Dr Vincent Gray was an expert reviewer for the first 5 IPCC Reports (AR1 to AR5). So he knows how the IPCC process works and why for example "consensus" is a religious term for them. This is chaper of his book: The Global Warming Scam
I marked out two key sections below: one and two
CHAPTER 4: THE IPCC SUPERSCAM
Chapters 2 and 3 shows how the environmental heresy has sought to justify the pseudo-religious dogma that humans are destroying the earth by launching scams intended to justify this belief. Then they decided to concentrate on the theory that humans are damaging the climate by emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. This claim has been so successful that it deserves the title of superscam.
After the publication of several books about the alleged threats to the planet and a 1970 Study of Environmental Problems (SCEP), there arose a shopping list of man’s impact on the global environment with the preparation of a short list of scams that could be exploited further.77 They then chose as the prime candidate the theory that emissions of greenhouse gases were destroying the earth by causing global warming.
From these beginnings, a number of local meetings about the environment led to the first United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972.78 It established the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and issued a long Declaration which embodied the main environmentalist dogmas and demands.
The first World Climate Conference, organised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in 1979, called on all nations to unite in efforts to understand climate change and to plan for it, but it did not call for action to prevent future climate change.
A subsequent conference in Villach, Austria in 1980, organised jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organisation and the International Council for Science (ICSU), also concluded that the potential threats were sufficient to warrant an international programme of cooperation in research but that, due to scientific uncertainties, the development of a management plan for CO2 would be premature. A follow-up assessment was programmed for 1985, again to take place in Villach.
The Villach conference of October 1985 is widely credited with being critical to the placing of the climate change swindle firmly on the international political agenda, and to the subsequent establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The conference concluded with this scare:
...as a result of the increasing greenhouse gases it is now believed that in the first half of the next century (21st century) a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than in any man’s history.79
The conference statement maintained that:
While some warming of climate now appears inevitable due to past actions, the rate and degree of future warming could be profoundly affected by government policies on energy conservation, use of fossil fuels, and the emission of greenhouse gases.
In 1987, the 10th Congress of the World Meteorological Organisation recognized the need for objective, balanced, and internationally coordinated scientific assessment of the understanding of the effects of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate and on ways in which these changes may impact socio-economic patterns.
In its follow up, the WMO Executive Council asked the Secretary General of WMO, in coordination with the Executive Director of The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to establish an ad hoc intergovernmental mechanism to provide scientific assessments of climate change. Thus the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988.
The publishing of the IPCC’s first assessment report in 199080 provided the basis for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development—also known as the Earth Summit—in Rio de Janeiro, which led to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was ready for signature at the Conference.81
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up on order to:
Assess available scientific information on climate change: Working Group I.
Assess the environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change: Working Group II,
Formulate response strategies: Working Group III
The second and third objectives depend heavily on the first. This book deals mainly with the reports issued by the Working Group I since its opinions form the background for the activities of Working Groups II and III.
Later, Reports further defined the Working Groups as follows:
The IPCC Working Group I WGI deals with the Science of Climate Change.
Working Group II WGII with Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Working Group III, WGIII with Mitigation of Climate Change.
The three Working Groups are made up of nominees of the two sponsors and of the Governments that support the greenhouse delusion. The scientists are mainly Government employees, or recipients of Government finance. As Governments throughout the world have come to adopt policies dependent on the belief that greenhouse gas emissions are causing harmful effects on the climate, all of the Working Group members tend to be supporters of this view as are the “Lead Authors” of the Reports who are nominated by them.
Drafts of all the main Reports of the IPCC are circulated for comment. Initially this was only to Government Environment Departments, who then consulted with local experts and interested parties before forwarding comments received. Nowadays almost anyone can comment, provided they tell the right story to the IPCC. There are three drafts of each Report, the third being circulated only to Governments. There is evidence that some of the most extravagant claims only appear in the Final Draft without public review.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change
The 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), adopted on May 9th, 1992 came into force on 21st March 1994.82 By that time there were 166 signatures from National Governments.
This Convention initiated a system for compulsory reduction of greenhouse gases by Annex I Governments, which has become progressive. The provisions have not been entirely enforced, but they are still causing major economic disaster in many countries.
The procedure has been implemented by a series of Conferences of the Parties (COP 1,2,3, etc.) in the different major cities of the world, including subsidiary meetings for implementation of the other campaigns of the environmental movement. At this writing, these meetings have reached to COP21 which will take place in Paris in December 2015 where attempts are being planned to impose global restrictions or disastrous proportions.
The IPCC Reports are a major contribution to the progress of the increasing restrictions on economic activity resulting from the main COP meetings, and their reports have all been prepared in order to influence the successive meetings.
The Climate Change Superscam
The FCCC defined Climate Change in Article 1 as follows:
...a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.83
It was as if they had followed the advice of Humpty Dumpty in Alice through the Looking Glass:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
The FCCC statement is legally binding on the Governments who signed the Convention. It amounts to an assertion that all change in the climate is caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, even when it is only “attributed, directly or indirectly.” There is no need for evidence, scientific or otherwise. As they define it, change of climate that is natural is mere variability.
This legally binding definition provides a license for the wholesale distortion of climate science carried out by the IPCC in its many publications.
They admit that human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere is only one possible factor in our changing climate—there is also natural climate variability which contributes to a changing climate.
They play the trick of suggesting that natural changes in the climate are not changes at all, but are merely variables. This permits them to assume that any change which is unprecedented, because it cannot be shown to be variable, must be caused by their greenhouse gases.
Climate Change, which is the alteration of the composition of the global activity by human activity, is a kind of religious slogan and as such it is an article of faith. No evidence or proof is needed; indeed it is better absent as this is a test of religious zeal.
Proof is, anyway, unnecessary. All that is needed is for the proposition to be attributed directly, or even indirectly. It is true even by an attribution by one single lunatic.
But to put a scam like this over on the public there must be attribution, not only by the devotees of the environmentalist faith whose support is guaranteed, but also by a collection of pundits who could influence politicians. You must line up celebrities, film stars, sports heroes and scientists. Better still, set up political parties devoted to the promotion of this scam.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up to pay scientists to support the scam. Science jobs were scarce, but here, money was no object. A profitable career was offered with foreign travel, guaranteed publications supported by reliable editors and peer reviewers and even a possible Nobel Prize.
The only condition was that they would all attribute almost everything about the climate to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere to a level satisfactory to the Government Representatives that controlled the IPCC and the signatories of the FCCC on pain of dismissal and loss of career if they failed to do so. A suitable system of justification for this process was built up using the latest principles of public relations and political and verbal spin.
