A conversation with an IPCC coordinating lead author

UPDATE 08/1/2011 11:24 AM: Richard has advised me via E-mail that he’ll be rather busy for the next few days, and will respond as soon as he can.

UPDATE 08/7/2011 09:21 PM: Richard has further advised that he still intends to respond, but hasn’t yet found the time to do so. In the meantime, some new information has come to light regarding “participants” at the WG3 session in May, and I have commented on this in a new post.

Over the last few days, here in my quiet little corner of the blogosphere, I’ve been having a “conversation” with Richard Klein, who has been (and still is!) a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of a number of chapters in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s various Assessment Reports (AR). His most recent involvement was that of CLA for Working Group (WG) 2, Chapter 18 of AR4 (2007), as well as Contributing Author (CA) to Chapter 17 of the same WG report. In the forthcoming (2013/14) AR5, my understanding – from the available documentation – is that he will be one of two CLAs for WG 2′s “Impacts, Adaptaion and Vulnerability” Chapter 16: “Adaptation opportunities, constraints, and limits”.

Richard was kind enough to offer his thoughts in response to my critique of Damian Carrington’s defence of the IPCC at the U.K. Guardian.

As sometimes happens during the course of such virtual conversations, our discussion has veered beyond the scope of the original post. His most recent reply to me, which can be found in this comment is an example of such divergence. So, I thought it would be useful to move the discussion to this “top post” level.

As some may have gathered from my posts, my primary concerns do not relate to “the science” per se. Because, while I do have my doubts and questions regarding some claims made in the name of science, to which I believe I am entitled, I am in no position to argue “the science” – nor do I have any wish to do so. My concerns pertain to the transparency (or more to the point, the lack thereof) in the practices, processes and procedures underlying the IPCC’s so-called “gold standard” provisioning of “assessment reports”.

In short … they write the lines … and I read between ‘em :-) I believe I have fully disclosed my interests, and I would invite Richard Klein (who agrees with my decision to create this new post) to correct me if I have misrepresented his.

So let the dialogue continue!

Richard Klein wrote:

- As is common practice, the list of participants will be included in the report of the session, a draft of which will be available before the next session. See here for reports of previous sessions:
[Richard's link]

First of all, in this day and age, it seems to me that there is no excuse for such a time lapse between the event and the posting of relevant materials. Forgive my cynicism, but continuation of this “common practice” can serve no useful purpose other than the perpetuation of a fog of distance and time – in the hope that no one will remember (or bother) to check when the details are finally posted!

Furthermore, I have yet to come across any “report” from a WG session which contains a list of participants present. Panel session/meeting reports, yes … but not WG sessions. Even the IPCC draft reports give no indication as to which (or how many) participants were actually present at each day of a “session”. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there are no by-laws for the Panel (or WGs) which one would normally consult in order to determine, for example, what constitutes a quorum at a session.

Principles of work, annexes and appendices etc. are all well and good … but they are far from legally binding – and fail to confer the kind of legitimacy one can verify by consulting legally adopted by-laws. As an aside, from documents that I’ve examined, even when such “principles” are amended, apart from a notation that the overall document has been amended on specific dates, there is no indication as to what might have been amended when. Not to mention that as we already know from the experience with non-peer-reviewed material, the “rules” – such as they are – are not always adhered to! But I digress …

The Feb 23 letter of invitation – which is one of several documents pertaining to the “Eleventh Session of IPCC Working Group III and Thirty-third Session of the IPCC Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 5 – 8 and 10 – 13 May 2011″ – does include the following:

Main agenda item of the Eleventh Session of IPCC Working Group III will be acceptance and approval of the IPCC Special Report on “Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation” and its Summary for Policymakers (SPM). The Session will begin at 10:00 hours on Thursday, 5 May 2011. After action by the Eleventh Session of Working Group III the SPM of the Special Report and the underlying assessment will be forwarded to the IPCC for its action.
[...]
Copies of the following documents are attached to this letter:

1. The provisional agenda of Working Group III Eleventh Session (WG-III:11th/Doc.1);
2. The provisional agenda of the IPCC Thirty-third Session (IPCC-XXXIII/Doc.1);
3. A registration form.
[...]
the participation of delegates with appropriate expertise is vital for the success of the session

Are you seriously suggesting that all 194 countries had delegates with “appropriate expertise” and/or that all 194 countries’ delegates were present for both the 11th session of WG 3 and the 33rd session of the IPCC? I’m sorry but even if you are making such a suggestion (well, actually you have made such a suggestion!), the wording of the annotated provisional agenda for the IPCC clearly suggests otherwise, as I had noted in my previous post:

4. ACCEPTANCE OF THE ACTIONS TAKEN AT THE 11th SESSION OF WORKING GROUP III ON THE SPECIAL REPORT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION (SRREN)

Under this agenda item, the Panel will formally accept the Summary for Policymakers of the SRREN. Section 4.3 of the IPCC procedures stipulates that “for a Summary for Policymakers approved by a Working Group to be endorsed as an IPCC Report, it must be accepted at a Session of the Panel. Because the Working Group approval process is open to all governments, Working Group approval of a Summary for Policymakers means that the Panel cannot change it. However, it is necessary for the Panel to review the Report at a Session, note any substantial disagreements, (in accordance with Principle 10 of the Principles Governing IPCC Work) and formally accept it.” [emphasis added -hro]

With all due respect, Richard, “open to all governments” does not mean – and cannot by any stretch of the English language be construed as implying – “attended by all governments”.

