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IPCC Reviewer Slams IPCC Report
New
Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Wednesday December 12, 2007
Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers
Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to
support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures.
Dr Gray wrote:
Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations
of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed.
I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the
start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts.
It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final
Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive
study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout
their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and
comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers,
a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer
queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on
the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical
principles.
Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating
questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts
were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were
frustrated indefinitely.
Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of
the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations,
until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts
of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed
are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these
problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only
rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part
of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that
the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could
envisage, would be its abolition.
I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the
scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound.
Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate
Truth Newsletters (see under “Links” on this website).
The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that
"the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide
emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is
fatally flawed.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph
showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.
This claim fails from two fundamental facts
1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any
period, has ever been made.
How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have
a single "local" average?
What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make
one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer.
The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could
agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential
bias is more than the claimed "global warming.
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly
near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based
on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected"
It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these
uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA
and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were
able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely
And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however
measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As
a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming".
The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the
non-existent "warming"
The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing
the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have
manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists)
that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order
to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not
like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric
carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by
Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals.
Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers.
Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to
calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula
involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures,
the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation.
The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is
therefore biased in an upwards direction.
My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate"
computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve
proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the
range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this
procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use
of a model for prediction.
No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should
be used for prediction. They sort of accept this by never permitting the
use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But
they then go ahead predicting anyway.
There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing,
is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to
this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public
have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating"
models.
The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations
that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit
to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence
is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures.
The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far
more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually
capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them
by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial
interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed
to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of
the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts". It has
been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which
are assigned fake "probability" levels.
By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona
non grata with most of my local professional associations, Surely, I am
questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of
the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what
is involved.
I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed
"The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it.
The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given
the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence"
that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves
manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science
to "prove" their case.
The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable.
The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions"
emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global
warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or
later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking
behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to
be done by its influence before that happens.
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