Bishop Hill find: no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary

The Hockey Stick Illusion

The Hockey Stick Illusion

Bishop Hill (aka A.W. Montford) made a great find in the AR4 Chapter 9 comments.  Here’s a link to his post and an excerpt:

Bishop Hill:  Hansen’s colleague eviscerates AR4 Chapter 9

“While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS. Lacis’s is not a name I’ve come across before but some of what he has to say about Chapter 9 of the IPCC’s report is simply breathtaking.”

“…read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:

‘There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.’”

And the chapter author’s response:

“Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature.”

Pay the Bishop a visit!

The Green Police: Funny or a vision of the future?

Green Police

Green Police

I found many of the Superbowl ads boring.  I wasn’t quite sure what to think of Audi’s spot, although I found it the most entertaining.  Is it slamming the greens? Is this what life is going to be like?

It’s already started.  CFL bulbs are on the way to be mandated. Check out the clean up list in case you happen to break one, courtesy of ecovillagegreen.com:

http://ecovillagegreen.com/2009/02/how-to-dispose-of-a-broken-cfl-bulb/

Not too simple.

Where will it end?

I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

Phil Jones

Phil Jones

News from the London Times:

I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

A nice discussion of the science would have been nice. It is very sad to see the situation come to this. I sincerly hope Dr. Jones gets through this.

Update:  On the other hand, Dr. Jones made his own bed, and the implications of the accuracy of his “science” has huge political and financial implications.  He didn’t seem to feel too bad when John Daly passed, as pointed out by one of the commenters to this story. My human side wants to feel sorry for the guy, but we each have to be responsible for our own actions.

Update 2Thomas Fuller has some interesting thoughts in his post on this topic.

American Thinker – IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks

IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks

IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks

Marc Sheppard at American Thinker has posted this outstanding comprehensive piece on the state of climate science and the IPCC:

IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks 

I highly recommend you read the entire piece and all of the linked supporting sources.  I do want to highlight some of the article (italics are from the article):

The year was 1988, and Colorado Senator Tim Wirth had arranged for Hansen to testify on the subject before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to help sell the dire need to enact national environmental legislation. As Wirth has since admitted, he intentionally scheduled Hansen’s appearance on what was forecasted to be the hottest day of the hearings. And in a brilliantly underhanded marketing ploy, he and his cohorts actually snuck into the hearing room the night before and opened the windows, rendering the air conditioning all but useless. 

Please note that Tim Wirth is still working on behalf of the U.S. promoting climate alarmism.  Here’s a link to his Wikipedia page, which I’m sure William Connelley has properly sanitized. Nice to know we have a PR expert manipulator looking out for our best interests.

Back in 1989, future Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Working Group 2 (WG2) lead author Stephen Schneider disclosed several tricks of the trade to Discover magazine:

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”

Boy, this sure sums things up. It’s OK to lie as long as you promote your own goals.

As previously discussed, it was in the same 2001 TAR that the IPCC suddenly and inexplicably scrapped its long-held position that global temperatures had fluctuated drastically over the previous millennium and replaced it with a chart depicting relatively flat temperatures prior to a sharp rise beginning in 1900. This, of course, removed the pesky higher-than-present-day temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period of 900-1300 AD, the existence of which obstructed the unprecedented-warming sales pitch. 

Anyone who has been doing their own research on climate change, rather that believing the mainstream media, is already aware of this.  For those that aren’t already educated, here’s the graphs. First up, the graph from IPCC 1990 Figure 7c:

IPCC 1990 Figure 7c
IPCC 1990 Figure 7c

Next up, the infamous, debunked “hockey stick” graph, with data tortured beyond belief (image from Wikipedia, also sanitized by alarmist William Connelley):

Debunked hockey stick - hide the MWP
Debunked hockey stick – hide the MWP

As you can see in the images, the climate “scientists” manipulated the data to show today is warmer than the past.  See Climate Audit to educate your self on the details behind this manipulation of the data and science. To summarize, you can put garbage data into Michael Mann’s climate model and end up with a hockey stick.

And this, coupled with the disclosure of the Jones “hide the decline” e-mail, provided more evidence that MBH98 — and ergo unprecedented 20th-century warming — is a fraud.

Real Climate and other alarmists have claimed that “trick” refers to a mathematical technique.  Sorry, but no. The trick was used to hide recent tree ring data because it doesn’t match current temperatures – the tree ring proxies go down when they should go up.  They wanted to present a nice tidy story about how the past was cooler. The trick hides what is known as the divergence issue.  It seems that tree ring growth doesn’t behave as expected in the last few decades (growth growth is down when temperatures are up), but then why do they think trees make good thermometers?  Here’s a great summary of the “trick” from Climate Audit.

But one in his own ranks, Dr Murari Lal, the coordinating lead author of the chapter making the claim, had the astoundingly bad manners to admit that he knew all along that it did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research. Apparently, so had Pachauri, who continued to lie about it for months so as not to sully the exalted AR4 immediately prior to Copenhagen.

So we know the IPCC lied about the Himalayan glaciers and exaggerated.  But here’s what Dr. Lal 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.”