The FCCC definition was supported by the First Report and in the Supplementary Reports, 199284 and 199485, but the 199586 and subsequent reports had, as a footnote on the first page, a different definition of climate change.
This reads as follows in the latest, 2013 Report:
Climate Change
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to Human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.’ 87
The UNFCCC makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition and climate variability attributable to natural causes—which it claims are variable and so may be ignored.
The IPCC make a similar distinction. There is the one the term REFERS to and the one which does not. Climate change REFERS to changes that can be identified by statistical tests which show they are PERSISTENT for an extended period, typically decades or longer On the other hand there is climate change which is not being REFERRED TO which is not PERSISTENT for decades or longer which includes external forces such as solar changes (which they think, wrongly, are cyclic), volcanic eruptions, and human induced changes in land use.
They seem to think that the persistent changes will turn out sufficiently representative, standardized and symmetrical, to be capable of statistical treatment that can give a satisfactory mean and estimate of its variability.
The chosen climate change which is supposed to be persistent has turned out to be less persistent that the climate change which is not chosen. They have supplied no less than 63 possible reasons why this is so.88
The only difference between the IPCC definition of climate change and that of the FCCC is that they have added anthropogenic changes in land use to natural variability as that part of change of climate which can be considered to be merely variable. This assumption is immediately dubious.
For the models, the less persistent, natural effects are considered constant. They even try to argue that such natural effects are themselves caused by humans.
Their latest definition of Climate is as follows is as follows:
Climate
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.
The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The Relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind.
Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.89
Nowhere in any part of the IPCC Reports are there any actual figures for statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities for any locality, even for temperature, precipitation or wind direction or for the recommended period of 30 years.
Since every local climate is different, global climate consists of an amalgamation of every local climate, an attempt to provide means and variability globally is impossible.
Their claim that they are able to provide a plausible statistical description of the climate system is simply false.
The 2013 IPCC definition of the Climate System is:
Climate System
The climate system is the highly complex system consisting of five major components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere, and the interactions between them. The climate system evolves in time under the influence of its own internal dynamics and because of external forcings such as volcanic eruptions, solar variations and anthropogenic forcings such as the changing composition of the atmosphere and land use change.
The atmosphere is the gaseous envelope surrounding the earth
The hydrosphere is all the surface water
The cryosphere is all surface and below surface regions of solid ice
The lithosphere is the upper layer of solid earth, both land and water, but not volcanoes
The biosphere is all living organisms both land and sea.90
There is no mention of the reason why the climate exists: the sun.
As explained in Chapter 1, the climate is a heat engine which has the function of supplying the energy from the sun to maintain the living organisms on the earth. In the process, there is a complex dynamic interaction between a large collection of measurable climate properties. The division of these properties into intellectual disciplines fails to integrate them to their prime function, the provision of energy for life.
By doing this, they concealed the reality of the climate. In order to place emphasis on only one of its many features and try to persuade us that it is of overwhelming importance, they postulated a dead, static earth where there is no provision for human life except change of land use and the emission of greenhouse gases.
This strange static picture of a pseudoclimate with a flat earth, constant sunshine, no wind and vertical radiation is shown in IPCC diagrams such as Figure 4.1: 91
Figure 4.1
Idealized Flat Earth Climate
The IPCC Reports
The IPCC exercise was set up in order to accumulate evidence that the globe is undergoing global warming as a result of increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There was never any intention to provide a balanced or unbiased scientific assessment of climate science.
From the beginning, there were scientists who disagreed with the theory that increases in greenhouse gases are harmful, but their views have not been included in the IPCC Reports and comments made by them have been comprehensively rejected, to the extent that few now bother to comment at all. Some recognised experts have resigned or expressed their opposition to the entire exercise.
This deliberate bias was made clear in Appendix 4 of the first Working Group I IPCC Report, 1990, in an introduction to a list of Reviewers, with the statement:
While every attempt was made by the Lead Authors to incorporate their comments, in some cases these formed a minority opinion which could not be reconciled with the larger consensus.
The Summary for Policymakers arises because the Governments that sponsored the Report wish to authorize it and ensure that it corresponds with their Climate Change policies. It is agreed line-by-line by anonymous Representatives of the Governments. It is drafted mainly by selected scientists from the main Report. It is sometimes not understood that they are acting on orders, not as independent scientists.
The Summary for Policymakers is actually a Summary BY Policymakers as it is not just advice to other policymakers, it is a summary carried out and approved by the policymakers themselves. It is also a genuine consensus of their views, agreed by all of them, and it does not necessarily coincide with the views of any Government or of the scientists who participate in the Report.
The Government Representatives who control the Reports are never named. In addition to their influence on the Summary for Policymakers, they play a large part in selecting and approving the Lead Authors of the various chapters, and permitting the views of reviewers to be considered.
My Summary (not Dr Gray): Government Representatives at the IPPC author the "Summary for Policymakers" during a closed meeting without scientists contributing. They agree everything by consensus; which just means - every single government in the room must agree with every statement in SfPM! Many key words and phrases in the SfPM are argued and fought over. But the meeting isn't over until they've all agreed a text. The SfPM is the only thing politicians will read. They don't read the scientific reports. If the politicians, back home, in Washington for example, think the SfPM is based on what scientists say then they just don't understand the process. After the SfPM is complete, the scientific reports are edited in such a way that they don't obviously disagree with SfPM.
Consensus is very important to the political representatives because they want their SfPM to form the basis of global agreements and treaties. They want every country in the world to sign up. That explains why consensus is a religious principle to them. This is the origin of the scientific consensus.
Any scientists present (two or so) at the SfPM meeting are there to take note of which passages in the scientific reports must be altered to agree with SfPM.
The Chapters of each Report are arranged in such a way as to promote the idea of climate change is caused by greenhouse gas increases. Actual climate observations are obscured, smoothed, filtered, linearized, interpolated and converted into data with outliers or noise eliminated, in order to find trends which can be held to support the greenhouse theory.
The First Reports incorporated the findings of all three Working Groups into one volume. Subsequent Reports issued separate volumes for the proceedings of WGII and WGIII and from the third one there was in addition a Synthesis Volume which tried to summarise all three. This Chapter deals in detail only with the WGI Science Reports, since the other Working Groups merely apply the results of the WGI Report.
Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment 1990
This first report, issued in 1990, was used as a background to the 1992 “Earth Summit” at Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
The Preface was signed by:
G.O.P. Obasi, Secretary General, World Meteorological Organisation
M. K. Tolba, Executive Director United Nations Environment Programme
Foreword, signed by Dr John Houghton, Chairman IPCC Working Group I
Introduction.
The Chapter Headings were:
Report Prepared for IPCC by Working Group I. Edited by J. T. Houghton, G. J. Jenkins, and J. J. Ephraums. Published by the Cambridge University Press 1990.
