The Lewandowsky Affair

It has been impossible to miss the significant amount of attention that had been given to a paper by Lewandowsky which essentially claims that climate ‘deniers’ are a bunch of conspiracy nuts. Climate Audit has taken the research, the analysis and claims made in the paper to pieces, and pretty well all the skeptic bloggers have piled in to discuss the problems with the paper. I will ask forgiveness for not linking to the many discussions of the problems of the paper, but there is simply too much. However, I will link to one discussion which was in turn linked to from the Climate Conversation Group. The post in question is William Briggs, a statistician:

One day a terrific psychological study is going to be written on the madness and mass lunacy which arose after climate change swam into the public’s ken. I don’t mean the actions and thoughts of the man-in-the-street, which were and are no different in this area than they were and are in any political matterhe . No: the real curiosity is what happened to academia, inside departments which haven’t anything to do with climatology.

There, surrounded by people eager to agree with each other and fueled by infinite estimates of their own intelligence, great hoards of degreed non-experts, people who couldn’t derive the Omega equation if you threatened to remove their tenure and who think Vorticity is a town in Spain, lectured all of mankind on why The End Was Near, Unless…

Unless they, the non-experts, were hearkened to, esteemed, feted, moneyed, and just plain listened to, dammit.

What I really liked about the post was the idea that Lewandowsky, who is not a climate scientist, claims enough expertise to claim (in effect) that the science of climate change is settled, and settled on the ‘alarmist’ side of the debate. His argument is one which implicitly suggests that we should listen to the scientists, and just accept their findings. This is how William Briggs put the point:

• Mistake 1: Lewandowsky is not a domain expert, and by his argument is not qualified to speak on matters climatic, yet speak he does.
• Mistake 2: His opinion about how to consider the science of climate change is therefore no more valuable than any other non-domain expert’s (about the physics), but he considers by this act of publishing that it is.
• Mistake 3: He conflates voting with truth. His fallacy is to suppose that because the majority of domain experts say X, X is therefore true.
• Mistake 4: He conflates numbers with weight of evidence. His fallacy is to suppose the minority of domain experts who do not agree with the majority are not to be listened to because they are only a minority.

I actually agree with William, but I think he misses an essential point. He discusses the point about domain expertise, but is there actually a climate change domain of expertise? For example, if we look at psychology, it might have been considered a distinct discipline in the early days of study, such as when James was publishing, but it is now increasingly tangled up with neuroscience, which is in turn tangled up with other disciplines such as chemistry and so forth. A psychologist may specialise in a particular area and draw on the expertise of other related but distinct disciplines.

For example, evolutionary psychology draws on a diverse range of disciplines, such as anthropology, archaeology, and ethology. An evolutionary psychologist can reasonably claim to be an evolutionary psychologist, but their domain of expertise is fuzzy, and the title is a convenience. Some evolutionary psychologists will specialise in religion, some in kin relationships, and so forth. Each sub-specialisation in turn draws upon different fields of science to different degrees. Evolutionary psychology is a lumping together of a group of people who draw upon a range of domains to try to explain human behaviour. Whilst there is expertise in some respects, the nature of that expertise is ‘fuzzy’.

If we think of climate change scientists, it is a similar picture. It seems that many people who are given the title ‘climate scientist’ have a narrow domain of genuine expertise, but draw upon the expertise of other groups of scientists. The question that needs to be asked is where a domain of expertise starts and stops. It is a question that matters. For example, were an evolutionary psychologist to pronounce that human psychology is founded in the process of evolution, this would be a reasonably (I guess) uncontroversial thing to say. However, if an evolutionary psychologist were to pronounce with absolute certainty that all human behaviour is only the result of evolution, they might find many colleagues that disagree. Quite reasonably, the said colleagues would identify the complexities of causation of human behaviour.

Our confident pronouncer might have a particular area of expertise, and that area of expertise and their own studies might indicate the primacy of evolution in their particular area of study. Here, I am stretching somewhat, but I hope I will be forgiven as it is an analogy. However, even if finding that there is a primacy of evolution in their area, it does not qualify them to make the general pronouncement; that all human behaviour is only the result of evolution. However, the equivalent is taking place in climate science. Said ‘climate scientists’ are making these kinds of pronouncements.

