One of the more interesting knock-ons of the opportunistic IPCC reliance on WWF and similar “authorities” is that it may compromise the ability of the U.S. EPA to argue that IPCC peer review meets the statutory standards required of EPA peer review.
In this respect, I refer to the Climate Audit submission to EPA last June, which considered this specific issue in considerable detail. See submission here, covering post here and first post on the topic here.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction to my submission:
2. The EPA elected to rely “heavily” on “existing” scientific assessments carried out by external parties. EPA guidelines and policies establish procedures which EPA is required to comply with, prior to utilizing scientific assessments carried out by external parties, including international bodies. These procedures include the submission of the scientific assessment by the external party to EPA together with its peer review record and the evaluation of the submission by EPA officials to evaluate the scientific content and the external party’s peer review process. The TSD failed to state that EPA complied with these procedures and there is considerable evidence that EPA did not do so.
3. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a peer review process, their peer review process does not comply with the OMB and EPA policies for highly influential scientific assessments in many important respects, including, without limitation, non-compliance in the provision of data to reviewers and transparency. Had the EPA actually carried out the examination of IPCC peer review policy that is required prior to EPA use, it would undoubtedly have identified these and other shortcomings.
In the submission, I reviewed relevant EPA policies on peer review and showed that IPCC peer review did not comply with statutory requirements for EPA peer review. This was based on my knowledge of IPCC peer review at that time, which was primarily the handling of chapter 6 of WG1.
The peer review process for WG2 appears to be even worse. David Rose in yesterday’s Daily Mail reported that IPCC Coordinating Lead Author Lal knew the glacier claim did not rest on peer-reviewed research, but put it in anyway to “encourage” governments to take “concrete action”:
Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.
‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’
Not the sort of statement that provides much reassurance for EPA officials.
Rose goes on to describe incidents in which IPCC ignored review comments on the glaciers:
For example, Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University, suggested that their draft did not mention that Himalayan glaciers in the Karakoram range are growing rapidly, citing a paper published in the influential journal Nature.
In their response, the IPCC authors said, bizarrely, that they were ‘unable to get hold of the suggested references’, but would ‘consider’ this in their final version. They failed to do so.
The Japanese government commented that the draft did not clarify what it meant by stating that the likelihood of the glaciers disappearing by 2035 was ‘very high’. ‘What is the confidence level?’ it asked.
The authors’ response said ‘appropriate revisions and editing made’. But the final version was identical to their draft.
Under IPCC procedures, it is the obligation of Review Editors to ensure that review comments are adequately responded to by authors. The failure of IPCC Review Editors to discharge their obligations has been a long-standing issue at Climate Audit. Although all review comments are supposed to be archived and although IPCC is supposed to have an “open and transparent” process, IPCC did not archive review comments from Review Editors and refused to provide review comments from WG1 chapter 6 Review Editor John Mitchell of the UK Met Office. David Holland tried to obtain Mitchell’s review comments through FOI, but his efforts have thus far been unsuccessful. (The Met Office further soured matters by making untrue statements in their efforts to evade the FOI request.) Some interesting comments from Mitchell turned up in the Climategate Letters.
The IPCC Review Editors for WG2 chapter 10 were Daniel Murdiyarso (Indonesia) and Shuzo Nishioka (Japan). It would be interesting to see how they discharged their responsibilities.
This lack of due diligence is not limited to IPCC. Gerry North, chairman of the NRC Report on Surface Temperature Reconstructions, (which is cited in the EPA Technical Support Document) stated in a seminar at his university that they “didn’t do any research”, that they got 12 “people around the table” and “just kind of winged it.” He said “that’s what you do in that kind of expert panel”. A clip of North’s remarks is online here.
That an IPCC Coordinating Lead Author should describe their process in the terms reported in Rose’s article should be of considerable concern to those EPA officials, who stated that IPCC peer review complies with statutory requirements for EPA peer review as the evidence mounts that it didn’t.
Climate Audit 
89 Comments
An alternative definition for robust: Rough or crude – boisterous.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/robust
The North clip link does not work
Steve: fixed
“12 “people around the table” and “just kind of winged it”
Would that be on Seat Of Your Pants, No Science Here Airline?
Wonder if they got bumped up to Business Class, being important people & all that.
Gadfly, in the best sense of the word. I love going over the back posts you link to. What would a terrier crossed with a gadfly be? I am so pleased you have given up your life to this! Hope Thailand is fun.
On T, I hope – your post a while back on how no members of the ‘community’ had spoken out since climategate, do you detect any shift now? I see a few straws in the wind, like the Nature glacier piece, environment correspondents here (UK) calling for Pachauri to go (admittedly to save the process, but still). I don’t go to RealClimate as often as I should – any shift there? The UK Parliamentary committee investigation confuses me, the 3 questions were pretty good, and the publishing of submissions and the oral session sound good too.
I hope On Topic, in the sense that the EPA are also subject to these shifts.
Steve: postponed my trip to Thailand. Still in Toronto.
Re: HotRod (Jan 25 17:34),
I wondered how you were producing so many posts from Thailand.
The Link to North’s remarks dead-ended.
Nice follow-up. I do hope the EPA is paying attention here.
I look forward to further discussion of John Mitchell’s stewardship at the IPCC. In the USA that name has a familiar ring.
