Climate Audit

Steve Sadlov

Credit goes to you Steve M. Persistence pays.

Steve Sadlov

I hit paydirt after a mere 10 minutes looking only at the SPM 2nd draft comments. Jacobson’s comments on soot raise a truly disturbing picture regarding just how wrong headed this entire IPCC driven madness has become. And they went unanswered!

No wonder the Turtle Bay bureaucrats do not want these comments to be seen. What I found so far is the tip of the iceberg, I reckon. Truly and utterly disturbing.

Jason L

Comment 6-57 for the second order draft on paleoclimatology in interesting.

Is is “fair use” to post individual comments to a blog and comment on them? Or do you think that they’ll do what Scientific American did to Bjorn Lomborg and threaten lawsuits if the quotes are too long. The first page of the PDF states:

These comments and responses are not to be edited and/ or redistributed in part or in full to others.

Steve Sadlov

RE: #7 – Of course, it would be perfectly legal to essentially write a competing open source, assessment, which incorporates the many well stated points which were rejected or ignored by the IPCC. Then post it.

Reid

I see a list of 170 authors and reviewers.

Click to access wg1_AuthorList_2005-11-03.pdf

I’m looking for a list of the 2,500 consensus scientists and can’t find it. Anyone know where a list of the 2,500 is?

steven mosher

There are some guys you will go to the gates of hell for. just sayin.

SteveM we have another problem, I think. I was going to go visit the Santa Cruz site for Anthony
and I noticed that NOAA has thrown up a roadblock.

NOAA has removed the field in MMS used to locate the USHCN and COOP stations.
They took the site offline, “fixed” it ( displaying a go away
message) and then when it came back up with the all important field missing.

The field “Managing Parties:” under the “Identity” tab was
removed. So, they have removed this information. It thwarts our efforts.

If you dont have this information, you are showing up unannounced to photograph.
Also, Volunteers have used this information to interview the folks who monitor the sites.

The URL is:

http://mi3.ncdc.noaa.gov/mi3qry/login.cfm

perform a “Guest Login”

perform a station name search, for example “Petaluma” for Petaluma,
CA which has a COOP station.

The results of this search are returned.click on the results, the
popup window says this:

“Unauthorized Attempt
You do not have access to the requested resource. All actions are
being logged.”

Now, I know Anthony is busy so I don’t want to bug him with this. And lord knows
he doesn’t need another round of Publicity on the order of Drudge, Instapundit,
and Fox. So, I’m keeping my powder dry. But, perhaps we can address this Via
FOIA.

Pittman may have in interesting angle on a DQA lawsuit. John P. I need pointers;

Jeremy Friesen

I too noticed that Managing Parties was nowhere to be found when I recently checked where my local Abbotsford BC station was, in hopes of taking a few amateur photos for surfacestations (though I’m not sure I’m qualified to do a site survey).

I thought maybe I just didn’t know where to look!

I did still manage to find the general area via google earth, so the site has some uses, but at this point I’ll have to just knock on the doors of the 2 nearby farms to figure out who manages it.

JerryB

Outstanding! Congratulations!

steven mosher

re 16.

no further mention on this thread.

Bob Meyer

Steve McIntyre:

Congratulations on your success and for not taking “No” for an answer.

DocMartyn

How about this for a quote

“I would have complimented the authors for a very fine revision to their chapter even if I
had not been added as a contributing author, though I do appreciate that step.
[Michael MacCracken (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 152-233)]”
Ch01: Batch AB (06/15/06) Page 6 of 70

A reviewer likes the stuff so much, they made him an author?

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Steve Sadlov

RE: #23 and numerous others – well, now it’s there for all to see. The IPCC is just another two bit, low level, unprofessional bunch of clowns. The emperor has no clothes.

Dan Hughes

See comments 8-266, -267, and -268 on page 53 of 150 of the Second Order Draft Comments.

I got what I wanted. An official statement by the IPCC that independent Verification, Validation, amd Software Quality Assurance is not an aspect of the IPCC work. The AOLGCM models/codes are research-grade, not production grade. This refers to the AOLGCM models/codes, but very likely applies to all aspects of all software that is a part of the IPCC efforts; data collection and analysis, pre- and post-processing, … , everything. Not a pretty picture and an issue that the Carbon Regulatory Agency will focus on early in its life.

Anthony Watts

RE27 AOL does a climate modeling program? (AOLGCM)

We ARE in trouble.

Ralph Becket

Re.#26: I searched through the first half of the comments on the Technical Summary and found that any reviewer’s comments concerning errors of fact or confidence were rejected, frequently with a note merely gainsaying the reviewer’s point. (My publication list would certainly be longer if this technique worked in computer science.)

Has anyone found any cases where a review comment that contradicted the general line of argument in the draft was accepted?

Scott-in-WA

Re #27 concerning research-grade versus production-grade software:

Twenty years ago in the mid-1980’s when I was designing and coding large-scale geotechnical databases for DOE’s civilian nuclear waste repository program, I was called upon to assist our software QA people in getting our staff scientists on board with the concept of writing new production-grade software versus continuing on with our existing research-grade software.

These scientists were writing much of the software they used day-to-day, for better or worse, and virtually everything they wrote had an impact on the technical defensibility of our proposed geologic repository. At that time, the anti-nuclear forces had discovered that they weren’t getting very far in the courts challenging nuclear projects on the basic issues of nuclear safety. But then they latched on to the argument that there was a systematic lack of quality assurance in some nuclear projects, and they went to town with that argument wherever a particular nuclear project had done an inadequate job in managing for quality and for quality assurance. And so the issue of lack of software QA was identified early on as a major programmatic weakness that had to be addressed.

As you can imagine, there was significant resistance from the scientists to implementing a strong software QA program. There were two primary objections of equal concern. The scientists believed a software QA program would severely constrain their freedom to experiment with their modeling codes, and the added expense and expanded project time frames required for implementing a software QA program had not been included in their estimated project costs and schedules.

Management’s very appropriate response was as follows: The public expects the design of a civilian nuclear waste repository to meet the highest expectations for quality assurance and for quality control. In the public mind, as it concerns nuclear projects, the lack of an adequate quality assurance program is fully equivalent to the lack of quality itself. And for purposes of licensing a nuclear facility, failures in either quality itself or in the quality assurance program will have exactly the same effect. So, regardless of how well the code is written or how technically defensible it might be, unless the code is backed by a proper software QA program, the software would fail any challenges that anti-repository forces might bring against it.

