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With the IPCC caught AGAIN producing Bad Science, is it time to disband this 'organization of incompetence'?
From The Sunday Times
February 7, 2010
"Top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility"
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.
Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.
The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.
This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035.
The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC because they appear not only in its report on climate change impacts but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report.
This report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers. Its lead authors include Pachauri himself.
Speaking at the 2008 global climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Pachauri said: “In some countries of Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by 50% by 2020.” In a speech last July, Ban said: “Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next 10 years.”
Speaking this weekend, Field said: “I was not an author on the Synthesis Report but on reading it I cannot find support for the statement about African crop yield declines.”
Watson said such claims should be based on hard evidence. “Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change. I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report,” he said.
The claims in the Synthesis Report go back to the IPCC’s report on the global impacts of climate change. It warns that all Africa faces a long-term threat from farmland turning to desert and then says of north Africa, “additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-20 period, and reductions in crop growth period (Agoumi, 2003)”.
“Agoumi” refers to a 2003 policy paper written for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian think tank. The paper was not peer-reviewed.
Its author was Professor Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert who looked at the potential impacts of climate change on Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. His report refers to the risk of “deficient yields from rain-based agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000–20 period”.
These claims refer to other reports prepared by civil servants in each of the three countries as submissions to the UN. These do not appear to have been peer-reviewed either.
The IPCC is also facing criticism over its reports on how sea level rise might affect Holland. Dutch ministers have demanded that it correct a claim that more than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level when, in reality, it is about a quarter.
The errors seem likely to bring about change at the IPCC. Field said: “The IPCC needs to investigate a more sophisticated approach for dealing with emerging errors.”
Addendum: “Ali Agoumi, is not a climate scientist, as such. Although he seems to have worked for Morocco's Ministry of Land-use Management, Water and the Environment, he currently seems to make his living from drawing up carbon credit applications under the UN's clean development mechanism. He has worked as consultant for the firm Ecosecurities, a company which specialises in carbon trading.”
11 Answers
- Ottawa MikeLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
As Paul B may or may not know, the left wing rag The Guardian has also been bashing the IPCC: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/05/...
- 1 decade ago
In one word yes, in my opinion this is the largest group of organized internationally recognized criminals in the world. The scientists are split as to if the can even work with the IPCC or not. Most of the information they get about the future of our climate is based on computer models, and as any person over 25 that works with computers can tell you, GIGO (garbage in garbage out) if you put faulty data into a program or computer model, all you will get out of it is faulty data witch is a surprise to no one but the people at the IPCC. They don’t even have a good understanding of what are world looks like know as all the conflicting and nonsensical study’s show us, and you can not predict the future without understanding the present. That is how I see it, just one mans lowly opinion take It for what its worth.
Source(s): education - BobLv 71 decade ago
Nope.
This is really minor stuff, and the mistakes don't change the fundamental science. It is especially important to note that the mistakes involve the inherently more uncertain prospective IMPACTS of climate change, NOT the reports about the nature and cause of warming.
For example, take the Himalayan glaciers. Denier websites harp on the mistake about when the Himalayan glaciers might TOTALLY disappear. While completely ignoring the fact that scientists (even in India, which has political reasons for downplaying the issue) agree that they ARE disappearing, and that that threatens the water supply of millions of people, who might have to leave their homes, causing chaos, and quite possibly war.
Or the EXACT amount of the Netherlands that's below sea level. This may not even have been an error, but simply a misinterpretation. In any event, the fact that the Netherlands is very vulnerable to even a small sea level rise is undeniable.
The lack of perspective here is mind boggling.
Note that the relatively unimportant mistakes that have been found amount to tiny details about undeniable impacts, such as the above.
The fact that deniers are trying to make such a big deal about these small points is simply a measure of their desperation. Science has demolished their attempts at making serious arguments, so they fall back on this nonsense. It's all they have.
And NONE of it touches the basic facts. Global warming is real, mostly caused by us, and a serious problem.
Quoting the Guardian article cited above as "bashing" the IPCC:
"What does all this mean? Well, it doesn't mean that the well-authenticated, headline conclusions about human impacts on the climate system are undermined. Nor does it mean that concerns about the risks of future climate change are misplaced."
- ?Lv 44 years ago
right, that ought to favor to intend that they have were given some one or something over them that has skill over them. do now not project. it is going to flow away. the guy scientists that make up the IPCC will then downplay their function and declare all alongside that they have were given been acrually skeptical of AGW.
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- bravozuluLv 71 decade ago
It is long past time. They are nothing but a propaganda pushing politburo. India recently decided it was time to ignore them and set up their own organization. They have to be really bad for that to have happened. We need to stop treating leftist activists like they deserve consideration. They need to be marginalized and defeated because they are a much bigger danger than any of the fairytales they invent.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
The "errors and "falsehoods" are mistakes that slipped past the review process.
they have been evaluated and corrected when identified.
there are thousands of pages of information in a few journals and millions of pages overall
does it surprise you that there are a few mistakes?
Greenhouse is a real physical process
the earth would have the same climate as the Moon without our atmosphere
Climate has change over the thousands of millions of years of the earth's history and a will continue to do so
the question is: Does human activity, have a large enough effect to make a catastrophic difference
If we get the answer to that wrong life will still go on but your children may not
Source(s): physics and common sense - Weise EnteLv 71 decade ago
Actually Leake was caught lying red-handed.
This is the quality of argument the denialists can muster. Lies.
- Facts MatterLv 71 decade ago
You are not quoting some external critic, but "Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team". So your story is evidence that IPCC is straightening itself out from within. The very opposite of the spin the Sunday Times puts on it.
Non-Brits may not know: the Sunday Times is now a right-wing rag committed to attacking AGW on any pretext.
- 1 decade ago
They're not incompetent, they're fraudsters, and they've been caught.