Funny to see how their most used argument against skeptics, “peer reviewed”, is now biting them in their behind…
From UnReal Climate (yes, before 11/19) http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
“Steve McIntyre keeps insisting that he should be treated like a professional. But how professional is it to continue to slander scientists with vague insinuations and spin made-up tales of perfidy out of the whole cloth instead of submitting his work for peer-review? He continues to take absolutely no responsibility for the ridiculous fantasies and exaggerations that his supporters broadcast, apparently being happy to bask in their acclaim rather than correct any of the misrepresentations he has engendered. If he wants to make a change, he has a clear choice; to continue to play Don Quixote for the peanut gallery or to produce something constructive that is actually worthy of publication.
Peer-review is nothing sinister and not part of some global conspiracy, but instead it is the process by which people are forced to match their rhetoric to their actual results. You can’t generally get away with imprecise suggestions that something might matter for the bigger picture without actually showing that it does. It does matter whether something ‘matters’, otherwise you might as well be correcting spelling mistakes for all the impact it will have.
So go on Steve, surprise us.”
Well, there was a surprise, 2 months later and not what they expected…
The Data Quality Act (DQA) [Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001 — Public Law 106–554; H.R. 5658] requires that when U.S. Federal agencies, such as the EPA, use scientific information in support of an official position of the agency, that information must meet data quality standards.
According to the guidelines, qualifying information must be accurate, clear, complete, and unbiased, and must be presented with full, accurate, and transparent documentation. If the information is peer-reviewed (subjected to formal, independent, external peer review), then the objectivity criteria is satisfied, with the provisos that:
The DQA is generally not enforced, but the law is on the books. Successful appeals (they are rare) have led to the (temporary) cut-off of funding to agencies or subagencies that do not comply.
Steve,
there is another ironic episode relating to the EPA and bad science. I’ll detail it shortly, but it’s fairly germane and even led to some resignations.
One might ask if the EPA did not look for science beyond the IPCC Synthesis report. Here is a hockey stick example–link to the endangerment finding:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/Endangerment TSD.pdf
Go to fig. 2.4, p.18. Presented are three GHG/forcing graphs, each a 10,000 year hockey stick. Cited reference is “(ICPPd)”. “d”? That is the 2007 Synthesis Report, fig. 2.3.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains2-2.html
The same three 10,000 year sticks. Do they appear in the
hard science” version, “Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis”? (Presumably “ICPPa?”) Yes, but different:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-4-1-1.html
See fig. 6.4, ch 6.4.1.1. Not 10,000 year but 20,000 year plottings. And, remarkably, they “hide the incline” that cannot be anthropogenic that occur more than 10,000 years b.p.
So the scientists get the truth, the “policy makers” get truncated versions for their coincidentally hockey stick appearance. Either the EPA consciously made the same decision, or they did not read past the Synthesis Report.
I posted this at unthreaded, but I guess it now belongs here. Alan Carlin, EPA has a new post: http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/629#respond
Pielke Sr.’s comments regarding the NRC meeting, recently here and a year ago here, including comments wrt IPCC WG1 bear re-reading.
Steve mentions that Canada does it differently. In the US, one would expect that NAS/NRC would make a formal recommendation for strong consideration by the EPA before a finding. Yes, there was time for comments. However, according to Pielke, “The proposal for a formal NRC Panel was rejected by the others”.
Apparently the only assessment relied upon was from the IPCC. Referring to the CruTapes has also helped me regarding the IPCC/EPA finding. One, early on (1999) specifically mentions WWF, another (2000) details their adoption of language regarding 1-sigma outcomes, and lastly, I’ll quote from Subject: Future of the IPCC:
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008
“It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make
billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected
regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and
simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate
variability. Of course, even a hypothetical, perfect model does not
guarantee accurate prediction of the future regional climate, but at the
very least, our suggestion for action will be based on the best possible
science.
It is urgently required that the climate modeling community arrive at a
consensus on the required accuracy of the climate models to meet the
“greater demand for a higher level of policy relevance”.
2. Is “model democracy” a valid scientific method? The “I” in the IPCC
desires that all models submitted by all governments be considered
equally probable. This should be thoroughly discussed, because it may
have serious implications for regional adaptation strategies. AR4 has
shown that model fidelity and model sensitivity are related. The models
used for IPCC assessments should be evaluated using a consensus metric.”
Now, with hindsight, it’s not inconceivable and it appears a key US EPA adaptation strategy was based on a global model with no regional assessment.
It must be because the US is only 1.2% of the landmass…small potatoes.
In the end, this won’t matter. Rules, it seems, are for little people. The EPA will do what it will.
PS. I am finally walking among the lot of you who have had a comment deleted from RealClimate. To be honest, the remark was a bit snarkey, so I don’t mind it being erased.
“The EPA will do what it will.”
If a judge can be convinced that EPA acted arbitrarily or capriciously, abused their discretion, or otherwise acted unlawfully then the railroad might be stopped. They won’t have their way.
The EPA website has a link to the Federal Register pages that detail the endgangerment finding. In the register you will read that there is a fairly limited amount of time to reassert an objection for judicial review. The Competitive Enterprise Institute also has detailed press releases on all the filings that they have made so far. I doubt the EPA will undo what they have done except through court action. They probably can’t.
From the EPA website:
Judicial Review
Under CAA section 307(b)(1), judicial review of this final action is available
only by filing a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit by February 16, 2010. Under CAA section 307(d)(7)(B),
only an objection to this final action that was raised with reasonable specificity
during the period for public comment can be raised during judicial review.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
Also on this page is the EPA’s detailed answers (in eleven volumes) to comments that people made. I had made a comment but I couldn’t find that they really addressed the specifics of what I said although there was discussion somewhat close to it.