After the decision was made to proceed with a formal QA program, I was assigned to help the scientists get their feet wet in software QA, software V&V, and software lifecycle concepts in general. The first thing I realized in watching how the scientists wrote their software, especially their modeling codes, was that they were translating their mental concepts and ideas directly into computer code; i.e., they were bypassing the English language as their primary means of technical communication and they were using FORTRAN itself as the primary means for initially documenting their technical and theoretical concepts.

A common refrain heard from these scientists was this: OK, I’ll play your game, I’ll just add more comments inside the code listing, and that’s all we will need. I don’t have room in my budget or schedule to do anything more.

Those of us who were deep into software engineering as a profession said in response, “Not hardly.” You the scientists will have to do all that is expected of us the software engineers. You will have to write requirements documents, system design documents, test plans, data dictionaries, software configuration plans, coding standards, production operation plans and procedures, and software archival and retirement plans. You will have to maintain and archive both your software and the data sets used by your software as “record material.” And, because the context in which this software operates is the design and construction of a nuclear facility, you will actually have to follow all these plans and procedures—to the letter—otherwise everything your software touches can, and most certainly will be, challenged in the courts.

Eventually, through trial and error, we found various means by which the scientists could prototype their software “offline” so to speak. But as soon as it reached a certain stage, the software lifecycle standards came into play, and the software was captured and documented inside a formal process. It didn’t give the scientists as much freedom as they had before, but it was something they could live with, although admittedly at significantly increased cost in time and money.

Gerald Browning

Steve M,

A belated well done!!!! If I could knight you I would. 🙂

Jerry

David Stockwell

Kudos to you Steve. I also think that Ross McK’s contributions stood out. Showed a very mature spirit, positive and balanced.

Buddenbrook

This is shocking. It’s hard to believe. Why are they doing this? What are their motives? This is not science anymore, and deep down many of them must know it.

Is it because of pride, no turning back once you have nailed your colours to the mast (for some people like Hansen it’s their life work)? Or is it because they want to silence doubt so to make it easier to gather political backing? What is the justification? Are they justifying themselves, or is there a ethical motive to it, i.e. you can distort the process if you believe you are doing it for the greater good (helping to prevent catastrophic anthropogenic warming)?

In any case it is now unquestionable that widespread scientific distortion is going on, and the question “why” has to be comforted. The media seem to numb to this, and that’s disturbing. What happened to inquiry?

Surely someone can make an editorial piece from all this to a major journal, tying together some of the best pieces. How can they claim copyright? Did the reviewers sign a contract that IPCC hold all rights to their input? And what is scientific about that?

I can’t believe this. Thanks for the eyeopener.

JMS

I have to say that the real credit probably belongs to James Annan and Micheal Manning. JA got “McIntyer’d” too, but he asked politely and got a response. You didn’t.

JMS

Buddenbrook: everything that is written is assumed to have copyright at origin. If copyright is asserted it is considered valid, if copyright is not asserted things go into a grey area.

Mark T

I have to say that the real credit probably belongs to James Annan and Micheal Manning. JA got “McIntyer’d” too, but he asked politely and got a response. You didn’t.

An unbelievably ridiculous statement. The IPCC had no intention of putting the comments online till Steve asked, and he asked formally, and politely, in spite of your whine to the contrary. James Annan and Michael Manning would not have even known about this, nor cared, had Steve not asked. It’s as if you think the IPCC was waiting around till someone they liked “asked nicely?” Yeah, right.

Mark

Geoff Sherrington

Re non-disclosure

For general interest, I have emailed the IPCC that I will not accept the legitimacy of its “I Accept” form on non-disclosure because I have a belief that some of the content was fabricated. I have said that I will agree to the conditions if

(a) the authors each sign public declarations that they did not fabricate data; and

(b) that the IPCC can demonstrate that it has a legitimite right to impose the said non-alteration, non-disclosure conditions.

I’m not holding my breath.

However, it is a flawed process when a group of scientists tries to stifle comment about suspected falsification. That is the antithesis of scientific investigation.

Steve Milesworthy

It’s great to read these comments and see the breadth of reviewers involved in the process. The IPCC contributing author I spoke to is very happy that the detailed scrutiny that the reports are getting is open for scrutiny.

#36 The same author had just said in his talk that frankly, the level of IPCC consensus was that anthropogenic emissions was causing climate change, and beyond this one point the scientists disagreed about pretty much everything else. Personally, I found this healthy.

Jeff Norman

Steve,

May I join the chorus of congratulations.

I am truly enjoying the read, more so now that I have a good grounding on the subject matter, a good grounding that I achieved by reading sites like Climate Audit.

I am in a better position now to enjoy the read. A few years ago I would have been truly distressed. But now it has gone way past self parody.

I await the rejoiner that these notes were always available and that the deniers are again making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I am particularly enjoying the sycophantic comments and their responses. Some are “Noted” and some are “Accepted”. It brings to mind a medieval bishop on a thrown receiving suplicants and their gifts, noting some and accepting others.

Thanks again and keep up the fantastic work.

John Hunter

Reid (#11): Apologies if this has already been answered. The “170” authors and reviewers listed in http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_AuthorList_2005-11-03.pdf do not include the many Contributing Authors (see any one of the AR4 Chapters and you will see an example of such a list). My own estimates for AR4 are:

No. of authors: > 600
No. of reviewers: > 650
No. papers reviewed: ~6000

I don’t know where you got the figure of “2,500 consensus scientists” from. Perhaps it is composed of the AR4 authors, AR4 reviewers and paper authors – there is of course a lot of overlap, so even if you knew the counts for each of these, the total would be less than the sum of the counts. The job of doing the total count of people contributing to “IPCC science” seems like a nice little job to be done in retirement!

Michael Jankowski

RE#53

I don’t know where you got the figure of “2,500 consensus scientists” from.

He probably got that from the many articles which throw that number around.

IPCC flyer claims “2500+ scientific expert reviewers” here and here.