Interestingly, the invitation pdf does not include the actual provisional agendas (agendae?!) that were sent as attachments. This might explain why the provisional agendas I saw on May 9 were different to those I saw on May 14. As I had noted on May 14 [in the text excerpted from my May 9th post]:

Well, the “full” [1,000 page] version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Working Group III’s “Special Report” urging the expenditure of trillions, won’t be available until May 31. And the IPCC 33rd Session isn’t due to start until tomorrow, May 10 – at least according to their Provisional Agenda. Strangely, unless the “Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN)” has a secret code name, this “Special Report” does not appear on this Agenda, nor on the “Annotated Provisional Agenda” … ooops …make that the “Provisional Annotated Agenda“.

I also took a look at the “Provisional Agenda” for the 11th Session of Working Group III – submitted by the IPCC Secretariat. (Sorry, no “Annotated” version available for this May 5-8 Session.) And there’s no indication I could detect of any item which would suggest “approval by the IPCC”.

But, one way or another, the busy beavers of WG III have somehow succeeded in gaining the IPCC’s approval of the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) of this report. [...]

To which I then remarked (May 14):

notwithstanding the May 9 Press Release claim that the SPM for the SRREN had been “approved by by member countries of the IPCC” prior to the commencement of its May 10-13 33rd session – I concluded that sometime between May 9 and May 10, the “Provisional” Agendas of Working Group III and the IPCC – both of which bore a date of Feb. 23 – must have been replaced by more currently dated “final” Agendas.

Yet this was not what I found when following the links today. I could have been mistaken when I failed to see any mention of the Approval of the SPM in either the “Provisional Agenda” or the “Provisional Annotated Agenda” for the IPCC, had it been included in either or both of these; but, I really can’t imagine how I could have missed:

4. ACCEPTANCE OF THE ACTIONS TAKEN AT THE 11th SESSION OF WORKING GROUP III ON THE SPECIAL REPORT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION (SRREN)

As a footnote, to add to the confusion – and far from engendering trust in the IPCC or making any contribution to what I would consider as “transparency” – today, when I went to http://www.ipcc.ch/scripts/_session_template.php?page=_33ipcc.htm** in search of the Provisional Agenda for WG 3, it was no longer listed in the documents for the session! It is still available via the links in my May 9 and May 14 posts. FWIW, my recollection is that this now “hidden agenda”(!) was close to the top of the list.

[** 08/1/2011 05:49 PM: even though I had retraced my steps to session 33 docs, I had inadvertently copied and pasted the URL from the page - which does not change when one selects another session from the available dropdown list. I have now changed the URL so that if you choose to follow the link, the list of docs for session 33 will should be what you see.]

Yet another instance, I’m afraid, of what you see (from the IPCC) is (not necessarily) what you (will always) get.

Even the quasi-official rapporteur has noted:

SPECIAL REPORT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION (SRREN)
This issue (IPCC-XXXIII/Doc.20) was considered by plenary on Tuesday. WGIII Co-Chairs Ottmar Edenhofer (Germany), Youba Sokona (Mali), and Ramon Pichs Madruga (Cuba) briefly summarized the SRREN SPM report.
[...]
The Panel endorsed the SRREN SPM approved by WGIII. [emphasis added -hro]

Consequently and most importantly, the only available documentation strongly supports my contention that neither you nor Carrington have any evidence in support of Carrington’s claim (which you averred is “correct“) that the SPM was “approved by all 194 countries.“

But while I’m on the subject of IPCC produced pdfs … There are a number of problems inherent in the information retrievable from the link you provided (and indeed from any of the IPCC pages). Not the least of which is that most of the pdf’s that I’ve looked at lack even basic navigation aids, i.e. “bookmarks”. Most have been generated from Word documents, which – if structured properly by a minimally competent person (i.e. one who does not use a wordprocessor like a typewriter but understands and uses “styles”) – require no additional work to generate a table of contents, i.e. navigational bookmarks from the document headings, on conversion to pdf. Please let me know if I can be of assistance in training those who are responsible for producing the voluminous documentation (such as it is) :-)

There was a (2009) “task group” on the use of electronic technologies for AR5; however, considering the wealth of currently available technologies, the recommendations (as submitted by WG1 Chair, Thomas Stocker – who seems to have a hand in many submissions to the panel) do not give one cause for optimism if one is looking for more than lip service to much needed improvement in accessibility and transparency.

Richard Klein wrote:

- As for consensus, I can’t speak for Mike Hulme but I gave you my take. The consensus that matters in the end is the one among governments, because this then provides a shared knowledge base, for example for international climate policy negotiations outside the IPCC. This was the very reason the IPCC was founded in 1988. My emphasis on political consensus should not be interpreted as me suggesting there is no shared appreciation among the authors of the science of climate change, its impacts and possible response strategies. But as an academic, consensus is not a word I would use to describe such shared appreciation. And as an IPCC author it is my role also to reflect on any conflicting parts of the relevant academic literature, and to find a way of assessing the literature that does justice to the diversity of valid views. Some might call that striving for consensus.

For the record, your take was:

It’s hard to describe this process to someone who hasn’t actually witnessed it, but it is this line-by-line approval process that results in the actual consensus that the IPCC is famous for, and which is sometimes misunderstood. The consensus is not a consensus among all authors about every issue assessed in the report; it is a consensus among governments about the summary for policymakers.

