Promoting international cooperation among climate realists

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Promoting international cooperation among climate
realists Consensus in climate science an
unsubstantiated urban myth Presentation by
Terry Dunleavy, Executive Vice-Chairman,
ICSC Prepared by Tom Harris, Executive
Director, ICSC Based on an analysis of IPCC's
AR4 by New Zealand Climate Science Coalitions
John McLean, climate data analyst, Melbourne,
Australia
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Do world climate scientists really agree that our
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing a
global warming crisis?
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Popular opinion

• Humanity is causing it, and all serious
  scientists agree
• Claimed evidence
• 2,500 scientists from the UNs
  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Joint statements from science bodies
• Many individual scientists

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Media reports

• a report released by the UN Intergovernmental
  Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,500
  scientists from more than 130 countries, said
  climate changes are "very likely" caused by human
  activity.
• Feb 3, 2007 - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• http//www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/03/layton-c
  limate.html?refrss

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U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer Chairman, Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works
2500 scientists from around the globe
participated in the development of the report,
which found that the warming of the planet is
unequivocal and that there is a 90 certainty
that most of the warming is due to human
activity. Feb 14, 2007 http//epw.senat
e.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActionMajority.Speeche
sContentRecord_idc243e4b3-802a-23ad-4a50-be712b7
34185Region_idIssue_id
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Consensus is not science
Scientific integrity is not determined by a show
of hands Dr Tim Ball, Canada Many experiments
may prove me right, but it takes only one to
prove me wrong Dr Albert Einstein
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IPCC is not a meaningful indicator of World
scientific opinion on the causes of, or the
future of, climate change

• Most climate scientists are outside of IPCC
• The 2,500 scientists who supposedly reviewed
  and endorsed overall IPCC conclusions includes
  many who do not ( 2,500 scientists is
  misleading).

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IPCC numbers breakdown

• IPCC is divided into three Working Groups
• WG I Assesses available scientific information
  on climate change its causes and future
  forecasts
• WG II Assesses impacts of climate change
• WG III Formulates response strategies

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IPCC numbers breakdown

• And a total of
• 850 contributing authors
• 400 Lead Authors
• 2500 Scientific Expert Reviewers
• Note There is a total of 2890 individual
  contributors since some authors are also
  reviewers and the IPCC lists authors or reviewers
  more than once when they deal with more than one
  Working Group Ref John McLean.

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IPCC numbers breakdown

• Concerning these 2,890 individual contributors,
  Dr. William Schlesinger, IPCC Lead Author and
  former dean of the Nicholas School of the
  Environment at Duke University, said that he
  thought, something on the order of 20 percent
  have had some dealing with climate.
• February 12, 2009, Hickory, N.C., in a forum
  co-sponsored by the John Locke Foundation and the
  Reese Institute for Conservation of Natural
  Resources

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IPCC numbers breakdown

• Scientific Expert Reviewers assigned to each WG
• WG I Causes and future forecasts of climate
  change
• 600 expert scientific reviewers
• WG II Impacts of climate change
• WG III Response strategies
• These 1,900 assume the conclusions of WGI are
  correct.

1,900 expert scientific reviewers
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IPCC numbers breakdown

• But dont these hundreds of independent expert
  reviewers study the drafts of the report and
  provide extensive feedback to the editing teams,
  who then incorporated their comments into the
  reports?

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IPCC numbers breakdown (cont.)

• No! That is an illusion.
• Australian climate data analyst John McLean
  found
• Only 308 of the official IPCC expert reviewers
  commented on the final draft before the report
  was taken over by governments
• Contrary to IPCC implications about 600 reviewers
  of every word of the WG1 report, only five
  commented on all 11 chapters.
• An Analysis of the Review of the IPCC 4AR WG I
  Report, 24/10/07
• http//mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_review_updated_
  analysis.pdf

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IPCC numbers breakdown (cont.)

• Only 62 reviewers (eight of whom are designated
  as government of xxxxxx) gave any comments at
  all on the crucial Chapter 9
• 55 of them had serious vested interests (they
  were authors or editors of the report or the
  papers referenced to support it, or worked for
  establishments that likely received government
  funding for projects focused on a human-influence
  on climate).

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IPCC numbers breakdown (cont.)

• Of the remaining seven independent reviewers who
  commented on Chapter 9, five made just one
  comment on the entire chapter and only one
  explicitly endorsed the most significant
  statement of the chapter, and then only within a
  brief generalised expression of support for the
  complete 11-Chapter report.

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McLean analysis of IPCC rejections

• The IPCCs editors often rejected reviewers
  comments, a reversal of the normal practice in
  scientific peer-review. Many rejected with little
  or no justification for doing so.
• Peer-reviewers had to justify amendments put
  forward, but the responding editors were under no
  obligation to justify their rejections of the
  reviewers proposals.

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To read John McLeans analysis of IPCC endorsers
see An Analysis of the Review of the IPCC 4AR
WG I report http//mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC
_review_updated_analysis.pdf And McLeans
climate change home page at http//mclean.ch/cli
mate/global_warming.htm
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IPCC Reviewer Dr. Gray

• All the UN IPCC does is make projections and
  estimates. No climate model has ever been
  properly tested, and their projections are
  nothing more than the opinions of experts with
  a conflict of interest, because they are paid to
  produce the models.
• There is no actual scientific evidence for all
  these projections and estimates.