Lots of media articles seem to take that 2,500 number and run with it, such as this one – “Climate Change Debate ‘Now Over'”

“…Speaking during a visit to Currie Community High School in Edinburgh, Mr Miliband said: “I think this report from 2,000-2,500 scientists means that the debate about climate change is now over…

…The evidence in a new report published in Paris has the finest pedigree – the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws together 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries…”

Reid

It seems that the IPCC doesn’t want the names of the 2,500+ consensus scientists to be made public. A list of the 2,500+ would reveal whether there is an actual consensus. An enterprising journalist could use the list to interview and poll the scientists.

I’m going to send my Congressman, Sen. Inhofe and Congressman Barton a snail mail letter letting them know and ask them to pressure the UN-IPCC into releasing the 2,500+ scientist list.

Kenneth Fritsch

My first take on the comments gave me some surprise by their rather informal nature and the patterned responses of the authors with Accepted, Considered, Will Consider and Rejected. Since the most numerous responses were in the Accepted and Considered categories and those would appear to be eventually included in the final reports, I would think an efficient analysis of what did not make it into the report would be to look exclusively at the Rejected comments. I plan to put these comments together in one place and analyze them. I also realize that the Will Consider category which covers a number of the reveiwers comments was simply a more polite way of saying “rejected”.

Earle Williams

Re #53

You should consider fax or email rather than snail mail for communications with congressional offices. All mail going to important people in Washington, DC, is x-rayed and screened. This can add several weeks to the delivery time.

Earle Williams

Re #60

Boris,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Your support of this effort to ensure openness and transparency from the IPCC is very much appreciated.

Regards,
Earle

deweyp

Re: #58

If you have access to a unix/linux box, the packages you can use to convert pdf to text are xpdf & xpdf-tools.

In xpdf-tools is a tool called “pdftotext”. You can invoke it thusly:

pdftotext -layout pdffile textfile

I ran a quick scan on chap 6 and generated a list of 101 reviewers using:

sed ‘s/ //g’ chap6.txt | grep “^\[.*\]$” | sort | uniq

Another look at the file showed that of the 1656 comments

629 – Accepted
421 – Noted
211 – Rejected
128 – Taken into account
4 – See Comment

The numbers are approximations due to misspellings and case differences that I couldn’t clear out at the moment.

Mark T.

And so the search for the smoking gun begins. Good luck.

You’re the only one that seems to think everyone is looking for some “smoking gun that disproves A in GW.” Quite the contrary, we, as scientists, amateur or otherwise, simply want the truth behind what the IPCC is doing. In your world, it is OK to hide, manipulate, or otherwise obfuscate data and conclusions since you already “know” the answer. The rest of us aren’t nearly concerned as you w.r.t. _what_ the answer is, we just want to make sure it is the right one based on _all_ of the data, not just the bits that are picked out by some self-proclaimed “consensus” of scientists.

Mark

Steve McIntyre

#65. Dewey or others, if there were 101 reviewers for chapter 6, which was a relatively well commented chapter, it would be interesting to see how many reviewers there were overall. It doesn’t sound like it would take very long. If you email me a list, I’ll post it up.

Reid

Re #69,

It seems like there are far less than 2,500+ scientific reviewers who have commented. Maybe half by my guesstimation. Who are the reviewers who haven’t commented? Seems like the 2,500+ scientists proclaimed loudly by the IPCC, the media, politicians and greens is just a marketing ploy.

My fixation on the 2,500+ list has nothing to do with the underlying science. But it has everything to do with the underlying politics.

Reid

Re #72 Jason L says “Maybe the “2,500’€³ includes all of the authors to every paper referenced?”

According to the IPCC there are “2,500+ scientific expert reviewers”. See the public relations flyer.

Click to access IPCCflyer_lr.pdf

Eventually the IPCC will post the 2,500+ list. Just like they finally posted the expert commentary nearly 6 months late. Delay of game, no penalty.

Bob Koss

Steve,
I just sent you a file of reviewers by chapter for the 2nd order review.

Kenneth Fritsch

Re: #64

#60. I said at the outset of this to readers that they should not expect anything other than a “consensus” and not to expect something that disproves AGW. I’ve looked so far mainly at the comments relating to material that I’m familiar with and the comments there are very biased and speak to the IPCC process in those topics.

Agreed, but I am looking for more nuanced comments that might speak to the confidence of the authors and the general tone of confidence imparted by the report. Would not it be great (and only fitting) to get the IPCC to reveal the paper trail of the authors in how they determined the confidence and likelihood levels that were published? I am not far into the reviewers’ comments, but I have already seen a comment pertaining to the general overconfidence to a section that a reviewer thinks was undeserved and objected to. The author’s reply was a not unexpected: Rejected.

Reid

#78 Robert Burns says “I don’t know where the list of 2,500 is, but this list shows about 1,300 names

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Annexes.pdf”

The IPCC claims 2,500+ scientific expert reviewers, 800 contributing authors and 450 lead authors.

Annex II list of authors lists approx.700 names. 14 pages times approx. 50 per page. That is way short of the claimed 1,250. Why the discrepancy?
Annex III list of expert reviewers approx. 550 names. 11 pages times approx 50 per page. That is way short of the claimed 2,500+. Why the discrepancy.

Hey, UN-IPCC, release the complete list of scientists who you claim have come to a consensus. The world is watching now.

robert burns

re 79

I have no idea who the other people are. I also think the 1300 listed did not come to a consensus on AGW, or on the IPCC report. After all, Steve McIntyre is one of the 1300 listed.

John F. Pittman

#13 It is better to use the FOIA for what you request. Steve had some guidelines that a couple of us drafted. You must have about 6 items specifically requested or stated. You can also see the Federal agencies guidelines searching “FOI and “Federal Agency”” or go to federal agency website and search “FOI”. It should give you the required information and the person/office email to make an email request. Remember you will need to offer a reasonable amount of money for the information. If it was preasent on web, it should be free. However, they may claim that it contains personel information and is exempt. Depends on what is in what you “specifically” request. Remember it must be specific.

Philip B

I’d say the 2,500 ‘leading scientists (or whatever phrasing is used) goes to the heart of the matter. Namely, the IPCC making statements/claims not supported by the facts. It is also something that the general public can easily grasp. If the IPCC cannot substantiate the 2,500 claim, then what other claims can they not substantiate?

steven mosher

RE 83 and 84.