Nonetheless, I’m glad to see that “consensus” is not a word you would use to describe such a “shared appreciation” and I certainly don’t hold you responsible for what others have said! But the point is that – for whatever reason – over the years, much ado has been made by the media, by advocacy groups and by high-profile individuals of a “scientific consensus” and, of course, an “overwhelming scientific consensus“. A few examples …

Greenpeace (July 20, 2010):

Scientific consensus

There is, in fact, a broad and overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, is caused in large part by human activities (such as burning fossil fuels), and if left unchecked will likely have disastrous consequences. Furthermore, there is solid scientific evidence that we should act now on climate change, and this is reflected in the statements by these definitive scientific authorities.

Union of Concerned Scientists (March 7, 2011):

Scientific Consensus on Global Warming

Scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and if it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it.

Naomi Oreskes (in Science 3 December 2004)

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC’s purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities: “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members’ expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements.

Maybe I missed it, but I’m not aware of any IPCC affiliated scientists who have made any serious, highly-visible attempts to correct the record. And, as the saying goes, silence is acquiescence.

Richard Klein wrote:

- The use of non-peer-reviewed sources is indeed subject to the provisions in the IPCC procedures. This means that, contrary to what is sometimes asserted, IPCC chapter can cite so-called ‘grey’ literature if authors consider it of sufficiently high quality and there is no alternative source for that information in the peer-reviewed literature. The review of the Inter-Academy Council recommended the IPCC to strengthen and enforce the existing procedures. This has been done (although not quite in the way the IAC suggested, because governments considered their suggestion to be impractical), and the result is the text you refer to. In preparing the Fifth Assessment Report authors will need to follow these procedures. So hopefully what you see is what you’ll get in the next full report.

I’m not aware that any informed person has “asserted” that the IPCC is prevented from citing grey literature in its reports. But as for “governments” considering the enforcement of the flagging of non-peer-reviewed material as “impractical”, I believe you are mistaken. Assuming that by “governments” you mean the IPCC, their first response (according to the Task Group’s draft and as I had noted in April) was:

4. Sources of Data and Literature

IAC recommendation:

The IPCC should strengthen and enforce its procedure for the use of unpublished and nonpeer-reviewed literature, including providing more specific guidance on how to evaluate such information, adding guidelines on what types of literature are unacceptable, and ensuring that unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature is appropriately flagged in the report.

IPCC-32 decision:

The Panel agreed with this recommendation. The Panel decided to strengthen the application of its procedures on the use of unpublished and non-peer reviewed literature. It decided to implement this recommendation and further key elements through its procedures and guidance notes. The Panel noted the General Guidance on the Use of Literature in IPCC Reports (contained in IPCC-XXXII/INF.4) as revised in General Guidance on the Use of Literature in IPCC Reports (Appendix 1 of the decision of IPCC-32) which addresses the related aspects in the IAC recommendations and decided to endorse them as a Guidance Note. The Panel urges the Co-Chairs of Working Group I, II, III and TFI to take any necessary steps to ensure that this guidance note is applied in the development of IPCC reports. [link added -hro]

And as I had noted, on April 23, this “General Guidance on the Use of Literature in IPCC Reports (contained in IPCC-XXXII/INF.4) as revised in General Guidance on the Use of Literature in IPCC Reports” is as follows:

General Guidance on the Use of Literature in IPCC Reports

Introduction

The TSUs of all three IPCC Working Groups drafted this guidance document to recall the Principles Governing IPCC Work, particularly the “Procedure for using non-published/non-peer reviewed sources in IPCC Reports”, [...]

Guidance on the use of non-published/non-peer-reviewed (“grey”) literature

Extract from Annex 2 of Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work:

Procedure for using non-published/non-peer-reviewed sources in IPCC Reports
[...]
5. Treatment in IPCC Reports

Non-peer-reviewed sources will be listed in the reference sections of IPCC Reports. These will be integrated with references for the peer-reviewed sources.¹ These will be integrated with references to the peer reviewed sources stating how the material can be accessed, but will be followed by a statement that they are not published.
[...]
¹ Non-published sources also will be listed in the reference sections of IPCC Reports

Please note that it was the Technical Support Units (TSUs) who drafted this revised “Guidance Note”. And as I had also observed on April 23:

Of the thirteen countries and two “Office Holders” who provided feedback on “Sources of Data and Literature”, most were remarkably silent about the TG’s recommendation that the “rule” be made to disappear. The three who did comment were far from being “shocked and appalled”

Yet sometime between their revision to the “Guidance Note” and the drafting of the Task Group’s recommendation to the Panel (“governments”), the TSUs (whom the Task Group “consulted”) evidently determined that this longstanding (but rarely practiced) rule had become “impractical”.

Setting aside all the twists and turns that obviously occurred during the evolution of this “disappearance” and acceptance thereof by “governments” … what could possibly be “impractical” about flagging “non-journal” literature? Surely when the authors are drafting their respective contributions to the text, they are required to cite the source material for their claims – and provide the full source to which they are referring – as I see that Richard Tol does with his drafts. What would be so “impractical” about adding a tiny little flag – to the inline citation and/or the actual reference source – such as, oh … I dunno … “NPR”, for example?

Richard Klein wrote:

You provide a link to Donna Laframboise’s quantitative analysis of grey literature, and I was interested to see that the chapter I led in the Fourth Assessment Report received an F, with 44% of the references not peer-reviewed. However, that includes books published by academic publishers, reports by the World Bank, OECD and other reputable international organisations, as well as previous IPCC reports. I see no reason not to cite this kind of ‘grey’ literature again in the Fifth Assessment Report; indeed not doing so would mean we’d overlook an important part of the available knowledge.

