Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
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Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
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Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#2Taking 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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#3Hopefully 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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#4Hopefully 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.
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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#5Taking 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 t…
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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#6The 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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#7The 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.
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#8It 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...
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#9The 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.
The real answer is: Yes
Re: Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake
#10The 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 ) a…
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.