“One of the more interesting knock-ons of the opportunistic IPCC reliance on WWF and similar “authorities” is that it may compromise the ability of the U.S. EPA to argue that IPCC peer review meets the statutory standards required of EPA peer review.”
What “similar authorities” are you referring to here?
Well, they used Greenpeace sources in chapters 3, 4 and 6 of WGII, for starters.
At least Steve M is kind of enough to provide links when he makes a claim like that…
Sorry, Eldon.
Go to: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/publications/AR4/index.html
Click on the “Searchable html version”, and use it to search for “Greenpeace”. There are citations in several places, including the chapters I noted.
Well, that’s wrong. I did as you asked and Greenpeace isn’t used as a source at all in Chapter 3 of WGII. In WGIII Greenpeace is used as a source for the statement “Greenpeace formulated one of the first such scenarios [to assess sustainable development paths]” (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch3-ens3-1-2.html). What is questionable about using them as a source for this statement?
In chapter 4 of WGII, Greenpeace (along with several other references) is used as a reference for this statement: “[Reefs] underpin local shore protection, fisheries, tourism” (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch4s4-4-9.html). Again, what’s the problem here?
In chapter 6 of WGII, Greenpeace is used as a reference for this statement: “Other likely impacts of climate change on coastal tourism are due to coral reef degradation.” (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch6s6-4-2-6.html) You can find the Greenpeace study used as a reference here: http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/axel/Site/GR249-CoralBleaching3.pdf. There are numerous references in their chapters on Climate Change and Coral Reefs and Impacts of Climate Change on Pacific Coastal Economies. I’m guessing the Greenpeace study isn’t peer reviewed, but perhaps some references are? I don’t have time to check all that right now.
In any case, simply dismissing Greenpeace as a source doesn’t seem to be valid until you actually check how they are being sited.
“In any case, simply dismissing Greenpeace as a source doesn’t seem to be valid until you actually check how they are being sited.”
We’re seeing an awfully quick climb-down from a ‘consensus of scientists’ when it’s now apparently acceptable for the IPCC to cite Greenpeace, the WWF, the idle speculation of an India scientist and even a Guardian journalist in its venerable report.
Can we now say a ‘consensus of some people’ or is that a little too specific?
I don’t follow your logic here.
Don’t follow the logic? I’ll spell it out.
Greenpeace is an environmental activist organisation. They are being cited as a source for information in the IPCC reports. The IPCC reports have been held up repeatedly as only containing peer reviewed information, the only type that matters. Greenpeace, WWF etc are not scientific organisations, and their work is not peer reviewed, therefore they have no business being in the IPCC reports. The IPCC have admitted as much by removing the references to the WWF material when it was pointed out.
In any case, the point here is not what should be in or out of the IPCC reports, it is that time and time again, the ‘IPCC reports are from peer-reviewed scientists’ has been used, along with ‘consensus of 2500 scientists’ to defend the AGW theory.
What the IPCC reports have been shown to have is a consensus scientists, plus the consensus of WWF and Greenpeace activists, Guardian journalists and other non-scientists, submitting work that isn’t peer reviewed at all.
So, instead of showing a consensus of scientists in the IPCC reports, we have a ‘consensus of some people involved with the matter’. As soon as you put some non-scientists into the set, you can’t call the set ‘scientists’ anymore. The description has to devolve to the next level of abstraction, which, after vocation is removed, is a ‘group of people’.
“What the IPCC reports have been shown to have is a consensus scientists, plus the consensus of WWF and Greenpeace activists, Guardian journalists and other non-scientists, submitting work that isn’t peer reviewed at all.
So, instead of showing a consensus of scientists in the IPCC reports, we have a ‘consensus of some people involved with the matter’. ”
You mean ‘a consensus of scientists plus other people involved in the matter’. I hardly expect climate scientists to be experts on areas outside of climate science (such as economic effects of coral reef degradation on Pacific cities). In fact the Greenpeace study you’re dismissing wasn’t being cited for scientific claims, only for the claims about likely economic impacts. I don’t see a problem. And the ‘Greenpeace Activists’ who wrote it were actually biologists (Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, for instance) whose other papers in peer-reviewed journals (Science, Nature) were used as references for scientific claims regarding the causes and current state of coral reef degradation. I don’t see your problem.
I also vote for changing the statement ‘consensus of climate scientists’. I think it should be ‘consensus of climate scientists…and more’.
OT and piling on
How is this off-topic? We’re talking about the other “authorities” Steve M was criticizing in the first sentence of this post.
“You mean ‘a consensus of scientists plus other people involved in the matter’. I hardly expect climate scientists to be experts on areas outside of climate science (such as economic effects of coral reef degradation on Pacific cities). In fact the Greenpeace study you’re dismissing wasn’t being cited for scientific claims, only for the claims about likely economic impacts.”
Since the IPCC has a policy of only using peer-reviewed studies, if the Greenpeace study was published in a peer-reviewed economics journal then it would have been acceptable and would give us confidence that the authors actually knew something about economic impacts rather than simply being partisan
snip – editorializing
Re: chip (Jan 26 00:15),
I’ll add that I heard my US EPA czar say, (paraphrasing) “2500 scientists agree, the science is settled, here’s the finding”
Maybe someone can find it on youtube.