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure – and in case you were unaware of this – I was one of the Citizen Auditors who participated in Donna’s study. I would not characterize it as you have above. Rather, the purpose of this study was to determine whether or not the frequently repeated claim to the effect that the IPCC reports are “all on the basis of peer-reviewed literature” could be justified. The answer that this study provided is an unequivocal “No, it cannot”.

It is worth noting that the IAC review cited an earlier study of the Third Assessment Report in which the results were similar (p. 16):

An analysis of the 14,000 references cited in the Third Assessment Report found that peer-reviewed journal articles comprised 84 percent of references in Working Group I, but comprised only 59 percent of references in Working Group II and 36 percent of references in Working Group III (Bjurström and Polk, 2010).

I don’t know if you’ve taken a look at AccessIPCC, a computerized tagging of citations and references in all 44 Chapters of AR4, using the same criteria for non-journal (i.e. non peer-reviewed) material. There are a number of other tags as well. Here’s the summary of what we found in Chapter 18, for which you were a CLA:

Adapted from AccessIPCC's WG2-CH18 Fourth Assessment Report - Objectively Uniformly Tagged

 

And speaking of “peer review”, the IAC and your chapter … It has been claimed that the IPCC reports are “peer reviewed”. Indeed much ado is often made of the number of reviewer comments received. However, this peer review is quite different from that conducted prior to publication in a “peer-reviewed journal”. The IAC notes (pp. xiii-xiv):

Peer review is an important mechanism for assuring the quality of reports. IPCC’s peer review process is elaborate, involving two formal reviews and one or more informal reviews of preliminary text.

[...]

However, the Lead Authors have the final say on the content of their chapter.

What the IAC did not note, but which is commonly known, is that the names of the comment authors are attached to their respective comments and that the “responses” to the comments are far from readily quantifiable. Notwithstanding specific instructions to those who compose the responses “on behalf of the chapter team”, such responses are very inconsistent. In AccessIPCC we tried to quantify the number of “Accepted”, “Rejected”, “Noted” etc on the Second Order Draft of AR4. The best that we could do was to quantify those that had been unambiguously “Accepted”. Here’s what we found for your Chapter 18:

Adapted from AccessIPCC's WG2-CH18

A Helpful Hint from Hilary™ that you might pass on to the powers that be for AR5: Add another column to the Word doc sent to the “chapter teams” which contains a dropdown list from which the responder (“on behalf of the chapter team”) will select the category of response (Accepted, Rejected etc). This will make life easier for the Review Editors to carry out their responsibilities, lessen the appearance of being a “knowledge monopoly” – and make the process slightly more transparent when the review comments are (finally!) made public!

And on that constructive note, I shall end for now and await Richard’s reply :-)

In defence of the IPCC, “journalist” ignores the real scandal

The U.K. Guardian is probably best known these days for being at the investigative forefront of the new-revelations-by-the-hour News of the World/Murdoch media frenzy. One tiny aspect of which I discussed about 10 days ago: the role of former deputy executive editor, and recently arrested, Neil Wallis – and his involvement (at the same time as he was on contract doing PR work for the London Metropolitan Police) as the “lead” PR person who came to the rescue of the University of East Anglia (UEA) whose Climate Research Unit (CRU) was mired in a bad press mess of their own making in the immediate aftermath of Climategate.

This newspaper is also quite well-known for its far-from-investigative advocacy efforts in support of any and all environmental causes – not the least of which was its sponsorship of last October’s PR disaster known as the 10:10 “No Pressure” video.

Damian Carrington, who appears to keep his credentials (or perhaps lack thereof – cf Guardian profile on David Adam) well-hidden from interested researchers, is the Guardian‘s “head of environment”. Carrington’s current crusade seems to be the rehabilitation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A not so well-hidden green-heart-on-sleeve blog entry of July 28, has the rather curious “ipcc-climate-change-science-pachauri” in the URL, yet (IPCC chair, Rajendra K.) Pachauri is not mentioned even once by name in his article. This blog entry is entitled: In defence of the IPCC: critics ignore the real scandal.

Carrington begins with a dramatic recitation of the IPCC’s laurels:

The world truly woke up to the threat of climate change on Friday 2 February 2007 when a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that humanity’s activities were – beyond all reasonable doubt – driving dangerous global warming. It remains the seminal moment, and the IPCC’s work was recognised with the award of the Nobel peace prize, shared with Al Gore.

How things change. Given much of the recent reporting of the IPCC’s work, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a tinpot group of green zealots, rather than the greatest feat of global scientific cooperation ever seen. Its reports are approved and endorsed by every nation on the planet, making it utterly unique and authoritative. [emphasis added -hro]

Wow! That is just so impressive, not to mention scary … OMG, I’m driving dangerous global warming!

For his next act, Carrington dutifully recites the Pachauri party-line regarding the latest IPCC faux-pas:

The most recent “controversy” was over the IPCC’s special report on renewable energy. “Its launch was hijacked by Greenpeace, with the actual report buried until weeks later,” screamed critics. Here’s what they failed, for some reason, to tell you.