Policymakers Summary prepared by Working Group I
Contents
Executive Summary
Annex: Emissions Scenarios from Working Group III
Introduction
1. Greenhouse Gases and Aerosols. R T Watson, H Rohde, H Oeschiger and U Siegenthaler
2. Radiative Forcing of the Climate K P Shine, R G Derwent, D J Wuebbles and J J Morcrette
3. Processes and Modelling U Cubasch and R D Cess
4. Validation of Climate Models W L Gates, P R Rowntree and Q Z Zeng
5. Equilibrium Climate Change J F B Mitchell, S Manabe, T Tokioka and V Meleshko
6. Time-Dependent Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change F P Breterton, K Bryan and I D Woods
7. Observed Climate Variations and Change C K Folland, K Bryan and J D Woods
8. Detection of the Greenhouse Effect in the Observations T M L Wigley and T P Barnett
9 Sea Level Rise R A Warrick and H Oerlemans
10. Effects on Ecosystems J M Melillo T V Callaghan, F J Woodward E Sa’atiand S K Sinha
11. Narrowing the Uncertainties G M Bean and J McCarthy
Annex: Climatic consequences of emissions
Appendix 1: Emissions Scenarios
Appendix 2 Organisation of the IPCC and Working Groups
Appendix 3 Contributors (306 including some duplicates).
Appendix 4 Reviewers (241, with duplicates).
Appendix 5 Acronyms Institutions
Appendix 6 Acronyms Programmes and Miscellaneous
Appendix 7 Units
The Policymakers Summary is merely Prepared by IPCC Working Group I for approval by the Governments.
There is no Index. Topics are difficult to find as they are often treated in more than one Chapter. Their inherent bias is made plain from the start with the statement at the beginning of Appendix 1 as quoted above.
While every attempt was made by the Lead Authors to incorporate their comments, in some cases these formed a minority opinion which could not be reconciled with the larger consensus.
As with all the Reports, much emphasis was placed on the Mean Annual Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record, which is based on scientifically unacceptable basic data (unrepresentative samples) and unacceptable average daily temperatures (based on a varying mean of maximum and minimum) from sites almost never monitored for suitability.
The Report said:
The size of this warming is broadly consistent with the predictions of climate models, but is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability.
Actually, the predictions of climate models are broadly inconsistent with the prediction of climate models, as will be shown in Chapter 7: Observed Variations and Change.
Figure 4.2
Surface Temperatures on Several Geological Scales
They established the pattern they have followed throughout of qualitative, ambiguous statements without scientific support which are invariably regarded as certain proof by their sponsors.
This first Report gave the following set of graphs as of past global temperatures which show no evidence of a relationship with atmospheric trace gases. It included the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. These were denied in subsequent Reports.
They blamed the trace gases for the temperature rise shown in their record from 1910 to 1940.
The Report also launched the “scenarios” of the future which are exaggerated beliefs of changes in human activity for the forthcoming century. This was the birth of the Business as Usual scenario. Three other sets of scenarios have been added since then.
The details of the scenarios were kept away from the scientists by confining the work to a sub-Committee of WGIII where they could even ignore the views of reputable economists. The scientists have found themselves encumbered with scenarios they are unable to question in the WGI Science Reports.
This Report is the only one that makes predictions. However, the words We predict occur only in the Executive Summary page xii right at the beginning after the Contents page. On it they predict a temperature rise of 0.3ºC±0.2ºC-0.5ºC per decade, which they say is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years. This hardly seems frightening and it is not supported anywhere else in the Report.
All the subsequent Reports never make predictions, they talk only about projections.
The 1992 Supplementary Report
Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment was compiled specifically to provide evidence to influence signatories for the Framework Convention on Climate Change after its adoption in May 1992.
It contains the following Chapters:
Houghton, J T, B A Callander & S K Varney (Editors)
Foreword
Preface 1992 Supplement
A Greenhouse Gases A1 Sources and Sinks
A2 Radiative Forcing of the Climate
A3 Emissions Scenarios for IPCC: an Update
B Climate Modelling, Climate Prediction and Model Validation
C Observed Climate Variability and Change
Annex: Climatic Consequences of emissions and comparison of IS92a and SA90
Appendix 1 Organisation of IPCC and Working Group I
Appendix 2 Contributors to the IPCC WGI Report Supplement
Appendix 3 Reviewers of the IPCC WGI Report .Supplement (my comments were included as coming from R S Whitney)
Appendix 4 Acronyms
Appendix 5 Units
Appendix 6 Chemical Symbols
This time there are multiple Authors and also Contributors.
Again there was no Index.
This Report repeated the procedure of the first Report in placing Observed Climate Variability and Change right at the end, so that readers will not notice that observations do not agree with the models.
The Report expanded the topic of aerosols. The climate models reported in the First Report gave grossly exaggerated predictions of current temperatures. This Report extended the argument that aerosols might be used to rescue the models, since their effects could cause cooling, and because these effects are so little known they could be used to “adjust” model deficiencies.
The Report also launched a new set of scenarios to replace the rather crude number of four scenarios promoted in the First Report, which included the notorious Business as Usual scenario. The Business as Usual scenario never really died, because its extreme assumptions are a favourite of Government economists and failed U.S. Presidential candidates.
The new scenarios, labelled IS92a.b.c.d.e.f were described in more detail in a supplementary Report.92
I published a critical appraisal of both the 1990 and 1992 Reports93 and another The IPCC Scenarios are they Plausible94 which suggested that most of them were not. Castles and Henderon also criticised them for their statistics.95 The public and the politicians always chose the least plausible and the most pessimistic for their comments. These scenarios were used for the subsequent IPCC Report until they were replaced by the scenarios described in their 2001 Report.96
The Chapter on Scenarios states:
Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such.
Repeated statements such as this one by the originators, that scenarios should not be used for forecasts have been routinely ignored by politicians, the media and Governments without a single protest from any IPCC official.
This Report was the first one to which I made comments on both of the circulated drafts. At the time, drafts were sent to interested parties by the New Zealand Ministry of the Environment and the comments were collected by them to forward to the IPCC. My comments were sent by Rob Whitney, from the NZ Coal Research Association.
The comments were regarded as secret and we were never told what happened to them. I had started a series of Greenhouse Bulletins which were originally briefings to the Coal Research Association, but soon became both local and international with the development of email. I devoted two issues of my Bulletin trying to find out whether they had taken any notice of our comments. The results were disappointing.
Climate Change 1994
Climate Change 1994 from the IPCC was a combination of two topics: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and An Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios. It was provided to support the coming into force of the Framework Convention on Climate Change on the 21st March 1994.