A riposte might be that there is a consensus amongst evolutionary psychologists that human psychology is founded in human evolution. This is no different to the so-called scientific consensus on climate change; this is equivalent. However, even if there were such a consensus, it is not equivalent. Human behaviour is complex, and attribution of causation of behaviour is an issue of complexity. In psychology, they are self-critical over the issue of attribution. For example, Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan’s (2010) highlight that many studies that present generalisations about human psychology may be studying the narrow psychology of one culture i.e. cultural influences are being ignored. As such, in evolutionary psychology they increasingly proceed with caution. The difference with many climate scientists is that they offer no such caution, and make pronouncements with certainty in the face of equivalent complexity.

We can present a consensus that might be equivalent to the consensus in evolutionary psychology, but it is a consensus that many will not accept. In studies  of evolutionary psychology and climate, attribution and causation are complex, and uncertainties abound. In both disciplines, caution is needed before making pronouncements of certainty, regardless of what is found in the narrow domain of a particular scientist’s expertise. A real and valid equivalent to the consensus in evolutionary psychology might be something like this; carbon dioxide is a factor in determining the climate of the planet, but the complexity of climate and climate change make the degree of influence of carbon dioxide on the overall climate an open question. It seems that this is something that should forge a consensus.

So we return to the Lewandowsky affair. He commences his paper with a belief that there are a body of ‘climate scientists’ that are able to pronounce with certainty; they may be specialists in one area of climate science, but that in no way qualifies them to pronounce on the whole field of climate science. They may pronounce that, in their narrow area, they find evidence of attribution of factor x, but it is in their narrow area, and the findings of others who study climate need to be considered. That they lack this modesty and acceptance of the scope of their findings is a problem. That they can pronounce certainty in a complex system is a problem. They may be scientists engaged in the study of the climate, but the field of their study is limited and they are studying an area of complexity.

Whilst some climate scientists and their supporters claim a consensus, it is apparent that the consensus fails to acknowledge the limitations of their field of endeavour and the scope of the huge field of climate science. Moreover, it should be remembered that consensus, even if it exists, does not make science. In the case of evolutionary psychology, it is a field that has overturned the standard social science model of human behaviour in which human behaviour was seen as the product of learning and culture. Evolutionary psychology provides an exemplar; it recognises that human behaviour can be attributed to our evolution as well as culture and learning. It recognises that attribution in the face of complexity is a task that requires caution. Lewandowsky makes the error of believing that a ‘climate scientist’ might pronounce on their own field of study, but this in no way carries the weight to pronounce over such a wide domain of study.

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83

Update: I have just visited Jo Nova’s blog and found that it is showing that the account has been suspended. Anyone know what is going on? It is a worry, as her blog is often very good value. It is quite strident in some respects, and I wonder whether this is a hacking attack, as I am aware there has been a similar problem before.

Update 2: I just visited Watssupwiththat, and it appears that Jo’s site has been hacked again. An interesting approach to debate; seek to shut down the voice of those who disagree with you……

The Australian Temperature Record

There is a great piece over on Jo Nova, which tackles the Australian temperature record. This is a quote from the start of the post:

A team of independent auditors, bloggers and scientists went through the the BOM “High Quality” (HQ) dataset and found significant errors, omissions and inexplicable adjustments. The team and Senator Cory Bernardi put in a Parliamentary request to get our Australian National Audit Office to reassess the BOM records. In response, the BOM, clearly afraid of getting audited, and still not providing all the data, code and explanations that were needed, decided to toss out the old so called High Quality (HQ) record, and start again. The old HQ increased the trends by 40% nationally, and 70% in the cities.

