Archives for June 2008

See Climate Audit: IPCC claim to have destroyed working documents violates objective, open and transparent process:

Fortress Met Office

We’ve been following with interest David Holland’s efforts to obtain information on how IPCC review editors discharged their important duties under IPCC process, with the most recent progress report here. Here’s another update.

Fortress CRU

As noted in other posts, IPCC policies state:

“All written expert, and government review comments will be made available to reviewers on request during the review process and will be retained in an open archive in a location determined by the IPCC Secretariat on completion of the Report for a period of at least five years.”

Despite this, IPCC Review Editor John Mitchell of the UK Met Office claimed to have destroyed all their working documents and correspondence pertaining to his duties as Review Editor and the Met Office also claims to have expunged all records.

David Holland has also made FOI inquiries to Keith Briffa, a lead author of AR4 chapter 6. Here’s a progress report documenting: May 5 – FOI request
May 6 – CRU Acknowledgement
June 3 – CRU Refusal Notice
June 4 – Holland Appeal
June 20 – CRU Rejection of Appeal

Fortress CRU #2: Confidential Agent Ammann

On March 31, 2008, David Holland sent a letter to Keith Briffa asking about several IPCC issues. In correspondence released from the Hadley Center, Briffa indicated his intention of being unresponsive. On May 15, Briffa sent an unresponsive reply to Holland, following which Holland initiated a FOI request on May 27, 2008 leading to an acknowledgement on June 3 and Refusal Notice on June 20. This one has additional interest in that Holland asked for copies of expert comments on IPCC chapter 6 sent directly by Caspar Ammann to Keith Briffa, sent outside the formal review process. Both Briffa and Ammann refused to release these comments. For some reason, Ammann seems to think that he is not subject to IPCC requirements that expert comments be open and that he is entitled to make secret comments.

UPDATE

Fortress Met Office continued
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3208

More obstruction from the Met Office, in which they have changed their obstruction strategy. Previously they said that Mitchell had destroyed all of this email correspondence. This prompted David Holland to ask for information on the date of the destruction and on records management policy at the Met Office.

Rather than answer the unanswerable, the Met Office has changed tactics. Now they say that they had made a mistake in reporting that they had held any of Mitchell’s email. Instead they now argue that Mitchell was acting “personally” when he acted as an IPCC Review Editor – sort of like gardening, or being a Methodist on Sunday or playing squash after work, I guess. I wonder if Mitchell booked vacation time for his jaunts to IPCC meetings or whether the Met Office paid his expenses. Would they also buy plants for his garden?

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has released an assessment report titled ‘Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate,’ with a focus on North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands.

The official Press Release claims:

Global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases, according to the report. Many types of extreme weather and climate event changes have been observed during this time period and continued changes are projected for this century. Specific future projections include:

Abnormally hot days and nights, along with heat waves, are very likely to become more common. Cold nights are very likely to become less common.

Sea ice extent is expected to continue to decrease and may even disappear in the Arctic Ocean in summer in coming decades.

Precipitation, on average, is likely to be less frequent but more intense.

Droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in some regions.

Hurricanes will likely have increased precipitation and wind.

The strongest cold-season storms in the Atlantic and Pacific are likely to produce stronger winds and higher extreme wave heights.

As pointed out by Prometheus, some of the conclusions from the report were not included in the PR:

1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.

2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms.

5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.

6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

Roger Pielke Sr exposes the bias in the report on his Climate Science weblog:

New CCSP Report Appears “Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate” – Unfortunately, Another Biased Assessment

Since this assessment is so clearly biased, it should be rejected as providing adequate climate information to policymakers. There also should be questions raised concerning having the same individuals preparing these reports in which they are using them to promote their own perspective on the climate, and deliberately excluding peer reviewed papers that disagree with their viewpoint and research papers. This is a serious conflict of interest.

Another Example Of CCSP Bias In The Report “Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate”

Yet again, the CCSP report process presents biased information of the diversity of conclusions in peer reviewed studies of the climate system.

NOTE: THE TERM SCHIZOPHRENIC IS USED TO DESCRIBE THE CCSP REPORT IN THE CONTEXT AS DEFINED BY THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, WHICH IS DISTINCT FROM THE MEDICAL DISORDER:

“(in general use) a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements.”

But of course, everyone knew that already, didn’t they!?

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
‘A
The Guardian: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

UPDATE

Hansen has made the claims above on live radio on the Dian Rehm show this morning, the link to the audio is below:

“On the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking global warming testimony before the U.S. Senate, James Hansen discusses his belief that the planet is dangerously close to tipping points that would be extremely difficult to reverse. The NASA climate scientist reflects on what has and hasn’t changed in two decades, political pressures, and the controversy he’s stirred by speaking out.”

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/06/23.php#20635

Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP has plotted the actual NASA global satellite monthly temperatures since Hansen’s first testimony in June 1988. Note we are colder than in 1988 by as much as 0.4C:

Also, Hansen “gagged” by a megaphone:

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans – and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The Observer: Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change

Victorian premier John Brumby extolled the virtues of drought-tolerant GM wheat under development in Australia at an international biotechnology conference in the U.S., explicitly linking the new varieties and their potential to help combat climate change.

“Drought-tolerant wheat developed in Victoria is returning yields up to 20 per cent higher than non-GM control crops, Premier of Victoria John Brumby announced today at BIO 2008 in San Diego, California:”

VICTORIAN DROUGHT-TOLERANT WHEAT YIELDS UP 20 PER CENT

A few climate-change chickens may be coming home to roost. As people become concerned about global warming, a concern promoted by activist groups themselves, it seems to be having the unintended consequence of allowing policy makers and the public to see GM crops as being more acceptable if they might “help”.

Drought tolerance, salt tolerance and yield-increasing GM traits may start to be seen less unfavourably, even though they are a producer benefit not a consumer benefit, since they’ll at least be better for the environment and this climate change issue that people keep hearing about.

Greenpeace for example, seem to have less credibility now when they call a drought-tolerant, higher-yielding wheat variety “unsustainable” as they did on ABC radio on Friday (although not repeated in their press release, below).

Greenpeace: Genetically engineered wheat not the solution to drought