The first part was from the first IPCC Committee WGI (Science) and the second part was from the third IPCC Committee (Impact), WGIII.
The Contents are as follows:
Foreword
Part 1
Preface to WGI Report
Dedication (to Ulrich Siegenthaler)
Summary for Policymakers: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change.
1. CO2 and the Carbon Cycle
2. Other Trace Gases and Atmospheric Chemistry
3 Aerosols
4 Radiative Forcing
5 Trace gas Radiative Forcing Indices
Part II
Preface to WGIII Report
Summary for Policymakers: An Evaluation f the IPCC 1992 Emission Scenarios
6. An Evaluation of the IPCC Emission Scenarios
Appendix 1 Organisation of the IPCC
Appendix 2 List of Major IPCC Reports
Appendix 3 Contributors to the WGI Report
Appendix 4 Reviewers of the WGI Report (I am named for the first time under “Non-Governmental Organisations)
Appendix 6 Acronyms
Appendix 7 Units
INDEX
There are now even more Authors plus Contributors. Chapters 1 and 2 also have Modellers.
Part 1 introduces the topic of Global Warming Potential which enables them to treat all greenhouse gases (except, of course, water vapour) as if they behave like carbon dioxide.
In Part II there is the statement:
Since scenarios deal with the future they cannot be compared with observations...
This absurd statement fails to recognize that the future has an unwelcome tendency to happen and when it does, the scenarios can indeed be checked and as has happened, found wanting.
So they do not need to check whether any of them actually happen, and they tend to prefer projections so far ahead nobody can check.
Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change
Climate Change 1995 was the second major Report of the IPCC. It was prepared to launch the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 1) of the signatories of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Berlin from 20th March to April 7th 1995. It was also used for the subsequent meetings of COP 2, 8-10 July in Geneva, and COP 3 December 1st to 10th in Kyoto, where the Kyoto Protocol which imposes compulsory restrictions of greenhouse gas emissions on all signatories of the FCCC, was launched.
The Chapters were as follows:
Foreword
Preface
Summary for Policymakers
Technical Summary
1. The Climate System: An Overview
2. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change
3. Observed Climate Variability and Change
4. Climate Processes
5. Climate Models: Evaluation
6. Climate Models – Projections of Future Climate
7. Changes in Sea Level
8. Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes
9. Terrestrial Biotic Responses to Environmental Change and Feedbacks to Climate
10. Marine Biota Responses to Environmental Change and Feedbacks to Climate
11. Advancing our Understanding
Appendix 1. Organisation of the IPCC
Appendix 2. List of Major IPCC Reports
Appendix 3. Contributors to Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change (530, including duplicates)
Appendix 4. Reviewers (557 including duplicates. My name is included under “Non-Governmental Organisations, and spelled wrong).
Chapter1 has only three authors: Trenberth, Houghton and Meira Filho. The rest have large numbers of authors and contributors.
The Summary for Policymakers is stated to have been approved in detail at the Madrid meeting 27-29 November 1995.
There is now a Technical Summary as well as a Summary for Policymakers to save people the chore of actually reading the Report. The authors of both of these are not revealed, but it is claimed that the Technical Summary is not approved in detail.
As before, there is no index.
The Observations have been moved up to number 3, and they no longer place the performance of their models at the beginning. However, Chapter 1 (The Climate System) and Chapter 2 (Radiative Forcing) are still prominent.
I could claim a major improvement. The First Draft of the 1995 Report had a Chapter 5 Validation of Climate Models as in the First Report. I pointed out that it was wrong since no climate model has ever been validated and they did not even try to do so. They thereupon changed the word Validation to Evaluation no less than fifty times in the Second Draft and have used it exclusively ever since.
Validation is a term used by computer engineers to describe the rigorous testing process that is necessary before a computer-based model can be put to use. It must include successful prediction over the entire range of circumstances for which it is required. Without this process it is impossible to find out whether the model is suitable for use or what levels of accuracy can be expected from it. Without comprehensive validation a model us useless and should be ignored and discarded.
The IPCC has never attempted this process and they do not even discuss ways in which it may be carried out. As a result, the models are worthless. Their possible inaccuracy is completely unknown. The IPCC has developed an elaborate procedure for covering up this deficiency which is well described in the IPCC document on Guidance Notes for Lead Authors on Addressing “Uncertainties”. It includes attempts to simulate those past climate sequences where suitable adjustment of the uncertain parameters and equations in their models can be made to give an approximate fit, but they rely largely on the elaborate procedure for mobilizing the opinions of those who originate the models. Most of them depend financially on acceptance of the models, so their opinions are handicapped by their conflict of interest.
They never try to grade the different models. Since they are never validated, they have no means of doing it. Also, they dare not antagonise any of the modelists by placing them in any order. They try to get out of this by carrying out intercomparison sessions which can be used to lump the different models into groups. But they would never admit that, perhaps, one group is better than another.
From the 1995 Report on, the IPCC always makes projections, never predictions. They thus admit that their models are not suitable for prediction at all.
Also, everything is evaluated, but not validated. There can never be preferred models or scenarios, as they have no way of choosing between them.
Almost all the opinions expressed are based on assuming that a correlation implies a cause and effect relationship. This defies a fundamental logical principle, but it is evaded by calling the process attribution.
Since the alternative explanations are always marginalized or distorted, attribution to anthropogenic change always wins. Very little credence is given to anthropogenic changes that do not involve greenhouse gas emissions, such as land use and urban changes.
The 1995 Report concluded:
The balance of the evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.
This is a typical example of what I have called Doublespeak.
Surely all organisms, including humans, have some sort of influence on the climate, and it is usually discernible, so why was it necessary to carry out such an elaborate exercise to find that the balance of their evidence suggests such an obvious fact?
It does not mention greenhouse gases at all, but it is obviously intended to justify those who support the theory that the climate is controlled by greenhouse gases, in interpreting it as a support for their views.
Up to this Report it was claimed that they were entirely the work of Working Group I apart from the early statement that they had omitted a minority opinion. All the same, there remained reservations about whether the claims made could be due to natural causes.
They claim that this entire Report was written by Working Group I, but the Introduction to the Summary for Policymakers makes it clear that this was the only part that was approved by subjecting to line by line discussion and agreement in a plenary meeting. The rest were only accepted but not approved in detail.
It soon became evident that the Government Representatives, who attended only the final plenary session, were not happy with the rest of the Report and intended to show who was boss.