Thanks John,

Per SteveM request I’ll take this up elsewhere. But According to a number of folks (not just me) NOAA
has changed the web site to restrict information about the site operator. I suspect on grounds
of privacy. Email Anthony Watts at surface station, and we can keep this from clogging up this discussion
as I have promised SteveM. I’ve done one FOIA to NOAA on the IPCC issue and the IRS hasnt called
so, I’m game for more.

Stan Palmer

Comment 10-112 reads as

replace “assessment” with “guessing
exercise”

However the comments that I see here are not those that I have seen in peer reviews. They appear more like teh comments that junior authors make on a draft paper prepared by the senior author. Even the sycophantic comments are familiar. This is not a critical review but a collaborative paper writing exercise

bruce

Re #90

This is not a critical review but a collaborative paper writing exercise

…..with a narrow clique of authors pushing a narrative that is aimed at achieving a political agenda.

paul

Re: 92

Vincent Gray has long critised the IPCC for misinformation. Soem examples would be good to see without having to wade through everything. Thanks

Ian Foulsham

I looked through a few and noticed Vincent Gray’s comments.
If you want a taster of almost all the rejected ones, it goes:
“Change ‘likely’ to ‘unlikely'”
REJECTED.

You can make your own guesses as to what the text was being commented about. :o)

My particular favourite was more of a general thing that I noticed a number of times.
The names have been changed obviously:

“I think you need to cite Schmo et al (2003) here.

Joe Schmo”

Not being aware of any of the papers in question and not having the time, I don’t know if they were just trying to get their names in the spotlight or whether it was mischievious on their part.

Spence_UK

Interesting set of comments from Dr. Gray in the comments on second order draft, chapter 10.

In comment 10-1315 Dr. Gray (rightly, in my view) complains that uncertainty intervals are displayed as +/- one standard deviation, whereas common practice is to show two standard deviations (i.e. 95% intervals). The author rejects this outright as the text states the intervals used.

In comment 10-1321 Dr. Gray once again highlights another case of one standard deviation in use. The response this time? The comment is accepted! The author responds by stating uncertainties will be 5%-95% where possible (minor gripe, 2 standard devs on a normal pdf are 2.5%-97.5%)

It seems the response to reviewers comments are fairly ad hoc and inconsistent, with plenty of scope for lead author bias to manifest itself throughout the document (“institutionalised bias”?)

Steve Sadlov

RE: #98 – An even more frightening thing is the tacit assumption by a seeming majority of IPCCers that mid 20th century pollution from Europe and North America combined with volacanoes, which of course may have contributed to the 1940 – 1970s cooling, was some sort of transient event, never again to be experienced. As I see it, these issues were but a hint of things to come as the 21st century unfolds. There has been lots of attention given to China, in terms of the all but inevitable rise in aerosols from their coal burning. What of future coal burning in Russia, in Latin America, in Africa? Those impacts will only just start hitting 10 to 20 years from now. Add to all this all the other known and likely innate variations in non CO2 related forcings. It is truly frightening that the world is being set up to be blindsided by any number of very, very bad highly plausible outcomes, none of which has received the slightest inkling of discussion by the IPCC and the massive herd of sheep roped in by them. I am morally outraged. May karma reign.

Buddenbrook

Anyone else bothered how vague their reply to the AOGCM skeptics is?

—–

Question 8.1: How Reliable Are the Models Used to Make Projections of Future Climate Change?

There is considerable confidence that climate models provide plausible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. Confidence in these estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation).. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes.

Climate models are mathematical representations of the climate system, expressed as computer codes and run on powerful computers. One source of confidence in models comes from the fact that model fundamentals are based on established physical laws, such as conservation of mass, energy and momentum, along with a wealth of observations.

A second source of confidence comes from the ability of models to simulate aspects of the current climate. Models are routinely and extensively assessed by comparing their simulations with observations of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surface, and unprecedented levels of evaluation have taken place over the last decade in the form of organised multi-model intercomparisons’. Such tests have shown models to have significant, and increasing, skill representing many important features of climate and climate variability. Examples are the large scale patterns and seasonal variations of atmospheric temperature, precipitation, radiation and wind, as well as oceanic temperatures, currents and seaice cover. Some climate models, or closely related variants, have also been tested by using them to predict weather and make seasonal forecasts, and are also becoming increasingly skilful in this regard. These and other tests show that models can represent important features of the general circulation across shorter timescales, as well as aspects of seasonal, interannual and longer timescale variability. Such skill increases our confidence in model ability to simulate future climate.

A third source of confidence comes from the ability of models to reproduce features of past climates and climate changes. Models have been used to simulate paleoclimates, such as the warm mid-Holocene of 6000 years ago, or last glacial maximum of 21,000 years ago (see Chapter 6). They can reproduce many features (allowing for uncertainties in reconstructing past climate) such as the approximate amount of ice age cooling. Models can also simulate many observed aspects of climate change over the instrumental record. One example is the global temperature trend over the past century (Figure 1) ‘€” although uncertainties in the magnitude of the cooling associated with sulphate particles mean that ability to reproduce the recent observed changes does not imply a perfect projection of future climate. Models also reproduce other observed features, such as the reduction in the diurnal temperature range, the larger degree of warming in the Arctic and the small global cooling (and subsequent recovery) following the Mt Pinatubo eruption of 1991.

Nevertheless models still show significant errors. Although these are generally greater at smaller scales, some important large scale problems also remain. For example, the Madden-Julian Oscillation (an observed variation in tropical winds and rainfall with a timescale of 30’€”90 days) is generally poorly simulated, and errors persist in some aspects of model representation of the El Nià±o-southern Oscillation. The ultimate source of most such errors is that many important small scale processes cannot be represented explicitly in models, and so must be included in approximate form as they interact with the larger scale. This is partly due to limitations in computing power, but also results from limitations in scientific understanding, or in some cases the availability of observations, of some physical processes. Significant uncertainties, in particular, are associated with the representation of clouds. As a consequence, models continue to display a substantial range of global temperature change in response to specified greenhouse gas forcing (refer Chapter 10), To date, it has not been possible to quantify how errors in a model’s simulation of specific climate observations impact on errors in its future climate projections, but a few studies suggest that this may be possible in future. Despite such uncertainties, however, models have been unanimous in their prediction of climate warming under greenhouse gas increases, and this warming is of a magnitude consistent with independent estimates derived from other sources, such as from observed climate changes and paleoclimate reconstructions.