It seems the IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one.

It should be noted here that IPCC rules specifically disqualify all non-peer-reviewed primary sources.

The IPCC certainly didn’t follow this rule, as documentedvery nicely by Donna Laframboise in blog posts here, here, and here.  The IPCC cited Greenpeace, WWF, student papers and climbing magazines.

For outside of the U.S., many news organizations and politicians already get it. Some are calling for Pachauri’s resignation, and others for a full investigationinto his possible financial conflicts of interest. There have also been demands for a complete reassessment of all IPCC reports, including a suggestion from the Financial Times that, given the IPCC’s central role in climate science,an independent auditor must be commissioned to look at all the claims in the 2007 report and remove any that were not soundly based.  

Where’s the U.S. mainstream media?  Sadly, missing in action.

Read the full story in American Thinker. It’s well worth the time.

Mann makes front page of Fox News

Mann investigation just a whitewashing

Mann investigation just a whitewashing

Finally, some more coverage. Still waiting for real coverage from the rest of the MSM.  Read the story:

Penn State Probe into Mann’s Wrongdoing a ‘Total Whitewash’

Did we really expect the “investigation” to go any other way?

BBC now featuring Pachauri and IPCC errors

Pachauri:  Is it warm in here?

Pachauri: Is it warm in here?

More coverage, now from the BBC:

I will not go, says climate chief

It’s about time. I imagine it will take a couple weeks before the U.S. media catches up.

Finally: Fox News picks up IPCC scandal on front page

Pachauri in the limelight

Pachauri in the limelight

While the UK and India news outlets have been all over it, the U.S. mainstream media is FINALLY onto Pachauri and the IPPC fiasco.  No new facts in this front page story on FoxNews.com, but the coverage is warranted and appreciated:

Climate Chief Staying Put Despite Calls for His Head

OK, not the only mainstream coverage, but everyone else is burying mostly newswire stories.  You only find these articles if you look.  Some examples:

Climate panel chief: I won’t quit

UN Panel Chief Won’t Quit For Himalayan Melt Error

U.N. climate chiefs apologize for glacier error

So, how much longer before we see some real journalism in the U.S. mainstream media?

The IPCC and WWF: World Wide Fraud?

World Wide Fraud

World Wide Fraud

Donna Laframboise at the blog There is No Frakking “Scientific Consensus” on Global Warming has a great post on how often the IPCC has used the WWF as a source:

More Dodgy Citations in the Nobel-Winning IPCC Report

Rajendra Pachuri has some explaining to do.  He claimed the false information on Himalayan glaciers was the only error in the IPCC report.  Not only was the information false, a source was the WWF instead of peer-reviewed science literature. Ms. Laframboise has already identified numerous instances in the IPCC AR4 report where the WWF is used as a source.

Why should we ever have assumed that a report prepared by the IPCC would be scientific, instead of political?

Pachauri and IPCC credibility eroding

Rajendra Pachauri in happier times

Rajendra Pachauri in happier times

I’m sure glad Al Gore invented the Internet.  Otherwise here in the U.S. you might not know much about how Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC are losing their credibility. But thanks to Al, we can find quite a bit.

David Rose at the Mail UK has this eye opening story:

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified

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.’

So now he admits it wasn’t an accident and the false information was included for political effect.

The Times UK has been another source and features two three recent stories:

Roger Peilke Jr. has been contesting the claims linking climate change to increase natural disasters and political manipulation (ala Winston Smith) in the Stern report :

There’s still more reading to do thanks to the international media:

After reading the stories above, I found this one almost hilarious:

IPCC’s credibility has increased: Pachauri

There was no way TERI or IPCC could penalize Hasnain, [Pachauri] said, or any other author who may have “erred” because they are not employees of IPCC. The fact that IPCC’s own due diligence, verification and monitoring mechanisms may need to be questioned too was not acknowledged by the Nobel prize winning body’s chief. Instead, Pachauri described the IPCC’s processes as “robust and solid”.

Facing a barrage of questions from the media about his `loss of credibility’, Pachauri maintained that all “rational people” would continue to repose their faith in IPCC and its findings.

Interestingly, Pachauri also refused to put a date to when the Himalayan glaciers would actually melt.

I’m at a loss for words.

AJStrata: NASA GISS Admits Current Temps Not Historically Warmer

Ruedy Reto: "the US time series...is so noisy and has such a large margin of error that no conclusions can be drawn from it at this point"

Ruedy Reto: "the US time series...is so noisy and has such a large margin of error that no conclusions can be drawn from it at this point"

I’ve been following AJStrata’s blog for a while. Nice, concise discussion of climate issues, particularly on the technical side.

Here’s his latest catch:

NASA GISS Admits Current Temps Not Historically Warmer

And here’s a quote AJStrata found in the liberated NASA emails by NASA employee Reto Ruedy:

“He [McCyntire] concentrates on the US time series which (US covering less than 2% of the world) is so noisy and has such a large margin of error that no conclusions can be drawn from it at this point.”

Read his post, and learn.

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