All the Reports suffered from the problem which arises by agreeing the Summary for Policymakers after the Final Version of the Main Report has been produced. Since the conclusions of the main Report did not agree with the Government Approved Summary, one of the scientists (Ben Santer) had the thankless task of altering statements in the full report to coincide with the Summary.97 The details of the changes to Chapter 8 (Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes) are as follows.98
The original Working Group I report was approved by the IPCC in December, 1995. Subsequent to that approval, IPCC has carried out additional edits to the document. Some changes are editorial, serving to add clarification or to correct sentence structure. However, other changes appear to go beyond that and have the effect of changing the substance and tone of this chapter. The most significant edits are identified below. New material is italicized while deleted material has a strike through it.
Summary
“Many but not all The Majority of these studies show that the observed changes in global-mean, annually-averaged temperature over the last century is unlikely to be due entirely to natural fluctuations of the climate system.”
deleted:
The evidence rests heavily on the reliability of the (still uncertain) estimates of natural variability noise levels.
new:
Furthermore, the probability is very low that these correspondences could occur by chance as a result of natural internal variability. The vertical patterns of change are also inconsistent with the response patterns expected for solar and volcanic forcing.
Viewed as a whole, these results indicate that the observed trend in global warming mean temperature over the past 100 years is larger than our current best estimates of natural climate variations over the last 600 years. unlikely to be entirely natural in origin.
Section 8.1
The attribution of a detected climate change to a particular causal mechanism can be established only by testing involves tests of competing hypotheses.
The claimed statistical detection of an anthropogenic signal in the observations must always be accompanied by the caveat that other explanations for the detected climate-change signal cannot be ruled out completely, unless a rigorous attempt has been made to do so.
new:
There is, however, an important distinction between achieving ‘practically meaningful’ and ‘statistically unambiguous’ attribution. This distinction rests on the fact that scientists and policymakers have different perceptions of risk. While a scientist might require decades in order to reduce the risk of making an erroneous decision on climate change attribution to an acceptably low level (say 1-5%), a policymaker must often make decisions without the benefit of waiting decades for near-statistical certainty.
Section 8
We now have:* more relevant model simulations, both for the definition of an anthropogenic climate change signal and for the estimation of natural internal variability.
* more relevant simulations for the estimation of natural internal variability, and initial estimates from paleoclimatic data of total natural variability on global or hemispheric scales; more powerful statistical methods for detection of anthropogenic change, and a better understanding of simpler statistical methods and increased application of pattern-based studies with greater relevance for attribution.
Section 8.2.2 Inadequate Representation of Feedbacks
new:
Deficiencies in the treatment and incorporation of feedbacks are a source of signal uncertainty.
Section 8.2.5
Current pattern-based detection work has not attempted is now beginning to account for these forcing uncertainties.
Section 8.3.2
Initial attempts are now being made For these reasons and many others, scientists have been unable to use paleoclimate data in order to reconstruct a satisfactory, spatially-comprehensive picture of climate variability over even the last 1,000 years. Nevertheless, The process of quality-controlling paleoclimatic data, integrating information from different proxies, and improving spatial coverage should be encouraged. Without a Better paleoclimatic data bases for at least the past millennium, it will be difficult are essential to rule out natural variability as an explanation for recent observed changes, or and to validate coupled model noise estimates on century time scales (Barnett et al., 1995).
Section 8.3.3.3
deleted:
While such studies help to build confidence in the reliability of the model variability on interannual to decadal time scales, there are still serious concerns about the longer time scale variability, which is more difficult to validate (Barnett et al., 1995). Unless paleoclimatic data can help us to ‘constrain’ the century time scale natural variability estimates obtained from CGCMs, it will be difficult to make a convincing case for the detection and attribution of an anthropogenic climate change signal.
Section 8.4.1
deleted:
While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution-related conclusions, for which there is little justification.
Section 8.4.1.1
The conclusion that can be drawn from this body of work, and earlier studies reported in Wigley and Barnett (1990) is that the warming trend to date is unlikely to have occurred by chance due to internally-generated variability of the climate system, although this explanation cannot be ruled out. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that a significant part of the trend is due to natural forcing factors. Implicit in such studies is a weak attribution statement--i.e., some (unknown) fraction of the observed trend is being attributed to human influences. Any such attribution-related conclusions, however, rest heavily on the reliability of our estimates of both century time-scale natural variability and the magnitude of the observed global warming mean trend. At best, therefore, trend significance can only provide provides circumstantial support for the existence of an anthropogenic component to climate change, but does not directly address the attribution issue.
Section 8.4.1.3
These empirical estimates of In summary, such studies offer support of a DT2x are subject to considerable uncertainty, as shown in a number of studies (see, e.g., Wigley and Barnett, 1990; Wigley and Raper, 1991b; Kheshgi and White; 1993b). In summary, such studies offer support for a DT2x value similar to that obtained by GCMs, and suggest that human activities have had a measurable impact on global climate, but they cannot help to establish a unique link between anthropogenic forcing changes and climate change.
Section 8.4.2.1
new:
Implicit in these global mean results is a weak attribution statement—if the observed global mean changes over the last 20 to 50 years cannot be fully explained by natural climate variability, some (unknown) fraction of the changes must be due to human influences.
deleted:
None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.
Section 8.4.2.3.
new:
To date, pattern-based studies have not been able to quantify the magnitude of a greenhouse gas or aerosol effect on climate. Our current inability to estimate reliably the fraction of the observed temperature changes that are due to human effects does not mean that this fraction is negligible. The very fact that pattern-based studies have been able to discern sub-global-scale features of a combined CO2 + aerosol signal relative to the ambient noise of natural internal variability implies that there may be a non-negligible human effect on global climate.
Section 8.5.2
new:
Simultaneous model-observed agreement in terms of changes in both global means and patterns, as in the recent study by Mitchell et al. (1995a), is even less likely to be a chance occurrence or the result of compensating model errors.
Section 8.6
Finally we come to the most difficult question of all: ‘When will the detection and unambiguous attribution of human-induced climate change occur ?’ when the detection and attribution of human-induced climate change is likely to occur. The answer to this question must be subjective, particularly in the light of the very large signal and noise uncertainties discussed in this Chapter, it is not surprising that the best answer to this question is ‘We do not know’. Some scientists maintain that these uncertainties currently preclude any answer to the question posed above. Other scientists would and have claimed, on the basis of the statistical results presented in Section 8.4, that confident detection of a significant anthropogenic climate change has already occurred. would and have claimed, on the basis of the results presented in Section 8.4, that detection of a significant climate change has already occurred. As noted in Section 8.1, attribution involves statistical testing of alternative explanations for a detected observed change and Few if any would be willing to argue that completely unambiguous attribution of (all or part of) this change to anthropogenic effects has already occurred, or was likely to happen in the next several years.
new:
However, evidence from the patterned-based studies reported on here suggests that an initial step has now been taken in the direction of attribution, since correspondences between observations and model predictions in response to combined changes in greenhouse gases and anthropogenic sulphate aerosols:
have now been seen both at the surface and in the vertical structure of the atmosphere;
have been found in terms of complex spatial patterns rather than changes in the global mean alone;
show an overall increase over the last 20 to 50 years;
are significantly different from our best model-based estimates of the correspondence expected due to natural internal climatic variability.