Since confidence in the changes projected by global models decreases at smaller scales, other techniques, such as the use of regional climate models, or downscaling methods, have been specifically developed for the study of regional and local scale climate change (see Chapter 11, Question 11.1). However, as global models continue to develop, and their resolution continues to improve, they are becoming increasingly useful for investigating important smaller scale features, such as changes in extremes, and further improvements in regional scale representation are expected with increased computing power. Models are also becoming more comprehensive in their treatment of the climate system, thus explicitly representing more physical or biophysical processes and interactions considered potentially important for climate change, particularly at longer timescales. Examples are the recent inclusion of features such as interactive vegetation, ocean biogeochemistry and ice sheet dynamics in some global climate models.

In summary, confidence in models comes from their physical basis, and their skill in representing observed climate and past climate changes. Models have proved to be extremely important tools for simulating and understanding climate, and there is considerable confidence that they are able to provide useful projections of many aspects of future climate change, particularly at larger scales. Models continue to have significant weaknesses, such as their representation of clouds, which lead to uncertainties in the magnitude and timing, as well as regional details, of predicted climate change. Nevertheless they have provided, consistently over several decades of model development, a robust and unambiguous picture of significant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases.

—–

Why isn’t this stuff vigorously debated? Why is the AOGCM modelling like alchemy, a secret science, exact nature of which is not to the eyes of the public. Can someone point me to a scientific article that discusses the numeric values of the different AOGCM parameters?

And when different AOGCMs produce vastly varying results, and they can’t all be right, why isn’t then the relative reliability of different AOGCMs debated, but instead it is decided that “they are all equally reliable” and thus the broad range of estimates 1.4C-5.8C and 1.1C-6.4C.

And then in the end they call AOGCM climate predictions on the impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions 90% likely to be correct. How is that 90% actually evaluated? I haven’t seen the equation anywhere. Does one even exist? Considering these models have been proven to be completely off the mark on ocean rainfall and cloud formation, how do they derive 90% probability that the models are correct on anthropogenic CO2? Seems arbitrary to me.

Once again, why isn’t this stuff debated vigorously, why is it instead swept under the rug? Shouldn’t it be in our scientific interest…

David Ermer

I thought that this might be interesting to this group.

We conducted an audit of Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of the total of 140 principles. We found that the forecasting procedures that were used violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts to support global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.

L Nettles

103 104 yes that is a very interesting paper and is well reasoned negative answer to this question

Question 8.1: How Reliable Are the Models Used to Make Projections of Future Climate Change?

Jean S

Wow:

It should be noted here that the two (published) reconstructions which exhibit the greatest amplitude variability (Moberg et al and Esper et al) are actually almost completely uncorrelated–they show very little similarity at all, in terms of the timing of century-scale warm and cold periods, as revealed by a cursory examination of Figure 6.8. In other words, it is misleading to lump these, and other such reconstructions, together as indicating “greater variability” when they actually agree quite poorly with each other (calling into question whether the greater variability is meaningful or an artifact of the data or methodology used). [Michael Mann]

Mike, how about correlation among “lower variability” reconstructions? Same conclusion?

Mark T.

Welcome back Jean S. Good to know you still gander at the musings here! 🙂

Mark

David Stockwell

#104. It is an interesting paper. To answer your question, I forecast that it will get no play at all, and will be totally ignored. Its my theory that the only reason Steve and Ross’s publications have got into play is the unrelenting focus on possible impropriety as a “bunker buster” strategy.

robert burns

A few questions and observations about the comments report:

How were 1300 (or 2500) people who put the main report together selected? I assume the IPCC picked authors who are pro AGW. I also assume the reviewers where nominated by the various nations. If I am correct, then the report is a political animal.

How were reviewers assigned to chapters? I do not see a list of reviewers by chapter. I also notice (but didn’t do the detailed cross checking to be positive) that the bulk of the critical reviewers seem to come from the USA, Canada and Australia. Could this reflect the political and AGW bias of the people who selected the reviewers.

it also appears that a few reviewers made the bulk of the comments. It is possible that some reviewers accepted the honor of having their name on the report, but did not really review it?

Geoff Sherrington

1. It is quite important to blow out of the water the consensus figure of 2,500 scientists if it is wrong. I have not read the material far enough to judge for myself. But, I have worked since 1975 or so to rebut anti-nuclear propaganda. One of the enduring phrases, accepted by many policy makers, is that “Radioactive waste must be managed for 25,000 years.” This is wrong. It is merely the half life of but one Plutonium isotope multiplied by a convenient factor of 10 or so. Life would be much simpler if it had been killed at birth.

2. Please read the paper in #104. It goes to the heart of the IPCC deficiencies without excess detail. I especially like the para:

Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis (2007) concluded that the long-term climate forecasts that they examined were based only on the opinions of the scientists. The opinions were expressed in complex mathematical terms. There was no validation of the methodologies. They referred to the following quote as a summary on their page 45: “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. (Nikola Telsa, inventor and electrical engineer, 1934.)” Thus, while it is sensible to be explicit about beliefs and to formulate these in a model, the forecaster must go beyond this to demonstrate that the relationships are valid and well-supported, especially when the models are complex.

Click to access warmaudit31.pdf

3. Might I please suggest a division of labour for those active on this climateaudit site, where Steve has done such good work? I am going to identify the authors from my country, Australia, who were contributing authors of the IPCC report. I am going to contact them, give them a questionnaire and ask them some hard questions. Example, were you convinced that AGW was real before you started writing your IPCC submission, or did you have an open mind? The summary results will be posted on this site in due course. I dips me lid to fellow Australian Warwick Hughes who started this about 1991. Why not form groups in your home countries and spread the load? I loath the present situation where I have prima facie evidence of falsification in Science, yet a concerted attempt to conceal it. While one important function for the scientist is advancement of knowledge, another is rejection of falsified data.

bruce

Re #15: Onya Geoff!!

Kenneth Fritsch

Re: #118

As usual a comment out of context. Behavior such as this will likely cause the IPCC and other scientific orgs to crawl into their shell somewhat. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Thanks, Boris, for another rationalization of IPCC behavior – bad behavior begets bad behavior.