1. The summary for policy makers (SPM) was released before the full report for the very same reason that gives the IPCC its unique clout. The SPM is discussed and then approved by all 194 countries, which means some changes are made to the draft. Those changes need to then be woven back into the full report, 1000 pages in this case. That takes time, but the SPM is already widely available. Suppressing the SPM until the revisions to the full report are made is simply impossible. [emphasis added -hro]

“Suppressing the SPM”?! Good grief … they worked on the report for a few years, what difference would a few more weeks have made? But more importantly …

Here’s what Carrington failed, for some reason, to tell his readers:

Unless all 194 countries were accounted for and present (in the days prior to commencement of the actual meeting of the IPCC), so that they could participate in the final session of Working Group III at which the SPM was “discussed and approved”, they could not have all “approved” it. In fact, had Carrington done the slightest bit of fact-checking – as I did circa May 14 – he would have learned that the IPCC does not “approve” the SPM of any Working Group’s report, as was made clear in the annotated agenda:

4. ACCEPTANCE OF THE ACTIONS TAKEN AT THE 11th SESSION OF WORKING GROUP III ON THE SPECIAL REPORT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION (SRREN)

Under this agenda item, the Panel will formally accept the Summary for Policymakers of the SRREN. Section 4.3 of the IPCC procedures stipulates that

“for a Summary for Policymakers approved by a Working Group to be endorsed as an IPCC Report, it must be accepted at a Session of the Panel. Because the Working Group approval process is open to all governments, Working Group approval of a Summary for Policymakers means that the Panel cannot change it. However, it is necessary for the Panel to review the Report at a Session, note any substantial disagreements, (in accordance with Principle 10 of the Principles Governing IPCC Work) and formally accept it.”

[reformatted and emphasis added -hro]

He then proceeds to excoriate Nature for an editorial in which the IPCC is criticized because he believes the only matter worth “screaming about” is the IPCC’s mere 12 person secretariat and inadequate budget. Perhaps Carrington is unaware of the additional paid (by hosting country/institution) resources available to each Working Group’s Technical Support Unit.

Funny, at the end of his piece Carrington has a note indicating that he had been corrected by some chap by the name of Richard Klein. Evidently in his initial post, Carrington had failed to use the:

IPPC’s exact terminology for the different author role, i.e. lead and coordinating lead. That’s now corrected

Too bad Klein didn’t know more about the IPCC process. Then he could also have pointed out the rather more serious errors in Carrington’s narrative. Klein could have mentioned the additional paid resources available via the Technical Support Units, and he could have directed Carrington to The IPCC’s “Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work” which indicates that there is a difference between “acceptance”, “adoption” and “approval” (p. 2):

PROCEDURES FOR THE PREPARATION, REVIEW, ACCEPTANCE, ADOPTION, APPROVAL AND PUBLICATION OF IPCC REPORTS
[...]
2. DEFINITIONS

The definitions of terms used in this document are as follows:

“acceptance” of IPCC Reports at a Session of the Working Group or Panel signifies that the material has not been subject to line by line discussion and agreement, but nevertheless presents a comprehensive, objective and balanced view of the subject matter.

“adoption” of IPCC Reports is a process of endorsement section by section (and not line by line) used for the longer report of the Synthesis Report as described in section 4.3 and for Overview Chapters of Methodology Reports.

“approval” of IPCC Summaries for Policymakers signifies that the material has been subjected to detailed, line by line discussion and agreement.

Then again, perhaps Carrington is too blinded by the dazzling performance of Pachauri and the IPCC to even care about such details – or about investigating the potentially scandalous relationship between Neil Wallis and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit in the aftermath of Climategate.

Vaclav Klaus on global warming “doctrine”

Update: Sorry, my mind must have strayed into literary directions as I was writing this and I had written the name of Vaclav Havel, author and first President of the Czech Republic. I have also amended the title above accordingly-hro

Czech Republic President, Vaclav Havel Klaus, is on a speaking tour (although he refers to it as a vacation) in Australia. A few days ago, he was the guest speaker at Australia’s National Press Club, where his topic was “climate change”. [h/t TrevorG via comment at WUWT]

This video of his presentation is approx. an hour long (including a Q & A session). While I chose to watch this charming, unassuming, articulate gentleman, you may want to “multitask” and simply listen to his words of wisdom while you do other things. I particularly appreciated his pragmatism, common sense and gentle sense of humour.

 

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could certainly learn a lot from President Havel Klaus. In his attempt to rehabilitate the image and reputation of the IPCC, Pachauri seems to have discarded his “all peer reviewed” crutch in favour of a “they’re all distinguished scientists” crutch – which Donna Laframboise has very handily knocked right out from under him.

But speaking of pragmatism … Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. and a number of co-authors have written a follow-up to their Hartwell Paper that is admittedly US-centric, but well worth a read: Climate Pragmatism.

And, if you choose to listen to President Havel rather than watch and listen … Dr. Judith Curry had a fascinating post yesterday on America’s first global warming debate .

Of “piece”, security and “evidence” from the future: Climate-neutral-network-speak

In a recent post on communication of climate science, Dr. Judith Curry had concluded:

[The late] Steve Schneider has had an enormous impact on the public communication of climate science, both through his own personal communications but more significantly in terms of framing the public interaction between climate scientists and public. Schneider had a much more complex position in the public debate about climate change than say, Jim Hansen. Schneider is to be commended for raising this issue of treatment of uncertainty by the IPCC, but ultimately his position on this issue led to uncertainty monster simplification, and elitism in terms of over reliance on expert judgment and the establishment of an elite consensus. The over reliance on expert judgment and the establishment of an elite consensus left the scientific community and its argument very vulnerable to Climategate in terms of its public credibility.