Furthermore, although quantitative attribution studies have not explicitly considered solar and volcanic effects, our best information indicates that the observed patterns of vertical temperature change are not consistent with the responses expected for these forcings.
The body of statistical evidence in Chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points toward a discernible human influence on global climate. Our ability to quantify the magnitude of this effect is currently limited by uncertainties in key factors, including the magnitude and pattern of longer-term natural variability and the time-evolving patterns of forcing by (and response to) greenhouse gases and aerosols.
Section 8.7
APPARENTLY DELETED!
This problem has been reduced in subsequent Reports by the use of elaborate “guidelines” which the Lead Authors are expected to impose on all contributors. It is reproduced as an Appendix to the Report.
The 1995 Report let in some disagreement in the Chapter entitled “Climate Processes,” which included R. S. Lindzen, who is a prominent critic of the whole process, and it did develop the general theme that the models were far more inaccurate than is generally assumed. This happened also in the 2001 Report, but it has been eliminated from the 2007 Report.
The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios 2000
This Report was produced by a sub-committee of WGIII. The Drafts of this Report were circulated only to economists and environmental activists. I can claim to have been the only scientist to have commented on the second draft, as its existence came to my notice and I was permitted to borrow the copy from the New Zealand Ministry of Environment. I had a deadline of only one week, but I made copious comments, most of which were, of course, rejected.
The projections of the IPCC are a combination of computer climate models (which have never been validated) and scenarios of what might happen in the future. There have up to now been three sets of these, the SA series from the First Report, the IS90 series from the 1992 Supplement Report, and now the SRES series which were launched by the 2000 Report which was prepared by a sub-committee of the WGIII (Impacts) committee of the IPCC. This committee was staffed mainly by environmental enthusiasts committed to exaggerate future change. Their Report was not circulated to scientists for comment or to experienced professional economists, so its exaggerated scenarios were imposed on the scientists of the 2001 and 2007 Reports in order to boost the projections of those reports.
I can give a personal experience of how this happened. The First Draft of the 2001 Report had a maximum projected global temperature rise for the year 2100 of 4ºC. The next draft raised this to 5.8ºC by inventing a new scenario (A1F1) and using many models, including a drastic one. The politicians must simply have issued a demand to do so.
The scenarios have been criticized by Castles and Henderson.99
Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
This 2001 Report100 is the one I discussed in some detail in my book The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of Climate Change 2001101
It claims to be:
Based on a draft prepared by a long list of contributors plus many authors and reviewers. But it still fails to mention that it had to be approved line by line by the anonymous Government Representatives who control the IPCC, After the scandal of the previous report strong measures were taken to ensure that Lead Author and review comments had to be approved by the Government representatives.
The Chapters were as follows:
Foreword
Preface
Summary for Policymakers
Technical Summary
1. The climate System: An Overview
2. Observed Climate Change and Variability
3. The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
4. Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse gases
5. Aerosols, their Direct and Indirect Effects
6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change
7. Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks
8. Model Evaluation
9. Projections of Future Climate Change
10. Regional Climate Information- Evaluation and Projections
11. Changes in Sea Level
12. Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes
13. Climate Scenario Development
14. Advancing our Understanding
Appendix I Glossary
Appendix II SRES Tables
Appendix III Contributors to the Report (15 pages, approximately 750)
Appendix IV Reviewers of the Report (11 pages. Approximately 550. I get included under “New Zealand”)
Appendix V Acronyms and Abbreviations
Appendix VI Units
Appendix VII Some Chemical Symbols used in this Report
Appendix VIII Index
The “Summary for Policymakers” is “Based on a draft prepared by” over 50 authors.
The “Technical Summary” has defined authors, but it is “accepted” but not “approved” by Working Group I.
This time, there is an Index.
Apart from Chapter 1 the Chapters now have Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributors and Review Editors.
The Summary for Policymakers is based on a draft prepared by a very large number of authors, but after the scandal of the last Report it would have been approved line by line by the Government Representatives.
The Observations Chapter has moved up to #2 and Radiative Forcing moved down to #6, but the rest are otherwise unchanged.
Chapter 1, The Climate System, an Overview had a Coordinating Lead Author, three Lead Authors and two Review Editors, one of whom was B Bolin.
On page 97, it stated:
The fact that the global mean temperature has increased since the late 19th century and that other trends have been observed does not necessarily mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate has been identified. Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observed change may be natural.
However, this was followed by a more detailed analysis is required to provide evidence of a human impact.
In the Summary for Policymakers they seem to think that this evidence had now been supplied.
There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities
and...
...in the light of the new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations
By selecting the last 50 years, this statement deliberately ignored the temperature records from weather balloons (for the last 41 years) and satellites (for the past 21 years) which did not show evidence of significant warming. They were therefore selecting the combined weather station and ship record, with all its obvious bias, as their only evidence of observed warming.
Since that record shows an observed cooling between 1950 and 1975, half of the selected range, the statement makes little sense. What they are really saying is that the observed warming in the combined surface record has only been evident for the past 25 years, without mentioning that it disagrees sharply with the observed temperature record from weather balloons and satellites over the same period. They seem to assume that the greenhouse effect only operates for 50 years.
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis
The fourth major IPCC Report was prepared for the meeting of COP 13 at Nusa Dua, Bali from 3rd-14th December 2007.102
The following are the Chapters of the Fourth IPCC Major WGI Report:
Foreword
Preface
Summary for Policymakers
Technical Summary
1.Historical Overview of Climate Change Science
2.Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and Radiative Forcing
3.Observations Atmosphere, Surface and Climate Change
4.Observations Changes in Snow Ice and Frozen Ground
5 Observations Ocean Climate Change and Sea Level
6 Paleoclimate Coupling Between Changes in The Climate System and Biogeochemistry
7.Climate Models and Their Evaluation
8.Understanding and Attributing Climate Change
9.Global Climate Projections
10.Regional Climate Projection
Annex 1 Glossary
Annex II Contributors
Annex III Reviewers
Annex IV Acronyms
Index
The Summary for Policymakers now has a list of Drafting Authors, making it plain that they are taking dictation from the un-named government representatives.
The Technical Summary is once more Accepted, but not approved in details. Its authors are the same as the Drafting Authors of the Summary for Policymakers.