Steve McIntyre

#120. Boris, I, for one, didn’t predict that IPCC would never put the comments online nor have I said that this reflects a “conspiracy”. I thought that the comments would come online at some point, because it was a no win-situation for IPCC to fight it (even to the extent that they did.) In my opinion, the comments pertaining to sections with which I’m familiar display mean-mindedness and bias and show exactly why Briffa and Jones should not have been authors of review sections. It’s not because they are not smart people – they are. It’s just that they are not independent of the material and it shows. When I raised the non-independence in respect to Mann and the HS, von Storch agreed that IPCC authors should be independent of their sections.

John F. Pittman

‘€¢ Thomas Jefferson and Special Awards
‘€¢ Holm Awards Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 75-100 Year Institutional Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 50 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 45 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 40 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 35 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 30 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 25 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 20 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 15 Year Length of Service Awards
‘€¢ 5-10 Year Length of Service Awards.
Senator Graham, and Jean Carter Johnson, FOIA officer of NOAA, please, note that NOAA has refused to answer FOIA requests to several FOIA submitters (legitimate requests as far as I can determine) based on the fact that NOAA sites and volunteer observers are claimed to be private even though their names and accomplishments have been made public (see above, details are available on climateaudit.org). Senator Graham, the emails to and from Jean.Carter.Johnson@noaa.gov, and other NOAA officials are easily obtainable by you or your staff. Up until approximately a week ago, these names, locations could be accessed by the internet. Positions and names were directly obtainable, accessible, and in the public domain, and available. Now there is the claim that they are private and this information has been removed from the web. There is no such thing as” a little bit pregnant”. Senator Graham as far as I can determine US law and NOAA FOIA guidelines have been violated. Could you and your office help me? Senator Graham, for your information, on a blog, I will ask that all that have been refused cooperation as required by law to contact you. Please, I hope you and your staff don’t mind a citizen of SC for all of his life of almost 54 years asks for this to be resolved according to US law and precedence.

PLease help me by sending any problems to Mr. Graham’s office.

M. Simon

#120 Boris,

How could there be much ideological gain? Global warming is the SCIENTIFIC consensus. This is not mere superstition. There are actual numbers involved and complicated equations. And computers. Don’t forget the computers. And lots and lots of scientists. Men and women with degrees. Advanced degrees. Certified brains.

Bob Koss

They have an average of 58 authors per chapter. About 580 authors in total. With some of them doing yeoman’s work by being an author on a half dozen chapters. This has got to be a rubber-stamp job for many of them. Either that or they have no life, no job. I wonder what they get paid for this stuff.

Kenneth Fritsch

Re: #120

Boris, I do not recall stating that the IPCC would not put the Reviewer’s Comments on online. In fact I was of the opinion that someone could repost the entire account deposited at the Harvard library with legal immunity. That’s no longer necessary and now that I am reading through the comments I find much in them that points to the uncertainty of the report contents. What do think of my request of the IPCC to provide the Traceable Accounts of the methods used by the report authors in determining the published levels of confidence and likelihood for the results/conclusions found in the report? It is my judgment that the seriousness of their findings rest critically and heavily on these determinations and they therefore should be the most transparent part of the process. What say you, Boris? Any reasons for them not providing this information?

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1667#comments

Steve Milesworthy

#128 Geoff Sherrington
The Assessment Reports are supposed to be reviews, not textbooks – the equations are within the references.

With regard to chemistry and the carbon cycle though, there may be an element of “special pleading” as you say, because modelling of these within earth system models is at an early stage (mostly because the computers are not yet powerful enough).

Steve Milesworthy

#132 Geoff
Maybe you can correct me, but I understand that many of the chemical reactions, and their rates, are understood, but it is hard to predict the outcome of a complicated distribution of chemicals given reactions have different rates depending on temperature, whether its day or night, cloudy or clear, humid or dry etc.

As part of my job I have to think about software for models. I have a complicated map in front of me describing the interrelations between eg. the fact that iron in the ocean encourages DMS and SO4 and hence CCN. This affects cloud reflectivity, but also wet deposition which reduce concentrations of some chemicals, and photolysis rates of other chemical reactions which change when it is cloudy etc.

While observations are essential for checking the models, I don’t see how you can fully understand the situation and gain important insights without help from the models.

Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen

Congratulations, Steve. Just lost my long message (having giving you a mail address, not email!) so I shall be briefer and keep a copy.

I would like to publish a summary of this discussion of the IPCC comments, but do not have the time to write it up. I would like to publish this in Energy&Environment (www.multi-science.co.uk), a multi-dscipllinary journal directed at energy professionals and academics.
If anybody could do this ( the event 4AR), responses by IPCC to selected review comments, and discussion from sceptical perspective, I would be most grateful. Where do we go from here? I would publish it asap as a Viewpoint (max. 3000 words).

My own view is that science as always will serve policy, in this case the political elite of the North’ keen to find energy (and climate) security’ and a new enemy. A dangerous agenda still worth fighting against.

Note that the IPCC was set up and AGW (dangerous, adapted as unifying myth) in second half of 1980s, just after the era of high fossil fuel prices had ended. Lots of investments, new technologies and nuclear power needed protection from fossil fuels even then, and the environmentalists offered one method, regulate carbon fuels for environmental protection to make them more expensive and hence the new alternatives’ competitive. Now of course we want to replace them…. We’ have run out of safe, cheap fossil fuels at home or in friendly allied lands. The big oil’ companies no longer own much oil and gas in the ground.
Politics and social science have to tell that story, the story of why climate science was selected by politics to serve policy (see Boehmer-Christiansen and A Kellow , Intern. .Env. Agreements: Interests and the failure of the Kyoto process’, 2002, Elgar). I remember a 1992 warning made in France…watch out or the meteorologists will rule the world…

D. Patterson

Re: #133. Working with models can be useful, but they are worse than useless as a replacement for reality. You can model a gold mine by salting gold in a mine with a shotgun, which is dishonest and a crime. Likewise, salting a policy report with falsified data and analyses is even more dishonest and ought to be regarded as a crime of far greater consequences.

Jaye

I don’t see how you can fully understand the situation and gain important insights without help from the models.