I would suggest that you take a look at the way they used non-peer reviewed material from the reinsurer, Munich Re and from the Association of British Insurers.
Roger Pielke Jnr has discussed on his blog how, in the comments from the Lead Authors of Chapter 1 of WGII, his views on the connection between disasters and climate change were severely misrepresented. See: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-does-pielke-think-about-this.html
From the comments on the Second Order Draft, it is clear that Peter Hoeppe from Munich Re pushed to have the section on disasters & climate change revised. Hoeppe’s comments (http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR4/SOD_COMMS/Ch01_SOD_Expert.pdf ) at p. 18 were:
“Munich Re’s comment: On the other hand side, for periods characterized by abnormal warm sea surface temperatures (1926 – 1970 and 1995 – present day) and by abnormal cool sea surface temperatures (1903 – 1925 and 1971 – 1994) in the 20th century we find different distributions of normalized annual losses (losses normalized in the sense of Pielke and Landsea for changes in wealth, population and for inflation). So mean and median of the warm phase loss distribution are much higher than of the cold phase loss distribution and the difference between both distributions is statistically significant (α = 1%). In addition we find much higher percentages of losses exceeding specified thresholds in the warm phase distribution compared to the cold phase distribution (see the table below). Hence the value of loss expectancy is higher for the warm phase loss distribution than for the cold phase distribution. Given a long-term increase in atlantic sea surface temperatures caused by global warming (Agudelo, P. A., Curry, J. A. (2004), GRL 31), we will consequently see higher annual (normalized) losses averaged over periods with higher sea surface temperatures – as already can be observed for the 20th century.
Table: Percentages of years exceeding specified annual loss thresholds in warm and cold phases of the 20th century.
cold phase years warm phase years
> US 1 bn 19 (of 47) 40% 37 (of 56) 66%
> US 5 bn 10 (of 47) 21% 25 (of 56) 45%
> US 10 bn 8 (of 47) 17% 17 (of 56) 30%
(Peter Hoeppe, Munich Re)”
The response from the writing team reads as follows:
“Disasters and Hazards section rewritten”
He also (apparently successfully) pushed the argument that the losses in 2004 and 2005 overrode the assessment in Pielke’s 2003 work (ibid., at p. 121) (Pielke has essentially argued that there is no discernible trend in disaster losses, once you control for factors such as additional development and inflation):
“These previous national US assessments, as well as those for normalized Cuban hurricane losses (Pielke et al. 2003), did not show an significant upward trend in losses over time, but this was before the remarkable hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005.
(Peter Hoeppe, Munich Re)”
To which the response was: “Correct – the last two years are critical”.
Go to Roger Pielke Jnr’s blog to see if that accords with his views.
But it goes on: WGII uses non-peer reviewed work by Munich Re and the ABI, both of which have a decided financial interest in these matters. While the IPCC procedures permit reliance on “grey” (non-peer reviewed) literature, its use is supposed to be limited and carefully controlled. See: http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/extremes-sr/extremes_documents/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf . So, using Munich Re (or the ABI) as a source for certain points is acceptable (as you argue in relation to Greenpeace) – but there are limits.
In WG II, Chapter 10 (p. 489), they rely solely on Munich Re in asserting the following:
“10.4.6.5 Financial aspects
The cost of damages from floods, typhoons and other climate-related hazards will likely increase in the future. According to the European insurer Munich Re, the annual cost of climate change-related claims could reach US$300 billion annually by 2050.”
The first sentence is a truism: development and inflation will take care of that. The climate doesn’t have to change at all. The second sentence, however, ties the increase in damage specifically to “climate change”: there is no reference to normalizing the amounts to control for, among other things, development and inflation. The only cited source for this claim is a reinsurer. Unfortunately, it’s not even apparent the paper that they are relying upon to support the assertion (there is no inline citation, which itself is an error; and Munich Re doesn’t appear in the references to this particular chapter – Munich Re’s work IS cited in several other chapters of WGII, so it presumably is one of those papers.)
Continuing on, they also rely on a non-peer reviewed paper of the Association of British Insurers for the following:
“The Association of British Insurers examined the financial implications of climate change through its effects on extreme storms (hurricanes, typhoons and windstorms) using an insurance catastrophe model (ABI, 2005). Annual insured losses from hurricanes in United States, typhoons in Japan and windstorms in Europe are projected to increase by two-thirds to US$27 billion by the 2080s. The projected increase in insured losses due to the most extreme storms (with current return periods of 100 to 250 years) by the 2080s would be more than twice the reported losses of the 2004 typhoon season, the costliest in terms of damage during the past 100 years.”
Again they are relying on the ABI’s assessment of future climatic effects, conjoined with its estimate of probable losses – all from a paper that is not peer reviewed.
To me, that seems a step too far.
OT
Re: Ian (Jan 25 22:50),
There are other papers listed as well…
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch17s17-references.html
Dore, M. and I. Burton, 2001: The Costs of Adaptation to Climate Change in Canada: A Stratified Estimate by Sectors and Regions – Social Infrastructure. Climate Change Laboratory, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario , 117 pp.
If you go here you will see that the paper is near the bottom — in the non-referred publications.
http://www.brocku.ca/economics/dore/pub.php
As was pointed out — they made a commitment to peer reviewed research.
That was the first paper I picked. I suspect there are more.
(If you feel this is off topic, please snip. We ARE looking at the issue of peer review in the IPCC, which is part of Mr. McIntyre’s original posting.)