Meanwhile, in apparent oblivion to reality, back at the ranch … the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) appears to have given birth to a “Climate Neutral Network” which no doubt seemed to be a good idea at the time, to at least one of their image/reputation-spinners and/or logo-designers:

In the interest of full disclosure, this image is a composite in which dimensions have been altered

Achim Steiner, head honcho of the UNEP, which chooses not to disclose its procurements and is the parent of the IPCC – in addition to being the the UN’s highest flying carbon emitting agency – made a speech to the UN Security Council.

During his oratorical plea for “piece” (sic), Steiner claimed:

My presentation today will focus on how our current understanding of the Earth’s changing climate has profound implications for global stability and security. In revising and presenting the available evidence I wish to highlight three perspectives which are particularly relevant to this debate:

1. Science of climate change: What are the implications of what we know and do not know for interpreting future scenarios? How significant are “tipping points” and feedback mechanisms in interpreting the impact of climate change on our economies, societies and the Earth’s life support systems?

[...]

The principal risk assessments in respect to climate change are the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hosted by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization.

Its work is in turn based on the research of thousands upon thousands of scientists from government and university-linked institutes from across the globe.

The fourth assessment report of the IPCC in 2007 concluded that it was “unequivocal” that the Earth is warming and that human activities play a role in this change.

[...]

The IPCC’s fifth assessment will be released in 2013/2014, but already many teams of scientists claim the forecasts and scenarios of future climate change in the fourth IPCC assessment are being overtaken. (Quelle surprise -hro)

[...]

The question today is what kind of supportive or strategic role could or should the United Nations play in this landscape, assuming that Member States consider climate change to be a phenomenon with potentially profound implications for global security and stability in the future.

[...]

The science informs us that the quantity and quality of these resources will be at increasing risk from climate change and its impacts and that, without broad and cooperative action, irreversible tipping points could occur with perhaps sudden and abrupt shocks to communities and countries.

[Steiner concludes:]

In bringing forward a response that enhances global security and cooperation on the climate challenge, the world can perhaps also better manage risk from numerous other challenges and in doing so diminish tensions between nations and lay the foundations and possibilities of a more sustainable and equitable peace. [emphases added -hro]

One has to wonder what part of Joseph Alcamo’s address to the IPCC at Bali in October 2009, Steiner does not understand. Alcamo (as I have noted previously) was quite clear:

[A]s policymakers and the public begin to grasp the multi-billion dollar price tag for mitigating and adapting to climate change, we should expect a sharper questioning of the science behind climate policy.

Oh, well … perhaps Alcamo’s words were merely yet another an inconvenient truth that Steiner is choosing to ignore in the interest of Climate-Neutral-Network-speak.

A tale of two disputes … time for some audio-visual clarity

The United Nations (in no small measure, thanks to the cooperation of far too many “journalists” whose possession of critical thinking skills seems to be rather conspicuous by its absence – and/or pushed aside by a blatant advocacy agenda) has succeeded in fostering and promoting two very contentious narratives.

One is to continually blame humans for “climate change” (aka global warming) caused by a tiny percentage of a trace gas, carbon dioxide (CO2). It does so by using a hefty chunk of our respective governments’ contributions (i.e. the taxes we pay) to produce masses of non-evidence based propaganda, channelled through the activities of various and sundry departments, division, commissions, etc.

The other is to continually blame Israel – which constitutes a very tiny percentage of the landmass and population in the Middle East – for any and all that ails those other countries (and, supposedly, one country wannabe). It does so by using a hefty chunk of our respective governments’ contributions (i.e. the taxes we pay) to produce masses of non-evidence based propaganda, also channelled through the activities of various and sundry departments, divisions, commissions, etc.

If your knowledge of either (or both) of these two narratives is limited to that which you have gleaned from the mainstream media, you might want to consider broadening your horizons by taking the time to view either (or both) of the following two videos.

Climate change:

Israel:

The curious case of the missing “Outside Organizer”: prince of spinners, Neil Wallis

Update 07/22/2011 10:58 PM PDT: My oh-so-lonely (re-posted at 07/15/2011 10:54 AM PDT) comment on the website of Neil Wallis’ former home (pls see below for details) is still in moderation <sigh> Perhaps my comment was not the right kind of “digital noise” from The Outside Organization’s perspective … not to mention that it might have called into question their “strategy” – on behalf of at least one of their clients – of “leaking out rumours to the press”.

Update 09/17/2011 10:17 PM PDT While my above noted comment at OO is still in moderation, I must apologize to readers for my error in attributing to “Music World” [if such an entity exists] that which I should have attributed to Music Week. I have amended this post accordingly.

If you’ve been following the Murdoch-land media frenzy over the past few weeks, you will be aware that one of the individuals arrested for his role in the News of the World (NOTW) dust-up is Neil Wallis. Wallis was deputy editor of NOTW at the time of the phone-hacking events. More recently, Wallis had been contracted by the U.K. Metropolitan Police Commission to provide “public relations” advice; this relationship has resulted in the resignation of the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner:

Met’s Stephenson and Yates both resign
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned in the light of the ‘phone hacking scandal – and he took a swipe at the Prime Minister on the way.

His resignation was followed swiftly by that of Assistant Commissioner John Yates after a meeting with the Metropolitan Police Authority. Yates had originally been told he would be suspended pending an inquiry.