You can do that sort of thing with a fully V&Ved model but otherwise you are just drinking your own bath water.

Dan Hughes

re: #138 and #139

Most excellent Jaye !!

John Baltutis

Re: #142

And don’t forget all the stuff we do know about that’s been put off-limits for non-economical reasons.

Geoff Sherrington

Re # 133

A recipe is only as good as its ingredients.

A model is only as good as its inputs.

There is no point in making a model if the input parameters are shaky.

Your first para in # 133 is a quite reasonable explanation for why the IPCC should not be using models yet, unless it is strictly to dicover what essential information is missing.

BTW, can anyone inform me on the consistency or otherwise of the error bars in FAQ 2.1 Fig 2, Radiative forcing. On a quick read, the total uncertainty is just a little bigger than the next largest uncertainty, and smaller than the two largest together. I thought error variances had to be combined, but it looks like only some of these are. Or the wording is misleading. Or some errors are one sigma, some are two. Or traditional bell curves do not apply because of non-normal distributions (were distribution shapes tested for skew, kurtosis, etc?).

Geoff Sherrington

Re # 146 Steve

In 1974 I was seconded to manage a large pilot plant using chlorine gas at 1050 deg C at a rate of 10 tonnes per day, to strip unwanted iron from the natural minetal ilmenite, to make synthetic titanium dioxide, the “whitest white” used in paint and for making titanium metal. There were multiple feedbacks in the chemistry, physics and materials and our chemical engineers modelled this whole complex process.

We had some fencing wire running to a nearby mine, an operator-connected telephone exchange linked to a poor quality land line to Canberra (1500 km), then satellite to Uni of Chicago. The logistics were not easy and the computers were slow, especially when the helpful Post Office lady interrupted the data transfer to ask if we were getting through OK. (Some of you are too young to get this).

The demonstration phase that I managed lasted for a year. In that time, the main use of models was for refinement of the models. The fine tuning of the plant was done by measurement and adjustment. The plant would not have run automatically if driven by the model, any more than your car does when assisted by GPS. The models were sometimes useful for indicating the direction of a proposed correction, although perverse feedbacks still happened.

Of course models are useful, once they evolve to maturity and survive extensive testing. My point of difference with you is that the state of climate knowledge is far too immature for climate models to be used to drive anthing except refinement. We are still in the early stages of calibration and there are large effects yet to be quantified.

Why not have a closer look at the error bars in FAQ 2.1 Fig 2 to see if you have disquiet? Take the square root of the sum of squares, assuming the data permit this conventional approach, and see what you think.

Re # 138 Jaye

Ooops, sensitivity here. But do not mathematicians explore their theorems with equations? Or do you do all your math these days with computer models and simulations, like the proof of the 4-colour map theorem? Look at how simple the inputs were for that, yet how long it took to gain validity and acceptance. Contrast that with climate models.

BTW, some of my best friends are mathematicians and that’s a plus. +

Stan Palmer

re 149

This may have little relevance but perhaps it will be useful. Clssical artficial intelligence was all about modelling. Robots wpuld model the world around them in order to navigate and take decisions. Early on it was found that this did not work. It could appear to work under staged laboratory conditions but even in those conditions robtos were unrealiable. Rodney Brooks of MIT observed that AI researchers addressed this problem by continually changing the toy models that they addressed. They ran into the same roadblock with evey toy model but there was always a new toy model to base new projects on.

Brooks observed that the problem was not with the models but with the use of models altogether. Brooks observed that “the best model of the world is the world.” Brooks reaquired his students to build robots that would not be limited to simulated environments or even to esecially contructed physical envirnoments. The robots were required to operate in a working lab abd to fucntion properly even with vistors casually walking around in the room.

Brooks’ vision was strngly criticised by the AI establishment – distnguished research professors all of them. However Brooks’ vision proved effective. This is illustrated by the recent achievement of having vehicles naviage autonomously over unprepared desert roads.

These vehicles used only rudimentary models. Modelling cannot handle the complexity of the real world when it comes to the creation of AI. I suppose the point that is being made here that the same failure to adequately deal with complexity will be found in the climate models.

I don’t know enough about the subject to have an opinion. However modelling failed in the presence of complexity for AI. There are observations above that modelling was found inadequate for the design of industrial processes. I know in my field that the same thing has been found. Modelling works for toy problems but fails with real world applications.

Bob Koss

If the barbecue is a week in the future, I wouldn’t be concerned. Same as with a weather report for that time.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/verify5.shtml?

Earle Williams

Re #152

Reply to self,

Yes, I recognize that the ‘M’ in GCM stands for model. Mea culpa!

s/GCM models/GCMs/

Stan Palmer

re 150

The comment is not responsive in eh way that you think. The models that predict hurricane landfall are continually updated with real world information. They seem to be a rather good illustration of Brooks’ maxim that the best model of the world is the world.

The point being made here is that maodels in many fields fail when faced with real word complexity. GCM models are being used to model scenarios that run 100 years into the future.

The real question is:

“Why are GCM models able to handle real world complexity wheh models in other fields cannot even after years if ntio decases of research?”

Steve Milesworthy

Heaven won’t help you. Only science – if you’ll let it.

MarkW

#157,

I could make the same comments regarding your faith in models.

crmanriq

It’s getting easier to see the disjuncture (is that a word?) between GCModelers position and SMcIntyre’s position.

McIntyre comes from industry. Aside from him being by definition evil, he’s also disposed to prudently spending or not spending money. In industry (I’m in coal, parenthetically), if you make a model, you need to be durn sure of what the possible error is before using it as a justification to spend money. If the model does not have enough skill to actually reflect something close to real world, then you look like an idiot for using it. If new data comes in, you look at how that affects your model’s performance, and you either adjust your model or find a better one if the data shows your model pointed you wrong. Verify. Verify. Verify.

In most of engineering, fluid dynamics, fluid mechanics, etc, you get people making models of systems. There are generally very specific caveats of when the model is appropriate and when it isn’t. There are even warranties on recommendations of equipment based on models. (As in “this machine should provide performance within these specified ranges given the projected feed that you have described to us”, or money back.)