I agree with Eldon to this extent: let’s check (more closely than I initially did) on how the sources are used.
The IPCC DOES permit the use of non-peer reviewed literature – statements of its chairman notwithstanding (see my comments above and below).
I think the Munich Re, ABI example I cited is an inappropriate use/reliance. Those numbers are being put out there because they are large & scary, and fit with the general desire to claim that disasters are imminent as a result of climate change. That evidence is not consistent with the peer reviewed literature. Read Roger Pielke Jnr’s excellent dissection of the recent IPCC statement regarding their disasters section (and the Sunday Times article that questioned it).
Re: Ian (Jan 26 12:44),
Ian
I agree with the caution. I think it would be interesting for someone with a strong statistics background to read the paper I cited. There are a number of issues with it — including the authors self-citing. Another issue looks to be that they used their own algorithm for some statistical work — but never supplied it — I’m not sure it’s a big deal.
So yes — look at how the papers are used — but also look at the papers/sources to see what value is contained within.
If I was interested in only seeing peer reviewed material — would i be here? 🙂 SO I guess I am biased.
However, the real issue become whether or not the EPA relied on material with a shaky foundation. …not just a few missing bricks in the wall.
Good points, all. When using non-peer reviewed materials, my understanding is that the IPCC requires the papers in question to be carefully vetted for the very points you’re raising. In other words, they are (in essence) supposed to do some “peer reviewing” to make sure the papers are credible. In particular, the procedures require as follows:
“a. Critically assess any source that they wish to include. This option may be used for instance to obtain case study materials from private sector sources for assessment of adaptation and mitigation options. Each chapter team should review the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source into an IPCC Report.”
Obviously, Lal failed to do that when including the date for the Himalayan glaciers melting.
Re: Ian (Jan 26 14:28),
Ian:
So now we are at the heart of the matter.
All he had to say was “We reviewed it — and we are satisfied”. Of course if a re-inspection finds faulty science — then they are in real trouble — again.
To the point… I read a few of the sources and found them to be advocacy papers. So I don’t think the process is working that well. In many cases they don’t tell you how they went about making their conclusions — so in the absence of stated expertise it makes it tough…
The paper I cited is a little more interesting. Hopefully someone else can read/skim it and make a comment.
Again I would conclude that the EPA is on shaky ground taking the IPCC papers at face value.
AR4 WG2, Chapter 7, Industry, settlement and society. Crichton, D., 2006: Climate change and its effects on small business in the UK. AXAInsurance UK plc., 41 pp.
Peer reviewed in some sense I suppose. The CEO of AXA wrote a forward and signed off on it.
“However, in 2006, insurers also began to communicate directly with their policyholders regarding the rising costs of claims attributed to climate change” (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch7s7-4-2-2.html)
There’s the sentence for which that source is cited. Explain to me the issue.
Issue – peer review, it’s all I’ve ever heard about ref IPCC publications. 2,500 scientists can’t be wrong etc. etc. I’m sure you’ve seen the quotes.
Here’s some peer reviewers for WGIII: Mitigation
B. Hare, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
K. Jardine, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
K. Mallon, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
T. Gulowwsen, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
N Mabey, World Wide Fund for Nature (UK)
F. MacGuire, Friends of the Earth (UK)
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg3/453.htm
and some more
Click to access ar4-wg3-annex4.pdf
G. Von Goerne, Greenpeace (Germany)
S. Sawyer, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
S. Teske, Greenpeace International (Netherlands)
D. Pols, Friends of the Earth (Netherlands)
C. Pearce, Friends of the Earth (UK)
G. Volpl, WWF International (Brazil)
Did you bother to actually look up the credentials of any of these people or is the organization they belong to the only thing that matters?
Re: Eldon Degraw (Jan 26 10:12),
Eldon:
I think with peer review you want know if the person reviewing has expertise, and whether they are likely to have a strong POV through which they view the material.
I picked C. Pearce — second from the bottom (why not?)
Best I could do is this…
http://www.foe.org/search/node/pearce
I guess the issue is that the EPA is basing their (endangerment) findings on IPCC research because it is peer reviewed.
I found one paper (listed earlier) that was not peer reviewed. I have found a reference that seems to point to a “Climate Change Campaign Coordinator of Friends of the Earth ”
The criticism that the IPCC seems to be “weak on peer review” appears to be valid — whether you believe that credentials are necessary or not.
Whether peer review is of value is an open question (after you read this blog in its entirety) — but “What is the alternative?”.
I work in insurance (ratemaking) and can tell you that this is a nonsensical statement. Insurance companies have raised costs in certain lines of business because reinsurance companies had raised prices in 2006/2007, precisely because of terrible hurricane modeling in the atlantic. It was easy to believe such models in the wake of a massive hurricane season, but reinsurance prices have fallen to about where they were before then. In other words, there are no rising costs of claims from climate change, only a brief spike in reinsurance prices from a few hurricanes.
The reason why this matters is because I, a “peer”, could demonstrate that this statement is now (in 2010) false, and that since this statement was not “peer-reviewed”, that never had a chance to happen.
Ok, anonymous person on the internet, what exactly does this source on climate change and it’s affects on small businesses in UK say that is incorrect? What is your area of expertise with regards to small businesses in the UK?
Um, that would be “effects”.
That specific sentence you quoted pertained only to insurance companies and costs to policyholders. I commented on the fact that the only reason insurance prices have risen in this context was because catastrophe reinsurance prices rose in 2006-2007 (but have since fallen). It is my belief that reinsurers simply took advantage of the catastrophes and raised prices (google “reinsurance sidecars” for the basis of my belief) without any actual evidence or reason to expect increased frequency/severity of hurricanes in the future.
