Relevant

26 January 2010: In our previous (updated) post, we discussed the IPCC's use of "grey literature," the non-peer reviewed literature produced by think tanks, and environmental "conservation" and "advocacy" groups. IPCC Chairman Pachauri has insisted the recent revelations about use of a WWF pamphlet was due to proper procedures not being followed, and indicating that it is, in essence, an isolated case.

It's become clear that Pachauri is either incorrect or has been mislead; the IPCC has used such citations frequently, including in the AR4, or 4th Assessment Report published in 2007.

On the EUReferendum site, the headline is "Not one, but two ... and counting" in reference to an additional use of the very same WWF reference discussed in our prior post about the apparently inaccurate pending demise of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. The first use of the 2005 WWF document ("An overview of glaciers, glacial retreat, and subsequent impacts in Nepal, India and China" [emphasis added]) was in Chapter 10 of the Working Group II report on Asia. Now the very same WWF report is seen referenced in Chapter 8 on Human Health, authored by a different team. And the scope of the WWF report is also, apparently, much greater than its title as the Chapter 8 authors apply its findings to "the Himalayas, Greenland, the European Alps, the Andes, Cordillera and East Africa" as well. That appears to be a substantial increase in scope.

We thank Canadian blogger, Donna Laframboise. Her research has identified many instances where WWF reports are the solitary citations for various IPCC claims, including including several which they consider "an agenda for action." Ms Laframbroise has also scratched the surface on citations to Greenpeace reports.

We're certain many people provide donations to the WWF (also known as the World Wide Fund for Nature) intending for good things to be done for nature. But the WWF is, and always has been, an advocacy group (see "How We Do This" at http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/). The IPCC calls itself a "scientific body." Environmental activists and certain politically active individuals often claim that oil companies, for example, cannot be trusted to generate unbiased reports. Why the double standard?

18 Jan 2010: The IPCC relies on the best available science, right? It appears increasingly as not. In late 2009, it was discovered that a graph used in its latest report (2007) had come from … Wikipedia!

We now have new revelations that the IPCC’s 2007 report used statements promoted via a 2005 report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental advocacy group. The WWF statement was, in turn, based on a non-peer reviewed 1999 article in New Scientist. The WWF report also included a basic math error in which the total glacial loss value was divided by 21 years, instead of 121. The now admittedly speculative comment to a reporter from one scientist, Syed Hasnain, was the IPCC’s sole basis for its “very likely” conclusion that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035. The IPCC term “very likely” means a likelihood of greater than 90 per cent. One article, not peer reviewed, admittedly “speculative” equates to 90% likelihood? Some odds.

The coordinating lead author, the scientist having oversight of this IPCC report section, is one Professor Murari Lal who has reportedly admitted a significant lack of knowledge about the IPCC report section: "I am not an expert on glaciers and I have not visited the [Himalayan] region so I have to rely on credible published research. The comments in the WWF report were made by a respected Indian scientist…” It's hard to think of one non-peer reviewed article by a Journalist as "credible published research," and Prof. Hasnain’s apparently agrees: "The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures."

Professor Lal has now publicly admitted to the UK's Daily Mail that he knew the statements had not been verified, and that it had been included intentionally to ">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.

Despite the IPPC's statement of principles that its reports should be neutral with respect to policy," it appears IPCC authors like solitary statements on impending doom, including those in the so-called “grey literature” as opposed to the real scientific reports from multiple independent researchers. It is also now much more clear that demonstrated knowledge in a particular field is not needed to oversee preparation of IPCC report chapters.

14 December 2009: Answers to many “chicken and egg” type climate questions could have a significant impact on our understanding of both the climate system and manmade global warming. One key question is if the Global Circulation ("climate") Models (GCMs) used by the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are correctly programmed to reflect scientific fact, or if the mechanism is merely assumed to be correct. In an invited talk today (16 December 2009) at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, Dr. Roy Spencer from The University of Alabama in Huntsville will discuss that challenge of answering questions about cause and effect (also known as forcing and feedback) in the climate. Spencer’s interest is in using satellite data and a simple climate model to test the simulated feedback processes contained in climate models that are used to forecast global warming.

At present, modelers viewing satellite data see warm years and fewer clouds, then assume that warmth caused the clouds to dissipate. This would be a positive feedback in the climate system, which would theoretically lead to strong global warming. GCMs are programmed to reflect this assumption. Spencer argues that scientists can't measure feedbacks the way that people have traditionally tried to do it. “My question to them was, ‘How do you know it wasn’t fewer clouds that caused the warm years, rather than the other way around?’  It turns out they didn’t know. They couldn’t answer that question.”

“Feedbacks will determine whether the manmade portion of global warming ends up being catastrophic or barely measurable,” Spencer said recently.

One problem is the simplicity of the climate models. Because cloud systems are so complex and so poorly understood, all of the climate models used by the IPCC use greatly simplified cloud parameters to represent clouds. But the calculations that set those parameters are based on assumed cause-and-effect relationships. Those assumptions might be working in the wrong direction, Spencer said. “What we have found is that cloud cover variations causing temperature changes dominate the satellite record, and give the illusion of positive feedback.”

Using satellite observations interpreted with a simple model, Spencer’s data support negative feedback (or cooling) better than they support positive feedback. “This critical component in global warming theory – cloud feedback – is impossible to measure directly in the real climate system,” Spencer said. “We haven’t figured out a good way to separate cause and effect, so we can’t measure cloud feedback directly. And if we don’t know what the feedbacks are, we are just guessing at how much impact humans will have on climate change.