I have added one of the findings of the independent audit at the end of the post. I am not as familiar with this case as with the New Zealand temperature record, so only include it as additional information. Nevertheless, here is the fun bit of the post, if ‘fun’ is the correct word:

To make it all look o-so-convincing, the BOM asked three experts (from NOAA, NZ, and Canada) to look over it all, and score the BOM against its peers. But the peers standards are not too high in the first place: NOAA was caught with 89% of it’s own thermometers in the wrong spots near air conditioners and whatnot, and NZ’s records were so bad, they disowned them themselves. (NZ adjustimongered their temperature trends from 0.06C right up to 0.9C, got caught, and their response under legal pressure was to say but it’s ok, “There is no “official” or formal New Zealand Temperature Record”.)

It’s all too wonderful to be true. Discredited institutions vouch for the work of other discredited institutions, and thereby give credibility to each other. Bearing in mind that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has given lukewarm support for the New Zealand temperature record, it is more than a little worrying. More to the point, when confronted with the problems in their records the BOM simply moved the goalposts, and did so to avoid an audit. Why would they do this? I will leave you to work out that one for yourselves (as I am guessing it is not too difficult).

New Zealand Research and Climate Change

I have taken a leaf out of Jo Nova’s book, and thought I would take a quick look at research funding for climate change in New Zealand. I seem to recall that at some time, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has looked at this, so this might serve as an update. The only source I am looking at is the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI), and there will undoubtedly be other sources of funding that will be available. The MSI website has an excellent search function, and my first search was for the keywords ‘climate change‘, with no start or end date specified (the earliest grant was awarded in 1996). The results were a little startling, as follows:

Number of awards: 92,

Value of awards: $341,732,959.40

I also conducted a search for ‘climate change global warming’ and produced 7 results with a total value of £65 million. I have found some of the numbers to be a bit odd, but can only go assume that the information from the website is correct. I downloaded the results as a spreadsheet, and took a quick glance through the titles of the funded projects, and it seems that most of them were focused directly on climate change research. It will be unsurprising to find that National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd. (NIWA) was a major recipient, with grants as follows totalling $161,130,930. It will also come as no surprise to find that New Zealand universities were also each awarded several grants.

Other large grants were primarily awarded to crown research institutes; GNS Science Ltd. with over $36 million,  Landcare Research Ltd. with $54 million, AgResearch Ltd.  and Scion, both with just over $8 million, with some other examples of major grants being Industrial Research Ltd with about $4.5 million, New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research Limited with $22 million,  Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd. with about $3 million.
When looking at these grants, and the search term, it must be remembered that climate change is a real phenomenon. It is whether humans have a major impact on climate that is questionable. Nevertheless, I think we can safely assume that these grants are given based upon the latter point; that the grants are a response to the theory of anthropogenic climate change. The problem is that, NIWA’s data has shown that warming has come to a halt in New Zealand. As such, this research appears to be investigating a non-problem. And the cost of the research is huge.

I have reproduced one of the explanations of NIWA’s grants at the end of the post (I have added formatting for readability), and the original can be found here. The grant is for $29 million. If you read the grant explanation carefully, it is possible to find some very worrying justifications. As just one example, the Stern report is cited, which has been widely criticised as alarmist and unjustified on economic grounds, with the Cato Institute suggesting that Stern’s investment advice is ‘sheer lunacy‘. However, the main problem is that there is an absolute acceptance of anthropogenic global warming theory, and absolutely no discussion of any alternative or investigation of any alternative.

During economic ‘good times’, it may be less harmful to use money on wasteful research. However, these are not ‘good times’, but actually a time when the economy is going through a tough time. The only comfort in the search was that new grant starts seem to have reduced in size and quantity. However, having said this, a case might be made for new grants to investigate climate change. In particular, despite the NIWA grant proposing that they would provide a sound foundation for New Zealand policy, their work has been found to be biased (e.g. see here), and one of their key scientists has been shown to be biased in the extreme (actually participating in activity to get a skeptical scientist sacked from his job). Therefore, perhaps a grant to investigate the skeptical position is overdue?

NIWA’s Research Grant

The Drivers and Mitigation of Global Change (DMGC) programme serves to integrate research in the fields of stratospheric change, tropospheric composition and climate change, and atmosphere-surface interactions.

