the steady decrease of the rotational velocity of the Earth that set in in Dec. 2003, it can reliably be concluded that the mean Earth temperature will decrease again in 2010 for the duration of three decades as it did from 1872 to 1913 and from 1942 to 1972.

6. The RSS AMSU satellite measurements show that the global temperature has not increased since 2001 despite the enormous worldwide CO2 emissions. Since 2006 it has been decreasing again.

II. Physical explanation for the strong correlation between fluctuations of the rotational velocity and changes of the mean surface temperature of the Earth

Despite its great successes, the gravitational theory of the great physicist Albert Einstein, General Relativity, (which is of a purely geometric nature and is totally incompatible with the highly successful quantum theory) must be discarded because this theory is completely irreconcilable with the extremely large energy density of the vacuum that has been accurately measured in the Casimir experiment.

Seaon Theory, a new theory of gravitation based on quantum mechanics that was developed eight decades after General Relativity, not only covers the well-known Einstein-effects but also shows up half a dozen post-Einstein effects that occur in nature. From a humanitarian standpoint, the most important super-Einsteinian physical phenomenon is the generation of small-amplitude longitudinal gravitational waves by the motion of the supermassive bodies located at the center of our galaxy, their transmission throughout the Galaxy, and the action of these waves on the Sun, the Earth and the other celestial bodies through which they pass. These vacuum density waves, which carry with them small changes in the electromagnetic properties of the vacuum, occur in an extremely large period range from minutes to millennia.

On the Sun, these vacuum waves modulate the intensity of the thermonuclear energy conversion process within the core, and this has its effect on all physical quantities of the Sun (this is called solar activity). This in turn has its influences on the Earth and the other planets. In particular, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field strength are modulated which results in large changes in the intensity of the cosmic radiation reaching the Earth. Cosmic rays produce condensation nuclei so that the cloud cover of the atmosphere and the Earth albedo also change.

On the Earth, the steady stream of vacuum density waves produces parts-per-billion changes in a large number of geophysical quantities. The most important quantities are the radius, circumference, rotational velocity, gravitational acceleration, VLBI baseline lengths, and axis orientation angles of the Earth, as well as the orbital elements of all low-earth-orbit satellites. All of these fluctuations have been measured.

Irrefutable evidence for the existence of this new, super-Einsteinian wave type is provided by the extremely close correlation between changes of the mean temperature and fluctuations of the mean rotational velocity of the Earth. (see the figure referred to in Section I.4). Einsteinian theory cannot explain this amazing correlation between two physical quantities that seem to be completely unrelated.

While the rotational velocity of the Earth and the thermonuclear energy conversion process on the Sun react simultaneously to the passage of a vacuum density wave, a time span of 6 years is needed for the energy to be transported from the core of the Sun to the Earth’s atmosphere and for the latter’s reaction time.

As can be seen, super-Einsteinian gravitation reveals the true cause of climate change.

26 Skeptikern { 03.31.08 at 8:45 pm }

Bob: Brilliant comment!

27 Klas { 04.01.08 at 1:25 pm }

It would be VERY interesting to see a counter-comment on some of the “sceptic-theories” from a member of the IPCC.

Not just by pointing on a report or scenario, but really showing some proof or incitament to why for example the theory about solar driven changes is wrong. Or why the past changes in temperature was not co2 drivern, but teh recent one probably are.

I have a really hard time buying the IPCC reports because they do not address past history and climate factors which are NOT antropogenic (at least not in a deeper sense).

I could very well buy the fact that billions of tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels released into the atmosphere in just 100-200 years probably affects the climate and our environment.

The question is how much, and wouldnt the temperatures be affected even without this co2 ? And how much would that be ?

Is it so that we are just driving up temperatures premature to what an non-co2 driven global warming would have ? I.e. A natural warming may not be due in 400 yeras, but we are “hepling” it within 100 years?

Or are we in fact countering a global freeze, i.e. is it a new ice-age coming in, in which case we should reallt prepare for a colder climate, even if we manage to release enough co2 to drive up temperatures for a couple of decades ?

Or is the temperature always constant, and we humans are the only factor contributing to changes right now ? In which case we probably should do what media and politicans claim. On the other hand - why has the climate varied in the past then ?

/K

28 Engineer » Who is IPCC anyway? { 04.19.08 at 8:36 am }

[...] maggie wrote an interesting post today on Who is IPCC anyway?Here’s a quick excerptDavidson, Ogunlade - Professor, Mechanical Engineering Hare, William - B.Sc. in Environmental Science and Physics, visiting scientist on leave from Greenpeace Huq, Saleemul - B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Plant Sciences … [...]

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