In the article you link to above, prices are only shown to have risen outside of the U.S. because of reinsurance (on U.S./Atlantic hurricane treaties); the rest of the article deals with hypothetical statements. Obviously, “if” climate change increases insurance risk, insurance prices would go up, but no such effect has ever been demonstrated.
Re: Carl Gullans (Jan 26 09:16),
Carl, I’ll accept your comments wrt insurance rates.
Let me state an analogy that fits with your insurance background and that applies to EPA Endangerment. I’ll try to be brief but I know a little about economic forecasting. Some people pay quite a lot for some forecasts. I think it’s fair to say that any honest forecaster will tell you they’re not very good. They are always working off old data, needing to update quarterly as the old data from agencies gets ‘refined’ and by the time the last, ‘good’, forecast update is completed it looks like hindsight. It’s already been a year and it’s time to start the next year’s forecast.
The reason one would pay for one (or a subscription) is that it’s a form of weak insurance. One doesn’t believe it, one may not act on it, but one is going to feel dumb and lose competitiveness if parts of the forecast were correct and one didn’t plan ahead using their own risk assessments.
One ethical rule should be don’t blame the honest forecaster- They were upfront about what they’re doing and then one makes one’s own assessment of risks. The honest forecasters will not try to favor one over another, they will not have conflicts of interest, and they will not have a pre-determined outcome in mind. They want to make their money by supplying their work (including models) to anyone willing to subscribe.
Can that analogy be applied to IPCC and the EPA Endangerment finding? I say yes. In each of the details of the analogy one can assess whether IPCC was honest, lacked COI, was upfront, etc. Did EPA properly assess the risks by critically looking at the forecasters?
One last comment about “terrible hurricane modeling”. Were the models terrible or did one simply choose to believe without performing one’s own risk assessment, including studying the uncertainties in the hurricane forecasts?
meh, I think it’s a good analogy.
Every company needs to buy reinsurance if you underwrite property, and if all reinsurers use models, then that’s what you have to live with. I believe that hurricane frequency modeling is completely inadequate; predicting even the number of storms is always way off, let alone predicting strength, where they will hit, etc. Severity modeling is a much easier exercise; given that a hurricane of strength X hits area Y, this will likely cost around Z. This should be possible to model well, but accurate frequencies are a long way off (NOAA can’t do this well either). Reinsurers should be more accurate than NOAA because they can charge rates reflecting the expected frequency over many years, but it is still very imprecise.
Having said that, I have not looked at how well replicated such models are, as I doubt they are public, and nothing would come of it (companies still need to buy reins. regardless). My basis for their poor skill is that NOAA is incapable of predicting annual hurricanes well at all, and that I don’t imagine reinsurers could do much better. It is certainly possible that I am wrong.
FYI: none of the above are the views of my company, simply my own.
Eldon:
I assume you read the sections dealing with financial & economic loss that I cited, and the IPCC’s reliance on Munich Re and ABI as their sole sources for those numbers. Do you find their use of non-peer reviewed (in the the case of Munich Re, non-cited) papers in that case acceptable?
The problem for the IPCC is that the whole question of peer review has been elevated by them to the ultimate standard. When asked by the India Times as to whether the Indian government’s assessment of the state of the Himalayan glaciers (which contradicted 4AR) would be included in the next IPCC report, Pachauri famously retorted:
“IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin”
(source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-proof-of-Himalayan-ice-melting-due-to-climate-change/articleshow/5213045.cms )
Now, Pachauri is clearly wrong – in that the IPCC procedures I cited stipulate the basis on which non-peer reviewed literature may be utilized. The problem, however, is that there is their willingness to rely on this material apparently only arises when it confirms the catastrophic predictions the IPCC wishes to make.
I haven’t had time to read up on all the Munich RE stuff yet. But as it’s been explained here in the comments I don’t think it was an acceptable use of non-peer reviewed literature.
I’ll try and read it more in-depth this afternoon (the Colorado.edu links in Pielke’s post aren’t working right now)
As an US citizen, its wonderful and great fun to see one Canadian skate circles around the US hockey team.
Perhaps the gameplan is for the US economy to get stimulated by all the lawsuits and jobs for lawyers that seem to be coming. My only worry is all the legal hot air to come may save the day for Jimmy Hansen and Gav.
Very pithy.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about the legal hot air though. I’ve been an attorney for 16 years, and I can assure you that most of the bar is cold blooded.
Ah good . . . a lawyer.
Many of the posts on this page assert that the EPA administrator intends to proceed – no matter what the statutes say. If that is the case, how close do you, MattinTexas, think the administrator, Lisa Jackson, would be skirting 18 USC 242, that is, acting under color of law.
Not close at all in my opinion. It would be more like boldly crossing the line. But when those same people control the one’s charged with enforcing the law, don’t expect to much in that regard.
It seems pretty clear to me that “the fix was in” on the EPA thing anyway, sadly.
Tho what I admire most about Steve and CA is the patient (well, mostly. . .) and tireless (always) insistence that *process matters*, and he’s not going to just slink away into the night no matter how many powerful voices attempt to brow-beat otherwise about “so long as the answer is correct. . . “, because he understands at a bone-deep level that you can never have confidence that the answer *is* correct if the process sucks.