• It provides in-depth scientific understanding of the drivers of global environmental change.
• The programme provides an international context for the impacts of stratospheric and surface climate change on New Zealand’s environment, and an authoritative basis for the development of national and international policies to mitigate global change.
• The research directly serves New Zealand’s obligations under international treaties, including the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (and Montreal Protocol), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (and Kyoto Protocol), and the Antarctic Treaty System.
• In addition to research on global scale issues, there are objectives that focus on topics of national importance, principally the emission of greenhouses gases from agriculture and the physical properties of solar/UV radiation because of their influence on the health of New Zealanders and the performance of construction materials and energy availability.

Thus the programme provides a sound basis for the management of New Zealand’s environment and economy, and information for improved policy development and societal decision-making. Over the term of this contract (2004 – 2007), the research has greatly improved understanding of the climate change issue. Global concern with respect to climate change is mounting in response to the:

• greater certainty in the science: it is regarded as extremely likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate through combustion of fossil fuels (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; IPCC);
• widespread acceptance of the economic costs of climate change and that mitigation cost incurred over the next few decades could avoid the risks of very severe consequences in the future (Stern Report);
•  widespread recognition that major action to cut fossil CO2 emissions is needed within the next two decades in order to avoid dangerous climate change and/or global mean temperature increases of <3°C above pre-industrial levels (IPCC).

To help address the mounting concern by governments and the public at large on the impacts of global change, this programme provides essential physical data, models and interpretation of the processes that determine the human induced changes to the composition of the atmosphere and its radiative properties. Key personnel have been involved as lead and contributing authors in the 4th assessment report of the IPCC, the WMO 2006 Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, and the 2006 UNEP Effects Panel, all released in 2007.

The Earth’s climate system is currently undergoing rapid change, primarily in response to changes in the natural abundance of long lived greenhouse gases (GHG)s. Global atmospheric concentrations of the most important GHGs (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) have increased markedly as a result of human activities since AD1750 and now far exceed the pre-industrial values obtained from ice cores spanning many 1000s of years. Measurements of carbon dioxide made at Baring Head, New Zealand, within this programme form the longest continuous baseline record in the Southern Hemisphere and are a key component of observational evidence in the IPCC’s 4th assessment report published in May 2007.

These data show that, despite the GHG emission limitations proposed in the Kyoto protocol, carbon dioxide concentrations, currently around 380 ppm, continue to increase at an exponential rate in the atmosphere. Concentration measurements at Baring Head are supported by carbon dioxide isotope and oxygen measurements to assist in determining the magnitude of source/sink processes in the carbon cycle. The programme also made a significant contribution to predictions of stratospheric ozone recovery. A key science member within the programme was lead author of the 2006 WMO Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion. This important document assesses the status of global ozone depletion and its impacts. At a national level, the programme not only monitors local stratospheric ozone levels, but also continues to measure and map solar and UV radiation over New Zealand.

This work is essential to understanding the impacts of UV on human health and materials. Recent work has highlighted the potential connection between very low winter UV and reduced population levels of vitamin-D in New Zealand. Further research on this issue is to be advanced with the health sector over the coming year. Science information resources: Water and Atmosphere: Greenhouse gas data: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/prog/greenhouse/info/graphical Simple climate model: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-4/climate Nitrous oxide: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/15-2/oxide Ozone hole: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/15-1/ozone UV radiation: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/atmos/uvconference/ UV atlas: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/services/uvozone/atlas Ocean-atmosphere studies: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/atmos/sage/intro Ocean gas exchange: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-2/gas Iron fertilisation: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-2/iron

 

The Weather is Getting Worse?

Oh, dear. Philip Duncan at the New Zealand Herald has written a story that uses the idea that storms are getting worse due to climate change. He is described as a ‘weather analyst’. I have no idea what a ‘weather analyst’ might be, but it is hard to imagine that it has anything to do with science. For example, he says the following:

But the problem with diagnosing climate change as the reason for the increase in worldwide severe weather is that you need decades to really review it, and by then it may be too late to reverse. Talk about stuck between a rock and hard place.

