Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/24389/?nlid=2683

by anuleczka • 17 years ago

54 64 17 years ago

CWuestefeld6• 17 years ago

Taking this error, in which the peer-review process was circumvented, together with last year's revelations of Hadley scientists discussing the wholesale subversion of peer review, is very troubling.

I'm not sure how to express this to show disgust with the putative "scientists" while only casting skepticism on their work (rather than outright rejection). But it would seem that they are so caught up in their agenda that they believe that the end justifies the means, and are willing to compromise their work and mislead the rest of the world in order to realize their goals.

But I have to note that impeaching the source doesn't necessarily invalidate the conclusions. Still, it means that we must subject their claims to increasing levels of scrutiny.

chrisb2• 17 years ago

Note that this claim was not in the "Summary for Policy Makers" nor the "Overall Synthesis Report", which is what the vast majority of people read (myself included, I haven't even tried to read the entire report).

Therefore very few people will ever have seen the claim until now.

I'm not trying to excuse the mistake, but its consequences may have been overstated.

waterlesscloud• 17 years ago

That's simply not the case. The claim got widespread media coverage.

tjic• 17 years ago

Hopefully all of those who called anyone skeptical of AGW over the last few years "climate change denialists" (by extension from "Holocaust denialists") are now acknowledging that there WERE serious issues with the assertions all along, and are now apologizing for their rashness and intemperance.

I wouldn't bet on it though.

gjm113• 17 years ago

If those people were claiming that there were no mistakes anywhere in the high-profile AGW literature, then they should certainly be apologizing. (But then, anyone claiming that should have been apologizing anyway; everything has mistakes, near enough.)

If they were merely saying: there's a huge body of scientific work supporting AGW, and claims to the contrary are consistently found to be the result of error or dishonesty ... well, then, I don't see how this makes the slightest difference to that.

CWuestefeld6• 17 years ago

Much of the trumpeting over AGW has been about "consensus among the scientific community", as if scientists get to vote to decide what's true.

We are now discovering that if there is, indeed, such a consensus, then it's partly due to derailing the literature (see Hadley) or selling to us media sources as if they were scientists doing real research.

I think they've got a lot to apologize for, and they now have a lot of work to try and prove their views to a world that has every reason to be critical.

hristov• 17 years ago

What serious issues? This article does not evidence any serious issues with the overall global warming theory. It was just one report of many produced by a large body that overestimated the effects of global warming.

Climate change denialists use provide misleading reports all the time but they never admit their mistakes.

nfnaaron• 17 years ago

The overall theory becomes less believable with each "isolated incident." You can dismiss one or two, I guess, but eventually you have to wonder how many more isolated incidents there are going to be.

You couldn't have made up a more alarming factoid if you tried. I'm a skeptic (not a "denier"), but when I read this particular prediction I was alarmed. 2035? That's within most peoples' lifetime. 100s of millions of people? Yikes!

After a minute or two of thinking about it, I concluded that it sounds pretty unlikely and they probably either don't really know how to get from current data to melting glaciers and were merely guessing, or they were lying, or they were bumbling.

In general I don't worry about global warming. I believe there is some. I believe humans contribute to some of it. I believe that the scientists and politicians understand almost every little bit of detailed data that they have (isolated incidents notwithstanding). And I believe that their ability to effectively predict broad results based on that data is no better than Popular Mechanics back in 1940 predicting that we'd all have flying cars in 2000 (and where's mine?).

lutorm9• 17 years ago

The IPCC reports are thousands of pages, so it's not surprising that there are errors. You can find errors in a large fraction of scientific papers if you look hard enough.

The relevant question is whether there are more errors in the papers that support the idea of global warming than those that don't. Just judging from what I've seen, the complete crackpot papers (like this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161v4) are in the second category.

CWuestefeld6• 17 years ago

Perhaps. But the IPCC is sold (and mostly accepted) as a sort of bible of climate change science. The article you linked appears to me not to claim such broad authority, but to advocate skepticism.

It seems to me like items in the first category need to be held to a higher standard. Indeed, the scientific method itself tells us that those putting forward a theory (such as AGW) bear the burden of proof.

ugh• 17 years ago

>Perhaps. But the IPCC is sold (and mostly accepted) as a sort of bible of climate change science.