Actually, add Anthony to that as well. . . I know of no greater hommage to “process matters” in recent years than surfacestations.org.
Professor Jerry North does not inspire confidence as regards his ethical commitment to rigor.
Once upon a time, you might have expected a guy with Texas A&M would be motivated to do his best. Days gone by, apparently.
Gerry North, chairman of the NRC Report on Surface Temperature Reconstructions, (which is cited in the EPA Technical Support Document) stated in a seminar at his university that they “didn’t do any research”, that they got 12 “people around the table” and “just kind of winged it.” He said “that’s what you do in that kind of expert panel”.
This is the famous BOGSAT simulation……Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table.
Re: EdeF (Jan 25 22:59),
Sort of sounds like the Bistrodrive or whatever it was called in the Hitchhiker’s guide series. If you’ll recall it was the successor to the Infinite Improbability Drive. All of which is strangely on-topic for this thread.
BOGSAT – that is too funny. Consider that stolen and used in the future. You could even blend it into old jokes, coming up with ‘a camel is a horse put through BOGSAT modelling’.
Steve,
I’m not a scientist. I’ve not played one on TV. Feel free to snip this at any time. I’ve been reading your blog regularly for the last five months. I’ve felt many a moment of righteous indignation but have not felt moved to comment.
This particular post struck a real chord with me as “joe citizen,” “average tax payer.” I’m in financial services and have been for twenty years. We face strict regulation and pubic disclosure. Yet still some really bad, really inappropriate products get by everyone–including the regulators–and when they do, they usually smell like marketing and PR covered with bad math.
From what I gather in your submission to the EPA, things have gone exponentially beyond marketing and into the realm of the elite, old boys network at worst and just plain, sloppy, arrogant we know best politics at best. I know there’s not a lot to choose between worst and best in this case.
I am so angry that an organization (EPA) established for the greater public good can so easily ignore its own rules, though I can see how they may attempt to play fast and loose with those rules. What I can’t understand is how, when faced with documented evidence, they can still move forward, steadfast in their mission to meet the “prime objective.”
I’m still not sure about “global warming,” but I’m insulted by this attitude that runs through post after post, blog after blog, that “what I believe must be true and to believe otherwise is heresy. In addition I will not accept any question outside of what I have already decided to be true.”
Thank you for bringing light and providing context to what so many would readily sweep under the carpet.
I don’t think I’ve really expressed what I want to say but I can’t help but picture the three monkeys–hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
I apologize to all of you regulars for these broad statements, but I can’t be the only one on the outside who becomes disturbingly unsettled when they read how “the people in charge” slough off the very real, very clear indicators of ignorance, ambition and stupidity.
How does one get the message to the mainstream that we’re being toyed with?
“”but I can’t be the only one on the outside who becomes disturbingly unsettled when they read how “the people in charge” slough off the very real, very clear indicators of ignorance, ambition and stupidity.””
Well put and my thoughts exactly.
>I know, piling on< snip as necessary
Consider me piled on, too.
As a criminal defense attorney in private practice, civil liberties, liberty in general, and economics are issues that frame my worldview. The reason I have made it almost a hobby of mine to stay abreast of the AGW issue is the effect that mitigation policies would have on personal and financial liberty.
I have become increasingly concerned that the AGW alarmists, on both the scientific and public policy side, may have a completely different view of what constitutes “the greater public good.” A great deal depends on what “public” you are speaking of, and what constitutes “good.” What seems like malfeasance to one person may not be to someone with a different definition of those terms.
Your point is well taken MattinTexas.
It’s why I believe Steve’s approach makes the most sense. If you have a stated procedure, do you follow that procedure? Are you accountable to that procedure? Are you transparent in your dealings? It’s very difficult for IPCC or EPA not to eventually comply with their own rules and regulations without losing credibility. In this way, there is a lesser likelihood that subjective criteria, as you point out, can dominate any discourse.
This came out in the UK to a degree that surprised even me in a packed auditorium with a number of famous journalists and writers present at Free Word, London base for the literary great and good concerned with freedom of expression across the world. (For example the excellent Libel Reform Campaign to rectify the UK’s terrible laws in that area.) This was the chosen venue for the debate on Climategate between George Monbiot and James Delingpole on 3rd December. Strictly the debate wasn’t about Climategate but about whether it is ever justifiable to liken AGW sceptics to holocaust deniers, as Monbiot had once done in print (and for which he offered a limited apology, is about the best one can say) – but it soon got broader.
I set the scene a little more than I have before partly because I think I still haven’t fully processed all that went on that night, good and bad. I did refer to one of the worst moments the next day on Climate Audit. During questions from the floor someone behind me astounded me by seeking to justify the perverting of the peer review process, as he admitted had gone on at CRU, in order to get people to act, because this would save so many millions of lives in the end. The other side of the coin inevitably being making criminals of those old-fashioned enough to oppose this kind of thing.
I was grateful that Monbiot at once distanced himself from this suggestion. But, if I’m any judge of an audience, there were far too many who were sympathetic. Which is the kind of thing Matt is talking about I think.
The atmosphere has changed radically in the UK since 3rd December but it’s worth being aware where some of the opposition are willing to let their logic take them.
All power to Steve’s emphasis on due process, at Matt says.
snip
Steve: I ask readers not to make angry posts. Be more cheerful.
Is the dam about to burst?
