Should the IPCCs data be tossed out & their conclusions be voided since the discovery that the data was flawed

Question

Independent congressional reviews found that the IPCC's techniques and methods seriously and fundamentally flawed.

Some of the errors discovered:

The peer reviewers had conflicts of interest

faulty methods of statistical analysis

incorrect interpretation of data

In all, the IPCC clearly violated 60 of the 127 principles relevant in assessing the IPCC predictions.

Since the faulty data puts the conclusions in doubt, should the conclusions of the IPCC be tossed out and a newer, accurate study be done? Should we put actions on global warming on hold to see IF in fact the Earth does warm up?

or do you believe the IPCC's data is good enough, since it supports your premises?

Answer 1

NAS did not say what Bob says they said.  They said the hockey stick is good going back 400 years -i.e., for most of the Little Ice Age.   Nobody argued with that and there was no reason to think otherwise.

The question was with respect to the MWP - why the MWP didn't show up.   And the MWP didn't show up because they based the reconstructions on tree rings which are bad proxies, and based upon assumptions about the relationship between tree ring width and temperature that turned out to be inaccurate.

Answer 2

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/barton...

Answer 3

You're recycling Armstrong and Green.  Haven't you got anything better?  This is why you skeptics are just getting crushed intellectually.  Armstrong's analysis is a joke.  

A&G review:

http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Pub...

Note how A&G only look at one chapter from the IPCC AR4 and how a lot of the negative marks are for "WTF" type categories like "Use structured judgments as inputs to quantitative models" and "Use objective procedures to estimate explicit prediction"?  That one chapter was on climate models themselves, not on the predictions from them.  The climate simulations are in WG2.  So most of these "metrics" used by Armstrong are inappropriate for Chapter 8 of WG1.  Here's one response to A&G's "analysis:"

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/...

Edit:  Five:  The key point is that A&G rate a chapter on the physics of the models using metrics for statistical forecasting.  Also, and this may have gotten past you, "forecasting" for Armstrong has a specific meaning that is not what model projections are.  If you take the time to read up on the difference, what Trenburth says will make more sense.  Basically, Armstrong jiggered his analysis specifically to make the IPCC look bad.  If Armstrong had been more honest, and not just trying to make political hay, he would have used the report from WG2 on the results of climate simulations and used metrics designed specifically for those climate projections rather than ones designed for statistical forecasting.  The difference between statistical forecasting as defined by Armstrong and the deterministic model projections made for the IPCC report is a subtle point, and one that you can easily misinterpret if you are simply looking for reasons to doubt there is any need for a lifestyle change on your part, but it is central to this issue.  Had Armstrong done it correctly, the IPCC maybe wouldn't look so bad.  He in essence judged a men's gymnastic pommel-horse routine using a scoring system designed for women's 10-m platform diving (in both cases grace, fluidity, strength count, but it's simply different).  Is that result valid?  Who knows?

Answer 4

Nope.

This article is just the same old junk.  It talks about the Hockey Stick, whose accuracy has essentially been confirmed by many subsequent reconstructions.

http://globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:1...

In fact, the Wegman analysis of the Hockey Stick discussed in the article has been proven to be amateurish and wrong.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/p...

Then it talks about the surface temperature record, whose accuracy has been confirmed by several different methods, including a comparision to the satellite lower troposphere measurements.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Then it talks about the analysis of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank.  Pardon me for not caring what a right-wing think tank thinks about climate science, considering the history of right-wing think tanks on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ce...

Basically the whole article is based on a right-wing think tank using old, disproven arguments.  No wonder it's in the Washington Times.

Answer 5

Wow. And liberals call US mind-numbed robots!

Archaeological digs in Newfoundland PROVE that the Northwest Passage was open to the Vikings in the past. And yet the IPCC insists that it's hotter now than ever.

R   I   G   H   T.

And if you believe that, it's no wonder you believe the Hockey Stick Lie.

More Koolaid?

Answer 6

THEY SHOULD BE SUED FOR FRAUD!!!!!!

The founder of GREENPEACE says Gore is full of c**p

The guy who started the Weather Channel says Gore is full of c**p

Hundreds of scientists from Virginia to Oregon says he is full of c**p!

The only scientists perpetuating this scheme are those who want to tap into the Billions he promised them for the research to SIMPLY PROVE IT!

So, they should be sued, disbarred and whatever other professional titles they have should be removed permanently!  

And they say big business has brainwashed???

The media is more economically detrimental to this country than Al Queda, Iraq, Afghanistan and Oil COMBINED!!!!!

Answer 7

Most people have no idea how much they are being bombarded with disinformation about global warming from those who want to protect their interests and their power.

The Wall St Journal printed a phoney article about science disproving AGW. The real scientists have debunked it. Real scientists bring their findings to other scientists, not the mass media, to influence the public. It wasn't even a published scientific paper, it was a manuscript. Why wasn't it published? Because it would have had to pass scientific review.

Sen Imhofe had a list of 400 supposed skeptical scientists that turned out to be phony.  

  The truth is that the IPCC scientists have purposely understated the severity of the situation. The actual scientific evidence is more extreme than what they predicted.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/0... The Cold Truth about Global Warming by Joseph Romm  Shows how IPCC scientists have understated the severity and certainty of AGW so as not to seem alarmist.  And explains what is really meant by consensus among climate scientists.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~davidc/...

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/26/wsj-...

http://www.envsci.nau.edu/sisk/courses/e...