Oh, come on. Really? Sure, most people won't question the IPCC. But most people also won't question other similar institutions. The real question is whether scientists feel that the IPCC is their bible. And I don't think they do.

Retric5• 17 years ago

In the scientific communality IPCC is mostly viewed as reasonably accurate if watered down for political reasons.

lutorm9• 17 years ago

Anthropogenic global warming is not a theory being put forth, it's the logical consequence of physical principles that are well established. It's not at all like Einstein proposing General Relativity. What (serious) people are arguing over is details of the analysis and the magnitude of effects. Those uncertainties are real, but it is no different from any other scientific debate.

The article I linked, if you actually read it, does not advocate skepticism at all. It claims in no uncertain language that the greenhouse effect violates all kinds of established principles, but it's hogwash. I saw that article cited in The Nation, and it aggravated me enough that I wrote up a response (http://www.familjenjonsson.org/patrik/research/greenhouse, if you are interested).

LargeWu• 17 years ago

Telling that you use the word bible, as the Holy Bible, to which this is a simile, is usually accepted by its believers based on faith, regardless of how outlandish its claims of truth might be.

I'm not saying global climate change isn't real and isn't a threat, but I think there's a lot more religion and faith behind the idea then there ought to be from the scientific community, and especially the media.

jpwagner4• 17 years ago

Sorry, I accidentally upvoted.

Your assertion that papers with less errors are more scientific, is not at all true.

Plus you are missing the point if you think counting errors has anything to do with this. Someone has successfully convinced the IPCC that it is RIDICULOUS to claim Himalayan glaciers will be gone in 25 years, and this is a victory for the scientific community.

lutorm9• 17 years ago

I didn't mean they are more "scientific" (whatever that means), I just meant that when you make errors you can come to an erroneous conclusion. If enough studies are incorrect, it will impact the accuracy of the overall conclusion, otherwise you'd hope that most studies are correct.

teilo• 17 years ago

The real question here is: Does anyone still believe that the IPCC is a legitimate scientific panel? They are a political action committee with an agenda. Whether or not their agenda is legitimate is not the point.

Good on them, however, for admitting the problem.

chrisb2• 17 years ago

The real answer is: Yes

yters4• 17 years ago

I guess anyone who hasn't checked the FOIA docs. Otherwise, I can't see how any intellectually honest person can. Just briefly skim README.txt in the documents folder if you are skeptical. It's the programmer's journal detailing all the atrocities he ran across as he reengineered the datasets and climate models.

gaius2• 17 years ago

OK, this wasn't a "mistake". It was citing pop science as peer-reviewed research because it happened to support their preconceived position. I'd expect that from Wikipedia, not from self-proclaimed "real" scientists.

jpwagner4• 17 years ago

I call that a mistake.

viggity• 17 years ago

this is the third or fourth time I've heard the phrase "good on them" on HN. I would typically expect someone to say "good for them". I'm not trying to bash your language skills or anything and I don't think it sounds wrong, just different :)

If you don't mind me asking where are you from? (I'm from Iowa).

mhb• 17 years ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=...

kevinholesh• 17 years ago

It seems like climate scientists are more occupied with manipulating the data to suit them rather than reporting the facts.

Sample from some climate emails: "Ammann/Wahl - try and change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with." Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870477970457455...

lutorm9• 17 years ago

Simple selection bias. It "seems" that way because there's no story to write about people just doing their work.

lutorm9• 17 years ago

And I'm being downmodded why? Maybe selection bias also isn't happening??

ajross2• 17 years ago

Exactly. Scandal leads. So we've got a war between "We're all going to drown!" and "AGW is a liberal conspiracy!". The demographic for "Maybe we should look seriously at cheap options for energy efficiency and carbon mitigation." is practically zero.

roundsquare• 17 years ago

I guess this is as good a time as any to ask if people have good sources on both sides of the debate. I can search around but have trouble discerning credible sources from non-credible ones. Any links/book recommendations would be appreciated.

chromophore• 17 years ago

I notice some people above saying that it could be a mistake. I think it could be. But it is less likely that it was.

I say that because Pachauri had been saying for a year that the Indian government was being arrogant by not agreeing to their "findings". And he rejected research such as this : http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/MoEF%20Discu... Compiled by people who have 3-4 decades of experience in Himalayan glaciology.

Please do check that review paper. It is not easy to find.

Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake

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