Stephenson – whose job will be taken on temporarily by deputy commissioner Tim Godwin – was being reported in the media as allegedly being too close to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis who the Met appointed as a public relations consultant and who also worked as a public relations consultant for the health spa Champneys where Stephenson spent five weeks recuperating – free of charge. Yates was responsible for checking the credentials of Wallis before the Met took him on. [emphasis added-hro]

It subsequently came to light that Yates was responsible for securing a position with Scotland Yard for Wallis’s daughter. The first I saw of this was in an article in today’s edition of the U.K.’s Mail Online indicating that Seane Hoare has been found dead in his apartment. Hoare was a former NOTW journalist – and more recently a whistleblower regarding the activities of U.K. PM, David Cameron’s former chief of communications, Andy Coulson. Coulson was one of the first to be arrested in this scandal, and he was also Wallis’ boss at NOTW.

Hoare is reported to have made claims to the effect that phone-hacking was rampant in the U.K. press. This is certainly borne out by a 2006 Report from the U.K. Information Commissioner [see p. 9]. But I digress …

Wallis’ involvement with the Police Commission happened to overlap with an assignment he took on as “lead” consultant for a PR and ‘reputation management’ company called The Outside Organization (OO) when OO was called upon by the University of East Anglia, in the days following the November 2009 release of the Climategate emails. This association came to light in a post by Steve McIntyre at ClimateAudit on July 14. Andrew Montford, author of The Hockey Stick Illusion (a must read, that’s now available on Kindle!) has also highlighted the Wallis-Climategate connection on his Bishop Hill blog. In September 2010, Music World Week magazine paid tribute to OO founder and CEO Alan Edwards:

“We don’t advertise a lot of the things we do,” says Edwards, who was called in by the University of East Anglia when Climategate blew up. “That was really interesting. It’s very high level, and you’re very much in the background on that sort of thing.”

The university’s Climatic Research Unit wanted Outside to fire back some shots on the scientists’ behalf after leaked emails from the unit gave climate change skeptics ammunition and led to an avalanche of negative press [including a U.K. Daily Express front-page story "The Big Climate Change 'Fraud' -hro] about whether global warming was a real possibility.

“They came to us and said, ‘We have a huge problem – we are being completely knocked apart in the press,’” says (OO’s) Sam Bowen. “They needed someone with heavyweight contacts who could come in and sort things out, and next week there was a front-page story telling it from their side.”

Wallis was the designated hitter with “heavyweight contacts”. Again, from the Music World Week spread:

The role of Neil Wallis, formerly editor of The People, deputy editor of The Sun and, most recently, executive editor of the News Of The World, is to lend heavy-hitting tabloid expertise, leading some jobs, following Edwards on others.

“Most of my career has been spent working at the top end of tabloid newspapers, so I know how they work and how they think,” says Wallis. “This is not that different, actually. You have very creative people, you have fastmoving situations, you have to think on your feet.”

Wallis led on the University of East Anglia “climategate” job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university’s Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct.

However, since news of his arrest, Wallis’s role with OO has undergone some rather startling evolutionary changes. On July 14, the U.K. Guardian (which has been providing “live-blogging” of developments) reported that “colleague Marina Hyde” had tweeted:

Outside Organisation website 9am Neil Wallis “Managing director”. Outside Organisation website 11.30am Neil Wallis “Freelance consultant”.

I know that when I last checked the OO website, a few days ago, Neil Wallis was still listed in their People section, as Hyde had reported, as a consultant. Yet a little over an hour ago, I had one of those now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t moments: Wallis has been “disappeared” from OO’s stellar stable.

No doubt this disappearing act will give OO’s future clients additional confidence in their purported “Digital PR” services:

The web has exploded, social media has erupted and the way a celebrity, band or brand is created and maintained has changed as a result. For us, digital is just another communications channel and with our experienced team, we are in prime position to help create and manage the right online buzz and reputation for our clients. We were there at the start of the digital PR revolution and have helped artists and brands over the years – from Sirens to Diddy – to make the right digital noise [emphasis added -hro]

But speaking of OO, its digital prowess and disappearing acts … last week, while I was perusing their site, I came across three case studies. One was of the group “Spandau Ballet”. In discussing their “Strategy” OO had noted:

“We started leaking out rumours to the press [...]“

I thought this was rather interesting. And since they had invited comments I posted the following:

Hilary Ostrov says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

14 July 2011 at 11:19pm
These case studies are interesting. I wonder if you would be kind enough to share similar details on the “climategate job” headed by Neil Wallis.

Thanks.

I wasn’t exactly holding my breath in anticipation of an honest answer. My lonely comment stayed in moderation for many hours. Yet when I refreshed the page at approximately 10:53 AM PDT on July 15 it had (wait for it!) disappeared! Readers may have noticed from my past efforts at retrieving information that I don’t give up easily (see, for example, here and here). So I decided to repost my comment:

Hilary Ostrov says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

15 July 2011 at 5:55pm
These case studies are interesting. I wonder if you would be kind enough to share similar details on the “climategate job” headed by Neil Wallis.

Thanks.

07/15/2011 10:54 AM PDT

My original comment, which had been in moderation for quite some time, seems to have disappeared. So I’m re-posting.

As of today, July 18, 09:35 PM PDT, this comment is still in moderation. But in case OO decides to do another clever disappearing act, I’ve taken a screen capture:

2nd comment attempt on The Outside Organization website

In one of the many congratulatory blurbs in Music World Week‘s tribute to OO’s CEO, Alan Edwards, who was dubbed “King of the Spinners”, one of Edwards’ fans is quoted as saying:

“I used to believe what I read in the newspapers, until I met you, Alan. From Big Country to Spice to David, we had some of the best times, some of which are not repeatable, and thank God YouTube didn’t exist at the time….