Fact: the world is heating up. Fact: insurance companies are paying far more than before for weather-related disasters. Fact: organisations such as Niwa and NOAA have been warning us for over a decade that climate change will lead to more floods in summer and more snow storms in winter.

Let’s deal with his ‘facts’. First of all, although the world has warmed, the reason for the warming is the issue i.e. is it due to human activity? The other problem is that he uses the expression that’ the world is heating up’, despite there being a pause in the warming. This from Judith Currie:

This concept of a recent pause in the warming seems to be fairly widely accepted by many mainstream consensus scientists (e.g. the recent Greenwire article),with explanations ranging from aerosols, to solar, to oceans. The duration and magnitude of a pause that is significant in the context of the AGW debate is debatable, but I have made some suggestions.  Note that the short time scales considered here preclude determination of a statistically significant trend at the 95% confidence level, although lack of statistical signficance does not negate the existence of a pause as defined here.

The facts about insurance companies paying out more is absolutely true. However, the reason is straightforward. There is more building/population increases in places which are at risk of extreme weather events; for example the massive coastal developments in places like Florida, or the building of housing on flood plains in the UK (see here for serious analysis). This is from Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., who specialises in climate change and natural disasters.

There is seemingly a bottomless well of nonsense on disasters and climate change. I have long ago accepted that such nonsense is, like the presence of arguments rejecting the basic science of climate change, a situation to be lived with rather than changed. Even so, I can still poke some fun.

As just one of his many examples, Dr. Pielke gives the following:

• Climatewire reports uncritically a claim coming from Swiss Re that “the financial toll of global weather disasters amounts to between 1 and 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product annually.” This totals $160 billion to almost $2 trillion.

Reality Check: The actual number for global losses as a percent of US GDP is closer to 0.1%, with the maximum about 1.2% in 2005. The total cost of all hurricanes since 1900 in normalized dollars is about $1.4 trillion. The media (in general) rarely question numbers given to them from the reinsurance industry and on disasters and climate change have a strange aversion to the peer reviewed scientific literature. Innumeracy.

In another post, Dr. Pielke summarises the widespread reporting of connections with climate change and disasters saying the following:

The information above documents a pattern of misrepresentation of the science of disasters and climate change in the Stern Review report, the reports of the IPCC, an the US CCSP. The pattern of misrepresentation has three common characteristics:

1. Reliance on non-peer reviewed, unsupportable studies rather than the relevant peer reviewed literature.

2. Reliance on and featuring non-peer reviewed work conducted by the authors of the assessment reports.

3. Repeated reliance on a small number of secondary of tertiary sources, repeatedly cited such that intellectual provenance is lost.

The evidence presented here, and in great detail via the links, is unambiguous and unequivocal in support of my claims. Though if you would like to refute them with evidence, please do so in the comments. Until the climate science community cleans up its act on this subject it will continue to give legitimate opportunities for opponents to action to criticize the climate science community.

Interestingly, deaths from extreme weather events are actually at a low point, global tropical cyclone activity has reduced, and there is a host of other evidence that questions whether there are more natural disasters than before (see here for links to many other sources, and my previous discussion of an IPCC report on climate change and disasters). In summary, whilst it is correct that insurers are paying out more, there is no evidence that this is a result of climate change creating more extreme weather. I end the point with a long quote from Professor Judith Currie:

Judith Curry, chair of Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
The substantial interest in attributing extreme weather events to global warming seems rooted in the perceived need for some sort of a disaster to drive public opinion and the political process in the direction of taking action on climate change. However, attempts to attribute individual extreme weather events, or collections of extreme weather events, may be fundamentally ill-posed in the context of the complex climate system, which is characterized by spatiotemporal chaos. There are substantial difficulties and problems associated with attributing changes in the average climate to natural variability versus anthropogenic forcing, which I have argued are oversimplified by the IPCC assessments. Attribution of extreme weather events is further complicated by their dependence on weather regimes and internal multi-decadal oscillations that are simulated poorly by climate models.