  

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_ar...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_peti...   dispells the myth about 17,000 scientists who are skeptics on AGW

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics    

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfact...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Answer 8

I guess the alarmists aren't intellectually honest enough to admit that there are some seriously flaws in the IPCC's methods.

The mantra of the alarmists has been and continues to be the almighty peer review.  As I have said before, peer reviews are only as good as the peers.  There continue to be massive conflicts of interest among the great and powerful peers.  The peers doing peer reviews have a vested interest in seeing results in favor of global warming.  They stand to lose large amounts of money and even larger amounts of credibility, respect, and pride.

The location of the weather stations doesn't matter?  That has got to be the most asinine comment I have read in many a moon.  There are some that are within 4 or 5 feet of a blacktop.  One sits in front of a parking spot.  Another sits near exhaust fans of an air conditioning unit.  And Bob thinks this has no effect on the temperature readings.  No wonder so many people believe in AGW.  We have lemmings running around believing everything they hear.

All of this leads to something we have known for many years now.  The IPCC is more of a political group than a scientific group.  The alarmists just want to call names all the while turning attention away from the fact that the researchers can't find any indication that the IPCC even realizes there are standards to be met when forecasting climate change.

The data is flawed, and the alarmists know it.  They are trying to cover it up with lots of gibberish and partisan attacks on skeptics.

I would love to know how AGW alarmists have determined the global annual temperatures over the last 1000 years.  When you are talking about a 0.7 C increase being tremendous, I am interested to find out what technology has been used to determine the precise temperature from tree rings.

EDIT: gcnp58, what a wonderul link you have provided us.  I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to prove though.

"In fact IPCC does not do forecasts, as explained in my earlier post. The IPCC instead proffers "what if" projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios."

What?  Are you kidding me?  Maybe they do only "proffer" what if projections, but they base those what if scenarios on particular changes in the atmosphere.  Then they state that those changes are occurring and tell everyone that their what if scenario will take place based on those changes.  To say they don't make forecasts is intellectual dishonesty at its finest.  

"In particular there is clear evidence (“warming is unequivocal”) that climate is changing in ways consistent with the climate forcings."

Umm, forcings?  So, is he saying that the climate models have to be forced to produce the accurate results?  If so, how can we rely on future projections, err forecasts, which are based on a model that has to be corrected?

"Armstrong has evidently read only chapter 8"

Evidently?  Shouldn't you verify what they did or did not do instead of assuming?

"The authors should recognize that IPCC does not make forecasts but rather makes projections to guide policy and decision makers."

According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

forecast: To estimate or calculate in advance, especially to predict (weather conditions) by analysis of meteorological data.

project: A prediction or an estimate of something in the future, based on present data or trends.

Someone, anyone please explain the difference!!  The point of this quote is that the IPCC bases their forecasts, err projections, on politics not honest science.

"Hence the projection will not be correct as actions are being taken to make it so. As such it is not a forecast of what will actually happen."

Let me translate this nugget of wisdom.  Projections, err forecasts, will not come true because someone somewhere is doing something.  Great science, guys, simply outstanding.  Perhaps a better methodology is to review the data instead of just assuming that someone's actions threw the projection off.  Maybe alarmists like this don't want to do that because they will find that their projections, err forecasts, were wrong to begin with.  You would have to eat a whole lot of crow to say, "Gee, I said if the CO2 levels reach a certain point, the Earth will become a burning ball of fire.  Looking back, I now realize that I was wrong because the CO2 levels reached the point and the Earth didn't erupt in flames.  I WAS WRONG."  Instead, it will be "the Earth didn't erupt in flames because someone somewhere stopped eating beans and thus stopped farting which decreased the GHG to a significant level below the point of criticality.  We narrowly averted a disaster.  Thanks to that someone somewhere."  Ridiculous.

Thanks again, gcnp58.  I haven't had that good of a laugh in quite a while.

Answer 9

"or do you believe the IPCC's data is good enough"

You got it.

The "hockey stick" is an excellent example of how relatively minor flaws don't change basic conclusions.

The National Academy of Sciences criticized the statistical methods used, but stated that the basic conclusion (that we're warmer now than in the past 1000 years) was correct.

Careful analysis of the temperature data shows that urbanization has not altered the measured rise in temperature significantly.

This is just the very few "skeptics" picking at the data with minor issues.  It changes nothing.

EDIT - Here's exactly what the NAS says:  "Estimating the Earth’s global-average temperature becomes increasingly difficult going further back in time due to the decreasing availability of reliable proxy evidence, but the available evidence indicates that most regions are warmer now than at any other time since at least A.D. 900."

They're a VERY conservative organization, so the wording is not absolute, but it's clear.

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

The MWP didn't show up because of the statistical methods used.  Better statistics show the MWP, and also show we're now warmer.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

Answer 10

Hahah. you really had me there for a second, Dr. J. What with all your talk of Independent congressional reviews finding the IPCC's techniques and methods seriously and fundamentally flawed, I figured there must have been some recent development I was unaware of. Then I clicked your link and realized it was just a rehashing of the ages old "hockey stick" garbage. And then I Iol'd.

Answer 11

Throw it out and get someone in there that can do a good study. Suspend everything supporting GW as it is being taught in our schools like it was true.

Answer 12

A Right Wing rag makes a lot of unsupported statements about IPCC so you want IPCC banished or something?  Have you had your head examined recently?