“You have helped me in my career, advised me when I didn’t know what to do (which has been quite often) and gone beyond the call of duty for me when asked.”

A rather telling observation, don’t you think?! It certainly would be helpful to know what advice Neil Wallis – a mere Prince of the Spinners rather than a King, no doubt – had provided to CRU/UEA during the course of his assignment on OO’s “climategate job”. Not to mention how he might have “gone beyond the call of duty when asked”.

One also wonder when the MSM will acknowledge Wallis’ Climategate connections. In the meantime, no doubt the bigwigs at CRU/UEA are desperately hoping that this connection will be buried in the Murdoch-land media frenzy. Then again, perhaps this time they’ve called in the King of Spinners to exercise another talent of which the Music World Week spread suggests OO’s Edwards is proud: that which aims to “kill the story”.

Is the IPCC conflicted? Here is one of the ways

A few weeks ago, I provided some data which demonstrated the extent to which “the practice of scientists responsible for writing IPCC assessments reviewing their own work” was prevalent in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC)’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

I had observed that:

[...] 884 were the authors (or co-authors) of material that was cited in a chapter they were writing. Or, in the case of Review Editors, charged with ensuring that the material written in a chapter in which their own work was cited, represented “a comprehensive, objective, and balanced view of the areas they cover”.

In a guest posting, today (July 5), at Judith Curry’s, Nic Lewis had written:

The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 (AR4) contained various errors, including the well publicised overestimate of the speed at which Himalayan glaciers would melt. However, the IPCC’s defenders point out that such errors were inadvertent and inconsequential: they did not undermine the scientific basis of AR4. Here I demonstrate an error in the core scientific report (WGI) that came about through the IPCC’s alteration of a peer-reviewed result. This error is highly consequential, since it involves the only instrumental evidence that is climate-model independent cited by the IPCC as to the probability distribution of climate sensitivity, and it substantially increases the apparent risk of high warming from increases in CO2 concentration.

[...]

Of the eight studies for which [probability density functions] PDFs are shown, only one – Forster/Gregory 06 [Forster and Gregory, 2006] – is based purely on observational evidence, with no dependence on any climate model simulations. [emphasis added -hro]

The issue of “climate sensitivity” is, I gather, quite controversial – and crucial to the case the IPCC presents. For those who are technically inclined – and far less statistically-challenged than I – please do read Lewis’s post. My takeaway from his work is that, in effect, the IPCC have played some highly questionable statistical games with Forster and Gregory’s work, so that the results that the IPCC attributed to Forster and Gregory are a distortion of the actual results of their peer-reviewed research.

Needless to say, this has generated considerable discussion in the blogosphere. Andrew Montford (aka Bishop Hill) has highlighted this, as has Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts.

When I was working on Donna Laframboise’s “climate bible” report card last year, I did my own compilation of all the references cited in the 41 Chapters of AR4.

In reviewing these references, I found that:

1. Assuming that “Forster, P.M.F.”, “Forster, P.M.D.”, “Forster, P.M. de F.” and “Forster, P.M.D.F” are all one and the same author (consistency in citing references is far from being an IPCC strong point!), Forster had ten papers to which there were 17 references in WG I.

2. J.M. Gregory was somewhat more prolific (or at least considerably more present) with 33 papers to which there were 43 references in WG I and 14 in WG II. One thing that struck me as I skimmed the titles of his papers was the predominance of “model(s)” and “simulation(s)”.

As a public service, I have extracted the Forster & Gregory references into a Googledocs spreadsheet which can be found here.

In his polite response to an impudent troll at Judith Curry’s, Lewis wrote:

I didn’t ask Forster and Gregory to comment on my analysis in advance. I thought that would put them in a difficult position, as they were Contributing authors for chapter 9 of AR4:WG1 and, presumably, accepted (at least tacitly) the IPCC’s treatment of their results. The thrust of my post is very much consistent with what they wrote in their 2006 paper.

I have drawn the post to their attention.

Meanwhile, over at Bishop Hill … another member of the “model” IPCC in-crowd, Richard Betts dropped by to note:

Just a small point. Both Forster and Gregory (my friends Piers and Jonathan) were contributing authors on chapter 9 of IPCC AR4 WG1 which is being said to have misrepresented their results, and they were also involved in a major way elsewhere in the report (Piers was [Coordinating Lead Author] CLA of chapter 2 and Jonathan was an [Lead Author] LA in another chapter, can’t remember which) so one would assume that they were happy with what the chapter 9 lead authors did.

I decided to help Betts out; so I took a wild guess as to the Chapter of which his friend, Jonathan, was a Lead Author. Truth be told, it wasn’t so wild, actually. 18 of Gregory’s 33 papers were referenced in WG I, Chapter 10. Thanks to AccessIPCC, I was able to quickly confirm that my guess was correct: Gregory was a Lead Author of WG I, Chapter 10.

Whether or not Betts’ assumption is correct, from where I’m sitting, it would appear that Gregory had at least 33 32 good reasons to throw the conclusions of Forster and Gregory (2006) silently under the bus. And, if there is any truth to the aphorism that ‘silence is acquiescence’, my hunch is that – notwithstanding the fact that Lewis has drawn his post to their attention – we can expect to hear sounds of deafening silence from both Forster and Gregory.

It would seem that politics, once again, may well have taken precedence over scientific integrity.