The following link is to Andrew Neil’s BBC blog and is quite damning about the IPPC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/01/the_dam_is_cracking.html#comments
Among highly paid BBC TV presenters, Andrew Neil deserves a medal. He’s been asking intelligent, pointed questions about all aspects of the climate change story longer than anyone that I’ve seen. He’s never lost his cool or professionalism. He’s shown it can be done. If this -> OT I’ve no complaints. I’m glad to pay tribute to the guy, even for a moment. There were many others who were completely silent when it really counted.
Not this time.
As a consumer(non-technical) I agree with the comments with respect to the EPA and their apparent disregard of standards. I just wonder why, for example, did it take so long to find out about the use of the WWF(I thought this was the Worldwide Wresting Federation!, my bad) as a techical source??
The Wresting Federation may have been better.
snip – editorializing
One WWF is about a well choreographed battle between the forces of good and evil where the outcome is never in doubt and the other WWF is about wrestling.
Steve,
Have you had any correspondence with Senator Murkowski’s office. It seems that this information, specifically your submission to EPA would be useful in her efforts to pass a resolution of disapproval in the US Senate which would be the first step in taking CO2 off the pollutant list.
OT
I think the following email between scientists is germane to peer review.
“I have extracted a part of the email below which reads as follows:-
“Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those names!”
From: Joseph Alcamo
To: m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Rob.Swart@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100
Reply-to: alcamo@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Mike, Rob,
Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.
I would like to weigh in on two important questions —
Distribution for Endorsements —
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as
possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is
numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500
signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000
without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a
different story.
Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking
them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those
names!
Timing — I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.
1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there was
a sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect
that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.
2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am
afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any
time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear
about it.
3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have
it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spread
the word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be so
bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a
diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from two
very different directions.
Conclusion — I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17
November at the latest.
Mike — I have no organized email list that could begin to compete
with the list you can get from the Dutch. But I am still
willing to send you what I have, if you wish.
Best wishes,
Joe Alcamo
Now that the tipping point has been passed for speaking out against the IPCC there seems to be an international competition to find claims in the AR4 that are not supported by peer reviewed science.
How about starting a similar competition to find peer reviewed science that was considered by the IPCC but was excluded because it did not support the conclusion of CO2 forced AGW?
I’ll Start:
In Working Group I: The Scientific Basis http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/246.htm) the Svensmark and Friis-Christensen paper of 1997 was rejected ostensibly because “At present there is insufficient evidence to confirm that cloud cover responds to solar variability.” There was of course no mention that cosmic ray influence on clouds would reinforce the case of natural variation of climate.
The fact that there was not sufficient evidence to confirm that clouds cause a positive temperature feedback to CO2 forced warming did not prevent that assumption from being included in the climate models.
For what it’s worth, a Google search for “Svensmark and Friis-Christensen ” and “references” yields 14,000 hits. But that’s not “settled science” like the work of the WWF
Soory about this I have done it again? The email addresses ar not email addresses but the @ sign makes them appear such.
I read today on Grist that the IPCC allows non-peer reviewed reports to be published in their reports:
“We were allowed to cite gray literature provided that it looked to us to be good science.”
Here’s the link:
http://www.grist.org/article/exclusive-un-scientist-refutes-daily-mail-claim-he-said-himalayan-glacier/
And here’s the ipcc link to the document that the scientist was noting:
Click to access ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf
Here’s what it says:
“PROCEDURE FOR USING NON-PUBLISHED/NON-PEER-REVIEWED SOURCES IN IPCC REPORTS”
youtube has several talks posted on Mass vs. EPA.
e.g.
snip – OT
snip – policy
Donna Laframboise has just posted on her blog nofrakkinconsensus.ogr a short list of non-scientist GreenPeace staffers who were reviewers of AR4 together with IPCC cites of GreenPeace reports as authoritative, peer reviewed source material. The background information that she found on the GreenPeace reviewers leads me to ask if anyone out there is aware of any source who has vetted out the 2500 reviewers that IPCC claims on the cover of AR4? If a significant number of the reviewers have similar profiles then the IPCC will incur yet another significant blow to its already shaky credibility.
Sorry, should be nofrakkinconsensus.org
With profound apologies: http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/01/greenpeace-and-nobel-winning-climate_28.html
Steve E, I sent an email with links to Steve McI’s EPA submissionsto Sen. Murkowski’s aide who is handling EPA matters. Copied text to Steve McI. Should probably go the Sen. Inhofe’s aide who covers EPA. As an fyi, Inhofe was publically criticizing AGW several months before Sen. Murkowski became involved. I will send links to Sen. Inhofe’s aide tomorrow PM (1/29) unless I find objections posted here.
Good work Ray! I don’t think we can assume (especially with all we’ve seen on this site) that everyone does their research. Steve’s EPA submission makes a strong case in support of Murkowski’s resolution and she seems to have a good base of support. If she can swing 7 votes this resolution has legs.
“Move Afoot in the Senate to Can EPA CO2 Regs
By Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media
“The resolution has 38 co-sponsors, including three Democrats (Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana). If all 41 Senate Republicans vote for the measure, Sen. Murkowski will need only seven additional Democrats to vote “yes” to obtain the 51 votes required for passage. (Under Senate rules, a CRA resolution of disapproval cannot be filibustered and thus does not need 60 votes to ensure passage.)”
http://www.icecap.us/
It isn’t just AR4. Multiple citations to WWF were found in AR3 as well:
http://climatequotes.com/2010/01/31/more-wwf-citations-found-in-ar3-three-alongside-cru/
Some of them were even done together with the CRU!
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