“I’m trying to spread the word: Let’s go back to basics and look at what we can and cannot do with measurements of the real climate system to validate both climate models and their predictions.”

A former NASA scientist, Spencer is a principal research scientist in University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Earth System Science Center.

For more information:
Dr. Roy Spencer, (256) 961-7960,     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phillip Gentry, (256) 961-7618,     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We are pleased to provide a mirror post to Dr Roy W Spencer's invited presentation on estimating cloud feedbacks from satellite measurements available here in PDF form. These are copies of Dr Spencer's draft slides for the presentation. The presentation title is: On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing ... or ... Observational Evidence that Cloud Feedbacks could be Negative, Not Positive

This is a highly technical presentation, and appears to build on a paper ("Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration," in PDF format) published by Spencer & Braswell in the Journal of Climate in early 2008.

The evidence from Spencer's research suggests that climate system feedbacks appear to be negative (causing cooling), while most if not all GCMs now in use rely on positive ("warming") feedbacks for their projections of future temperatures and other climate conditions.

14 December 2009: We hear about this one regularly, usually referencing some kind of trend, a comparison to an average over some period of time, or a reference to the current year being the xth lowest. The difficulty with on-going predictions of an "ice-free Arctic" is that, in fact, the extent of Arctic sea ice hit a low in 2007. That's two years ago! As of this writing (12/14/09) Arctic sea ice extent is nearly 11.5 million sq km, up more than 100% from the summer low of 5.25 million sq km. There really is no trend in these recent data from year to year. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind...

1. We only have satellite records since about 1979. That's 30 years, not even half the current US life expectancy. So, those comments about any given year's ice extent being among the three or four lowest "ever," might make one think how short "ever" really is. Thirty years isn't even a blip in geological timescales. It's impossible to gauge -- with real accuracy and reliability -- the values for ice extent for the last relatively warm period, the 1930s and 1940s, much less any time prior to the Industrial Revolution. Various satellites and instruments have been used, so we cannot directly compare data from on to another.

2. Satellite measurements tell us nothing about the cause of warming. If warming now is predominately natural, for instance, sea ice would be decreasing anyway, just as it would be if the recent warming were due to some combination of anthropogenic ("man-made") and natural factors. Thus, analysis is very hard and relies on very limited data. It becomes essentially impossible to rule out natural factors for Arctic sea ice extent variations.

3. Averages are statistical constructs from a range of data points. Averages, by their very nature, require that some measurements be above the it, while others are below it.

4. Predictions from limited data must be viewed with caution. Because we have nothing to compare against for other warm periods, regardless of which was warmer, we have only assumptions on which to base predictions. It would be somewhat akin to predicting when and how much rain will fall each week next spring based on yesterday's snowfall, or lack thereof.

5. Like all other parts of the world, the Arctic has seasons. This includes "summer" when ice melts. By mid-September, Arctic sea ice has typically reached its minimum for the year and begins to quickly rebuild to a typical March peak. If, for example, we look at just recent years of AMSR-E satellite data (2003-present), which provides a consistent measurement base, it's easy to see that:

• Arctic ice extent runs an average winter peak of 14.3 million square kilometers (sq km).
• The average summer low is 5.3 million sq km.

Here are the values for Arctic Ice Extent since 2003 (all in million sq km):

Notes:

• Arctic sea ice extent has reached 11.3 million square kilometers and is still GROWING in 2009!
• The winter peaks for 2008 and 2009 were among the HIGHEST in the period since 2003.
• Arctic sea ice has NOT been in a continuous downward trend since even 2003, and since 2007 we've trended up. Statistics show there is little variation in the record.
• Precise sea ice records against which to compare are very limited, and even in that period we have multiple instruments, each measures sea ice a little differently, and overlaps in the records between instruments is also limited. Data from one instrument cannot be directly compared to that from others.

UN Challenged to Provide Sound Evidence for Catastrophic Forecasts

COPENHAGEN, December 8, 2009/CWN

The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) today released the names of over 140 leading climate experts from 17 countries who are asking the United Nations and other supporters of this month’s Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming (AGW) and other changes in climate.

“With revelations that critical temperature data used by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change appear to have been intentionally distorted to increase warming trends, national representatives to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference must demand a thorough re-examination of the scientific evidence supporting proposed mitigation actions”, said Challenge endorser Dr. Tim Patterson, ICSC Chair and Professor of Earth Sciences at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). “This should not be limited to simple temperature data auditing but must also include a re-evaluation of many of the climate-related assertions uncritically accepted by politicians and media worldwide.”

Please see the Copenhagen website for additional detail, include a log of on-site activities and events.

http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/

8 December 2009: Scientists who have been telling the truth about global warming for years, that there is no evidence it is man-made or will be a crisis, have relea sed new videos. Four of the videos were shot and edited by a KUSI-TV team led by meteorologist John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel and currently the lead meteorologist at KUSI-TV in San Diego.

Each of the videos features a well-known global warming skeptic, all of whom have spoken at the international climate change conferences. (Mr D'Aleo's features some of the best, most easily read graphics.)

Video: John Coleman
John Coleman is founder of the Weather Channel, the original weatherman on Good Morning America, and currently the lead meteorologist at KUSI-TV in San Diego.

Video: Joseph D'Aleo
Joseph D'Aleo is a certified consulting meteorologist, a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel, and currently founder and president of Icecap.us

Video: Richard Lindzen
Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., is an atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Video: Willie Soon
Willie Soon, PhD, is an astrophysicist and chief science advisor for the Science and Public Policy Institute.