I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments that I have seen that attributes a single extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme weather events to anthropogenic forcing. Improved analysis of the attribution of extreme weather events requires a substantially improved and longer database of the events. Interpretation of these events in connection with natural climate regimes such as El Nino is needed to increase our understanding of the role of natural climate variability in determining their frequency and intensity. Improved methods of evaluating climate model simulations of distributions of extreme event intensity and frequency in the context of natural variability is needed before any confidence can be placed in inferences about the impact of anthropogenic influences on extreme weather events.

As for the claim in the Herald article that ” organisations such as Niwa and NOAA have been warning us for over a decade that climate change will lead to more floods in summer and more snow storms in winter.” This fact is indeed correct (e.g. see here). Ok, but has there been any evidence that might support this taking place in New Zealand? I do not mean anecdotes, I mean rigorous scientific analysis. None is given in the article. As has been discussed, there is no evidence on a global scale. Another problem with the article is that Philip Duncan starts with an anecdote, as follows:

During the snow storm last August many people commented “so much for global warming”. The thing is, a warmer planet means bigger snow storms. Winter temperatures will still fall below freezing but a couple of degrees more warmth in the air can lead to more moisture and that makes bigger snow storms.

This paragraph is followed by the discussion of the ‘facts’ quoted earlier, implying that the snow is the result of climate change, but then he later suggests New Zealand might benefit from climate change

Dr Renwick also said something else: New Zealand may actually benefit from climate change. But how will we cope with the world wanting to move here in 100 years? And what about the millions who will suffer as a result of more droughts, floods and extreme weather?

Another concern is Philip Duncan’s poor attempts to suggest that he is something of a neutral observer.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the scaremongering from the climate-change supporters, or deniers.

But the amount of severe weather around this planet in the past 10 years has been staggering.

The article describes exactly the kind of scaremongering that he purports to not to subscribe to. In his conclusion, he says the following:

The reason why the world is warming is something I still am not sure of, but I do know something is changing. And if we don’t get on top of it in the short term, our grandchildren may have to deal with something mankind hasn’t faced in thousands of years: a heatwave followed by an ice age. While Western nations will adapt to climate change, the poor nations of this world will not. And we are talking about hundreds of millions of people who may suffer.

This is, from any reasonable point of view, scaremongering. In places, he tries to dress up the piece with expressions of doubt and balance, but the entire impetus of the article is towards ‘we are doomed’, with the further implication that we can do something about the problem. Despite at times trying to appear to take a balanced view, his use of the word ‘denier’ in the article reveals that there is nothing balanced in his view.

As a last note, I am currently unaware of any scare mongering from the skeptic side of the argument, except to point out the potential for economic harm from policy to mitigate global warming. It is a very, very odd statement. The skeptical position is the opposite of scare mongering…..

Overall, another big ‘fail’ for the quality of discussion about climate change in the New Zealand Herald.

Climate Change and Disasters

The latest output of the IPCC has caused some stir, which is ‘The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation‘. This is some commentary from Richard Black of the BBC who was leaked the report:

While it is “likely” that anthropogenic influences are behind the changes in cold days and warm days, there is only “medium confidence” that they are behind changes in extreme rainfall events, and “low confidence” in attributing any changes in tropical cyclone activity to greenhouse gas emissions or anything else humanity has done.

[and]

And for the future, the draft gives even less succour to those seeking here a new mandate for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions, declaring: “Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

[and]

It’s impossible to read the draft without coming away with the impression that with or without anthropogenic climate change, extreme weather impacts are going to be felt more and more, simply because there are more and more people on planet Earth – particularly in the swelling “megacities” of the developing world that overwhelmingly lie on the coast or on big rivers close to the coast.

This is from Andrew Revkin of the New York Times:

While the summary warns of enormously increasing risks from drought and flooding in decades to come, it is bound to disappoint climate campaigners — and it frustrated at least one, Joe Romm, even before it was released. The section on disaster losses correctly reflects the uncertainty injected in such analysis by confounding factors, including rapidly shifting human populations and the paucity of solid data over long periods.