It appears that within the world of GCM, none of this applies. Models are made that have little verification, and are pointed to as if they were handed down from on high based upon the size of the computer used to run the program. Attempts to verify accuracy of data or performance of model (auditing) is met with scorn. Discrepancies found are dismissed as unimportant. Truthfully, if I design a model of a system that is to be used to determine how money is spent, I want as many people as possible to look at it and try to find flaws.

Why is this not the case with GCM’s? What is the justification for withholding data? At what point do people start recognizing that this is unsound?

Steve Milesworthy

#161 crmanriq
The analogy with models used in industry is faulty for two reasons. Firstly, people spent money long before models came. Secondly, no model is perfect; you deal with the imperfections by over-engineering the solution if necessary and by properly understanding the risk – 72 hours prior to landfall you neither send all your resources to Charlotte, nor do you tell Houston it is safe.

I do not recognise your understanding of the “world of GCM” at all. The assumption that models are not audited and auditable is also wrong. Many models are tested and used by a diverse research community. Shortcomings of models are clearly stated and understood. It’s a competitive field, and for the model I’m familiar with I know that whole research groups are formed and external scientists are procured to work on key problems when they are identified.

Bob Koss

Good point.

Geoff Sherrington

I get the impression from this board that others are starting to share the concern of Ian Castles that events are moving too slowly.

If you review the whole of climateaudit (formidable!) you might start to feel that a lot of time has been spent on minute discussions of points of concern with IPCC methodology or reporting or release procedures. This is important, but a lot has been ignored.

We cannot dwell on these topics forever.

Can I suggest (after some quick exploratory work with a couple of Australian authors) that some authors are willing to make summary statements reflecting the positions of their home countries. Some will agree with IPCC, some will not. Why not try it in your own countries? There are anly 6 or so organisations in WG1 in Australia, so coordination is much easier than say the USA.

Most importantly, rather than argue if a temperature recorded in 1959 should have been half a degree cooler or warmer, can we get the participating scientists to think ahead and say “If these projections are right, and given the ingenuity of Man, what remediation is possible, sensible and recommended?

Can anyone point me to any remediation papers they have seen apart from the obvious of stopping burning fossil fuels? I recall one suggestion to sprinkle Al fairly dust (aluminium, I mean, not Gore) in the stratosphere to reduce surface irradiance. Are there many papers like this yet? I can read only so many papers a day and can’t cover the field.

Steve McIntyre

#168. Interesting: the error bars for SH land are reduced to about 50% of the Second Draft spread from 0.054 to 0.029! Interesting that their skill improved so much.

Bob Koss

They narrowed every error range figure in the chapter 3 final. Tables 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6

Mike Hayes

re #167

George,

Recently I tried to analysis this issue. Some results. Replace entire fleet of 150M cars in USA with Prius led to

Mike Hayes

re #167

Looks like my attempt #173 got caught by the spam filter. Briefly I have studied mitigations and their cost effectiveness, life cycle analysis is particularly useful and interesting. Would like to discuss it but I am not sure this thread is the right place. There is a lot of propaganda about “good things” and a lot of them do not bear out on scrutiny.

Very important to note that mitigation strategy, cost effectiveness and utility (if any) varies greatly whether man made global warming is 20% of the total or 100% (numbers picked out of the air).

jae

167: I’ve seen articles discussing pumping CO2 into caverns. Sounds like a good idea to me, since we can “release” it when the cooling comes :).

Geoff Sherrington

My comments about paying attention to remediation if (big IF) AGW proves correct are based on several considerations.

1. It was a man named Sherrington who first cured diptheria disease by injecting his nephew with a serum from an infected horse. Others had made a lot of noise about the curse of diphtheria, but Sherrington came up with the remedy. He is a personal role model.

2. It is incumbent on those who are advocating (say) that increasing man-made CO2 is raising global temperature to use their insightful science to devise ways to lower either the CO2 or the temperature or both. By merely saying “we’re all going to die” they are leaving their science half finished. By explaining their remediation approaches, they will expose new insights about their methodolgy to date and probably expose weaknesses they did not at first perceive.

3. When new remediation methods are proposed, the average citizen might think them more drastic than what is said to be the consensus global future outlook. Thus, some wind goes out of the sails of this public opinion, as it should. (Like the analogy, I’d rather die of old age and the low risk of cancer than have radical, remedial prostate surgery now).

4. There are already highly significant, developed remedies at work. One is nuclear electricity. It has been politicised, but is now clawing its way back. AGW believer scientists who have to show their colours re nuclear politics can then be more clearly seen from comments about remediation as either altruistic scientists or climate politicians and their work given weight accordingly.

5. Some concepts of remediation take the researcher from a narrow discipline like (say) meteorology to a broader perspective. Maybe this will be a benefit and we will have outcomes like appropriate statistics used for climate data rather than ones labelled “home made”, etc.

6. In the general sense, it is important for the general public to understand that remediation is possible. I particularly worry about youngsters who lose their childhood innocence from the likes of Al Gore telling them we are all doomed. In my young days of the Cold War, we were fairly conversant that the remedy named Mutually Assured Distruction was a fall-back that would work as the physics predicted. Thus, MAD became the thought focus more than the damage to a single city from a rogue IBM. In the final analysis, this nuclear conflagration that predicted “We’ll all be killed” was managed, just as AGW (if it is serious) will be managed.

7. It can only be managed well if we divert some of our combined brain power to hypothetical remedial measures. Sequestration of CO2 in underground reservoirs is a remedy in progress, but not many people have faith in it yet. Maybe this is because too many funds are diverted to show it will be needed, rather than showing its possibility and economics.

8. So let’s not completely bury our heads in the shifting sand of which climate model is better than the next. Let’s make some thought exercises about remediation. The public will love whomever comes up with a neat solution, whether it is needed or not.

9. It would be a plus if good solutions appeared on climateaudit, as it would show proactive effort and reduce the validity of the ‘denier’ epithet.

Reid

Re #179 Geoff says “It was a man named Sherrington who first cured diptheria…”

Are you related?

Joseph Koss

I have noticed that what I believe to be a very important section of AR4WG1 Chapter 8 First Order Draft disappeared in the Second Order Draft and I have unable to find any similar language anywhere in the SOD.

Specifically, page 6 has a few paragraphs on “What does model evaluation tell us about the reliability of climate projections?”

Can anybody help to find where this information has gone?