Because of the ambiguous statement of Chapter 1 of the last Report there is a completely different Chapter 1 entitled Historical Overview of Climate Change Science which is a highly selective history boosting the activities of the IPCC. This Chapter and all of the others have now acquired Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributors and Review Editors.
One of its features is to conceal the very existence of measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration before 1958 which have been documented by Beck. These show many values that are higher than those claimed today and a variability which would interfere with the IPCC calculations of radiative forcing. More than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses of CO2 in air since 1812 published in peer reviewed Journals by recognised scientists have been eliminated from climate history.103 104
The Chapters in Climate Change 2001 are only slightly rearranged from the previous Report. The key claim of Climate Change 2007 is that:
Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentration.
As with the previous Report, the main observed temperature records which disagree with their opinion are those from weather balloons, which begin in 1958 and those from satellites, which begin in 1978. They eliminate them from consideration by selecting the only record showing an increase, the unreliable mean global surface temperature anomaly. Even this record shows only a fluctuation, with a fall from 1950 to 1976, a rise to 1998 and a fall since then. Then all this is merely very likely, based on the unsupported opinion of experts with a conflict of interest, as they are paid to say so.
There is enough for enthusiasts to persuade themselves that the science is settled plus sufficient qualifications for the IPCC to claim they never said they were certain, when they are eventually proved wrong. Since there had been no global warming for the past 8 years, and we were at the time shivering from the cold in New Zealand, and elsewhere, perhaps that day will come soon.
As a response to a request to the British Freedom of Information Act, The IPCC published all the comments and names of Reviewers of this Report.105
In March 2006, I was invited to the Climate Center in Beijing to give three lectures on my attitude to Climate Change. I had already provided comments to the First Draft of the Report. The Co-Chair of the WGI Committee at the time was Professor Yihui Ding who was the senior scientist at the Beijing Climate Center. I was welcomed by the then Director General Professor Wenjie Dong and by his senior scientist Mme Zong-Ci Zhao who gave me a paper she had published in association with Professor Ding which showed that there was no evidence of a temperature change in China in the past 100 years.
When I was asked to comment on the Second Draft I made a special effort, as I believed I may have a sympathetic hearing from the Co-Chair.
I submitted a total of 1878 comments which was over 16% of the total (11542). But I was disappointed when I subsequently found that Professor Ding was no longer the Co-Chair. He had been replaced by Qin Dehai, the overall Director of the entire Meteorology organisation.
The full list of reviews and replies have been published.106
John McLean provided a detailed analysis of this information, but it fails to mention my contribution.
The Summary for Policymakers has been commented on by Gray107 and by McKitrick et al.108
The whole Report has been reconsidered by Idso and Singer.109
Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
As of this writing, 2013 is the latest Report.110 It contains the following:
Dedication: Bert Bolin (15 May 1925-30 December 2007)
The Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 15 May 1925-30 December 2007)
Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis is dedicated to the memory of Bert Bolin, the first Chair of the IPCC.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Dedication
Summary for Policymakers
Technical Summary
1 Introduction
2 Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
3 Observations: Ocean
4 Observations: Cryosphere
5 Information from Paleoclimate Archives
6 Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
7 Clouds and Aerosols
8 Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
9 Evaluation of Climate Models
10 Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
11 Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
12 Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
13 Sea Level Change
14 Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
Annex I Atlas of Global and Regional Climate Projections
Annex II Climate System Scenario Tables
Annex III Glossary
Annex IV Acronyms
Annex V Contributors to the IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report
Annex VI Expert Reviewers of the IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report
Index
The final draft Report, dated 7 June 2013, of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis was accepted but not approved in detail by the 12th Session of Working Group I and the 36th Session of the IPCC on 26 September 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden.
They even published another final version in February and a Final-Final-Final printed version on June 7th which contains Supplementary material for Chapters 2,4,7,8,10,13,14 and Annex 1.
The Summary for Policymakers now has Drafting Authors and Draft, Contributing Authors, both of course, subject to the line-by-line approval. The rest have Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors and Review Editors.
Drafts, reviewer comments and responses are now published.111 There are 31,422 comments on the Second Draft and this time my modest contribution of 136 was swamped. There are many critical comments, some from unexpected places.
In the Introduction they make this statement:
In this Summary for Policymakers, the following summary terms are used to describe the available evidence: limited, medium, or robust; and for the degree of agreement: low, medium, or high. A level of confidence is expressed using five qualifiers: very low, low, medium, high, and very high, and typeset in italics, e.g., medium confidence. For a given evidence and agreement statement, different confidence levels can be assigned, but increasing levels of evidence and degrees of agreement are correlated with increasing confidence.
In this Summary for Policymakers, the following terms have been used to indicate the assessed likelihood of an outcome or a result: virtually certain 99-100% probability, very likely 90-100%, likely 66-100%, about as likely as not 33-66%, unlikely 0-33%, very unlikely 0-10%, exceptionally unlikely 0-1%. Additional terms (extremely likely: 95-100%, more likely than not >50-100%, and extremely unlikely 0-5%) may also be used when appropriate. Assessed likelihood is typeset in italics, e.g., very likely.
This is the elaborate scam they have established to cover up the very great levels of uncertainty which should be applied to the models (see Chapter 7). They have found that if they express their confidence that this proposition is true in these elaborate terms it will somehow replace actual evidence.
They have found it to be necessary to raise this level of confidence with each report even when it becomes more and more obvious that their models do not work.
The report is infested with claims that almost everything is Very Likely, a term which indicates 95% certainty. The last 5% still has to be left, just in case one day they will have to swallow their words.
My comment was as follows:
These are merely the opinions of biased “experts”. They are not based on scientific studies.
In the First Paragraph of the SPM is the following confession
The Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) considers new evidence of climate change based on many independent scientific analyses from observations of the climate system, paleoclimate archives, theoretical studies of climate processes and simulations using climate models
My comment was:
This paragraph is confused. You seem to have made a lot of ‘observations’ which show what we all know already, that the climate is “changing”, but “evidence” that you can explain it is dependent on “simulations”, and “projections” from untested models, neither of which constitute “evidence” while they are incapable of successful future prediction.
“Observations” are not the same as actual scientific measurements.
They do make measurements, but they conceal them and package them up into multi-averaged “data” which are slanted to claim support for the cause.
“Simulations” are mere correlations; they do not prove causation.
Their climate models provide only “projections” and not “predictions.” The media have failed to notice this distinction.
They say many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.
My comment was:
The periods you quote are ridiculously short and many of the observations are dubious.
The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project has reached phase 5. It has provided a standard set of models:
I Decadal Hindcasts and Predictions simulations,
II long-term simulations,
III atmosphere-only (prescribed SST) simulations for especially computationally-demanding models.