Perhaps the most amusing take on the report comes from Joe Romm, who is mentioned in the New York Times report, who headlines that the report was a missed opportunity to warn of coming catastrophe. However, he takes some comfort in the following:

Fortunately, the public already understands that global warming makes extreme weather more severe, as new polling reveals:

[diagram of poll removed]

September polling by ecoAmerica found that 57% of Americans already understand “If we don’t do something about climate change now, we can end up having our farmland turned to desert.”

That’s okay then. Even if the sainted IPCC says things that do not agree with doom-mongering, as long as people are scared, all is well with the world. He then goes on to cite a series of articles that he believes prove that global warming is a catastrophe. Sitting in the middle of the debate, Judith Currie has the following to say about the report:

This report is better than I expected, although I suspect that some of their conclusions are based on weak arguments  (we will have to wait for the full report).  The two most important aspects IMO are the recognition of the importance of natural variability and also vulnerability.  The dominance of natural variability for the past 40-60 years  in determining extreme events makes the AGW extreme events attribution exercises (see here) seem even more pointless.  The weakest part of the report is the high confidence level of the future projections (including  one “virtually certain.”)  I suspect that different authors worked  on the “Observations” section than those working on the “Future” chapter; too bad the “Future” authors didn’t read the “Observations” section first.

I would most strongly recommend that, if following any of the links here, the most interesting is Judith’s evaluation of the report, which is detailed and incisive. On the skeptic side, this is what the Global Warming Policy Foundation has to say about the report:

If and when mankind’s influence becomes apparent it may be just as likely to reduce the number of extreme weather events as increase them.

Surveying the state of scientific knowledge IPCC scientists say they cannot determine if mankind’s influence will result in more, or fewer, extreme weather events over the next thirty years or more.

Jo Nova has the a more direct and scathing approach to the report:

This is another big tipping point on the slide out of the Great Global Scam. IPCC scientists — facing the travesty of predictions-gone-wrong — are trying to salvage some face, and plant some escape-clause seeds for later. But people are not stupid.

A conveniently leaked IPCC draft is testing the ground. What excuses can they get away with? Hidden underneath some pat lines about how anthropogenic global warming is “likely” to influence… ah cold days and warm days, is the get-out-of-jail clause that’s really a bombshell:
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

Translated: The natural climate forces are stronger than we thought, and we give up, we can’t say whether it will get warmer or colder in the next twenty years.

This multipurpose prediction means that in the future, if it’s colder, they’re right; if it’s warmer, they’re right; and they have it covered for more or less storms, floods, droughts, blizzards and frost too.

Jo captures some of the shifting sands of the debate. Despite all the uncertainties, one way or another, we are all nevertheless doomed. It is part of the ongoing trend in the AGW camp to muddy the waters as predicted outcomes of climate change are not taking place/following the script. interestingly in the updates, Jo quotes ‘scientists’ who nevertheless insist that the signal of AGW will emerge one day, with the implication that the report changes nothing about the necessity for urgent action. Jo points out:

Wait for it, in trying to control the damage from this, Prof Palutikof reveals a deeply unscientific, religious mindset. There is no signal yet of man made influence, but she “knows” it will emerge. A real scientist would wait for the observation. [below was in quotes in the original]

Jean Palutikof, director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility at Griffith University, in Queensland, said the findings of the UN report would “not surprise anyone involved in climate science”. Professor Palutikof said it would take a while for the effects of climate change to become visible. But without action, she said, “gradually, over time, that signal will emerge with resounding clarity”.

From my perspective, I view the report with the same cynical view that I apply to all the output of the IPCC. As I have discussed before, there are some good and honest scientists working for the IPCC, but the organisation also has some characteristics that mean that their reports are not to be trusted. In other words, it is not possible to dismiss the IPCC reports which are supportive of the AGW thesis, then accept the reports that are less supportive as being ‘good science’.

However, the report is interesting in that it seems that there is finally some explicit and very clear acknowledgement of the uncertainties involved in understanding the impacts of climate, although the coverage is patchy (again, see Judith Currie’s discussion). This seems to be a positive step forward, but we will have to wait for the full report in February to see whether the devil is in the detail.