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Dr. Yury Izrael, Director of the Global Climate
and Ecology Institute, Russian Academy of
Sciences (RAS) and IPCC vice president

• there is no proven link between human activity
  and global warming ." 

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The Summary for Policymakers

• Supposedly an executive summary of science
  reports
• Only documents read by media, politicians and
  activists

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The Summary for Policymakers

• Supposedly an executive summary of science
  reports
• Only documents read by media, politicians and
  activists
• Problems with SPM
• Selectively reports on the science
• Only 51 scientists worked on a draft version 
• 33 Drafting Authors 18 Draft Contributing
  Authors

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SPM Drafting AuthorsRichard B. Alley,
Terje Berntsen, Nathaniel L. Bindoff, Zhenlin
Chen, Amnat Chidthaisong, Pierre Friedlingstein,
Jonathan M. Gregory, Gabriele C. Hegerl, Martin
Heimann, Bruce Hewitson, Brian J. Hoskins,
Fortunat Joos, Jean Jouzel, Vladimir Kattsov,
Ulrike Lohmann, Martin Manning, Taroh Matsuno,
Mario Molina, Neville Nicholls, Jonathan
Overpeck, Dahe Qin, Graciela Raga, Venkatachalam
Ramaswamy, Jiawen Ren, Matilde Rusticucci, Susan
Solomon, Richard Somerville, Thomas F. Stocker,
Peter A. Stott, Ronald J. Stouffer, Penny
Whetton, Richard A. Wood, David WrattSPM Draft
Contributing AuthorsJ. Arblaster, G. Brasseur,
J.H. Christensen, K.L. Denman, D.W. Fahey, P.
Forster, E. Jansen, P.D. Jones, R. Knutti, H. Le
Treut, P. Lemke, G. Meehl, P. Mote, D.A. Randall,
D.A. Stone, K.E. Trenberth, J. Willebrand, F.
Zwiers
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The Summary for Policymakers

• Supposedly an executive summary of science
  reports
• Only documents read by media, politicians and
  activists
• Problems with SPM
• Selectively reports on the science
• Only 51 authors worked on the draft version
• 3. Final SPM written at a plenary session
  primarily of government bureaucrats and
  representatives of environmental and industrial
  organizations 

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The Summary for Policymakers

• Supposedly an executive summary of science
  reports
• Only documents read by media, politicians and
  activists
• Problems with SPM
• Reports on science reports selectively
• Only 51 authors worked on a draft version 
• Final SPM written at a plenary session primarily
  of government bureaucrats and representatives of
  environmental and industrial organizations 
• Signed by 51 individuals and represents a
  consensus of government representatives (many of
  whom are also their nations' Kyoto
  representatives), rather than of scientists,
  says IPCC lead author Professor Richard Lindzen
  of MIT

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Problems with SPM

• Vast majority of scientists who wrote main
  science report did not see SPM before the public 
• Many IPCC scientists openly disagree with the SPM
• The SPM was published three months BEFORE the
  science report
• Changes to the main science reports made
  after acceptance by the Working Group or the
  Panel shall be those necessary to ensure
  consistency with the Summary for Policymakers
  
• IPCC procedures (section 4)

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Professor Lindzens Conclusion

• The SPM, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is
  commonly presented as the consensus of thousands
  of the world's foremost climate scientists. In
  fact, it is no such thing.
• The SPM has a strong tendency to disguise
  uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios
  for which there is no evidence. 

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Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM)

• a detailed overview of the state of climate
  change science as laid out in the IPCC Fourth
  Assessment Report WGII second draft report.
• Reviewed by 10 climate experts around the world
  and their views on its balance and reliability
  are tabulated.
• See http//www.uoguelph.ca/rmckitri/re
  search/ispm.html

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Their conclusion

• IPCC scientists are highly uncertain about future
  climate change or the impacts of human CO2
  emissions.

You can download the ISPM athttp//www.uoguelph.
ca/rmckitri/research/ispm.html
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Climate Realists Open Letters, etc.

• Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
  Petition Project signed by 31,072 scientists,
  engineers and other technically trained
  professionals (next slide)
• Bali Open Letter by 103 world climate experts to
  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, December 2007
  http//tinyurl.com/3bjoxk
• Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, now
  with over 1,300 fully checked endorsers from
  around the world http//tinyurl.com/6znkpn
• U. S. Senate Minority Report that more than 650
  international scientists dissent over man-made
  global warming claims - http//tinyurl.com/6oqu3m
• Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate
  Change (NIPCC), both the Summary for Policymakers
  and the main report released at this conference.

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Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)
Petition Project

• Signed by 31,072 scientists, engineers and other
  technically trained professionals, including
• 3,697 scientists trained in environmental
  specialties.
• 903 scientists trained in computer and
  mathematical methods
• 5,691 scientists trained in physics and
  aerospace
• 4,796 scientists trained in chemistry
• Download the Petition Project at
  http//www.petitionproject.org/

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OISM Petition, Bali Open Letter and Manhattan
Declaration all signed by such luminaries as
Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus, Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
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Consensus conclusion

• There is no known consensus among climate experts
  about the causes of the past centurys modest
  warming.
• Forecasts of future change are even less certain.

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World climate scientists do not agree that our
emissions of CO2 are causing a global warming
crisis
Contact or