In addition to the earlier Emissions Scenarios, which they still use, there is a new set based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP)112 which do not prescribe a detailed pathway to an emission reduction goal, but merely provide a pathway to that may be achieved by any method. It should be noted that there is now a pathway which assumes that all greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to a very low figure.
Figure 4.3
Representative Concentration Pathways
Since researchers have used all of the scenarios, they now provide comparisons with all four of them—which is very confusing.
Figure 4.4
Ranges of IPCC Projections
The range of projections for temperature in the different IPCC Reports is given in Figure 4.4.
A new feature is Annex 1 which consists of an Atlas of Global and Regional Climate Projections covering temperature and precipitation projections compared with the above Representative Concentration Pathways.
This Report has a number of areas where the confidence in the models is low. They include Increases in intense tropical cyclone activity and Increases in intensity and/or duration of drought.
The main statement of the Summary for Policymakers might be taken as a final conclusion of all the Reports.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.
What is missing is a claim that a relationship has been established between human emissions of greenhouse gases and any harmful influence on the climate. So why are small levels of warming important, and why does it matter whether greenhouse gas concentrations have increased?
They are desperate to cover up the fact that their surrogate Annual Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly, which has supplied their main previous argument for warming, has let them down as it has hardly changed for 18 years. Now it is openly claimed to be a genuine global temperature which only increases decadally but still with a miserable few decimals of a degree, well below the accuracy of current future forecasts.
The world is scoured to find anything which might have warmed, ignoring the record Antarctic ice growth and persistent cold winters.
Controlling the Scientists
When it was formed the IPCC found itself with large sums of money to recruit scientists to support the climate superscam.
At the time science jobs were scarce and many had to contend with the uncertainties of frequent applications for short term contracts from limited funds.
The IPCC offered a lucrative career with foreign travel, exclusive access to the major journals, academic promotion, and public acclaim, even a Nobel Prize.
They ran into the problem that, scientists are usually trained to think for themselves, and some of those who have been recruited to support the climate change programme find if difficult not to insert their reservations into the opinions that are proscribed for them.
The main mechanism for ensuring uniformity of thought is applied by the presence in all of the IPCC Reports of a Summary for Policymakers at the beginning. This is really a Summary BY Policymakers, because it is dictated, line by line by the government representatives who control the IPCC to a group of reliable Drafting Authors. It is published before the main Report, to emphasize the need for conformity. In addition they try to exert pressure in the choice of Lead Authors, and in the treatment of comments made by the reviewers who receive drafts of the Reports.
Despite all this pressure, complete uniformity of thought has, so far, never been achieved.
The First IPCC Report Climate Change (1990) stated plainly:
The persons named below all contributed to the peer review of the IPCC Working Group I Report. Whilst every attempt was made by the Lead Authors to incorporate their comments, in some cases these formed a minority opinion which could not be reconciled with the larger consensus. Therefore, there may be persons below who still have points of disagreement with areas of the Report.
But it still stated, even in the Summary for Policymakers of the 1990 Report and in its 1992 Supplement:
The size of this warming (which they claimed) is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability.
Climate observations, which appeared only in the last chapter of the 1990 report, were not “broadly consistent with the predictions of climate models.” Also, all subsequent Reports had to admit that they are actually incapable of making “predictions” but only “projections” dependent on whether you believe the assumptions of the models.
The Second IPCC Report Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change had to confront a series of opinions in the Draft of the Final Report which disagreed with the greenhouse theory. It included the following statements:
None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.
Finally we come to the most difficult question of all: ‘When will the detection and unambiguous attribution of human-induced climate change occur?’ In the light of the very large signal and noise uncertainties discussed in this Chapter, it is not surprising that the best answer to this question is ‘We do not know.’
Few if any would be willing to argue that unambiguous attribution of this change to anthropogenic effects has already occurred, or was likely to happen in the next several years.
One of their scientists (Ben Santer) was given the job of eliminating all the offending passages, or changing them to give a more favoured opinion.
But after all that, they ended up with this equivocal conclusion:
The balance of the evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate.
This is something everybody can agree on. Humans spend all of their efforts in trying to influence the climate. The statement says nothing about greenhouse gases or of carbon dioxide. It supports the offending passages that were deleted.
The Third Report Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis was the one for which I did a detailed analysis called The Greenhouse Delusion.
The following statement appeared in Chapter 1:
The fact that the global mean temperature has increased since the late 19th century and that other trends have been observed does not necessarily mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate has been identified. Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observed change may be natural.
In the Policymakers Summary we get another equivocal opinion:
...in the light of the new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
Here they change tack. Once again they do not claim that there is evidence this is so, merely that it is the opinion of their paid experts. They seem to think that if they assign the opinion “likely” as meaning greater than 60% probability that this makes it any other than merely an opinion.
And so we come to IPCC Science Report No 4, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, where we get a slight amendment to the previous equivocal statement:
Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.
Again it is not evidence but opinions of their paid experts who are now 95% certain they are right, but it only applies to most of the evidence and it only applies to their highly inaccurate temperature series, but not to the more accurate satellite and radiosonde series which began in 1978 and 1958 respectively.
Despite all this they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Al Gore.
In the Fifth IPCC WGI AR5 Report, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, we get yet another set of equivocal opinions:
Human influence on the climate system is clear.
Is this an advance on “discernible” ?
It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid 20th century.
Again no mention of greenhouse gases—and how much is dominant?
Since the mid 20th Century is pretty short in geological or even in human lifetime terms and it is again arranged so as to eliminate the more reliable satellite and radiosonde measurements.
They ignore completely the hiatus that has taken place. Their technique of observing this unequivocal and unprecedented warming has failed to do so for the past 18 years.
So we have once more the same game they played on the Second Report, except this time it is applied officially by all of them and not by one individual.
They have laboured hard to deal with the hiatus by such devices as using decadal averages and different starting and ending dates, but not very successfully.
They still avoid the mismatch between emissions which are only from the land and concentrations which are mainly measured over the sea, and the fact that there is no established relationship between them.
They have deliberately confused sea level of the ocean, usually measured by satellites and related to a supposed geoid, calculated from models, and relative sea level between sea and land, which is the only one that matters.
It is now obvious that the uncertainties which they have attached to estimates of the earth’s energy on their revised diagram are so much larger than the claimed projections of the model calculations that these projections are all are meaningless.
As a final conclusion, attempts of the IPCC to impose rigid discipline on a large group of scientists to persuade them to claim that human emissions of so-called greenhouse gases harm the climate, without being able to supply convincing evidence, has been a failure.
Even their opinions on the supposed reliability of their projections always leave an increasingly small escape route for the day when their approach is proved wrong.
