UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article

whats’ that eco-nazis’ tell us- we’re not scientists’ and therefore should shut up..lol!!

UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article
The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent and Rebecca Lefort
Published: 9:00PM GMT 30 Jan 2010

Comments 28 | Comment on this article

Officials were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers Photo: GETTY
The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

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Second blunder by UN climate science panel In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.

This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and its conclusions are unaffected.

But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCC’s use of unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature.

Professor Richard Tol, one of the report’s authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: “These are essentially a collection of anecdotes.

“Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been.

“There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense.”

The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by government’s worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people.

The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled “Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming”.

It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000.

The report also states that the section is intended to “assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects”.

But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.

The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s.

Mr Bowen said: “I am surprised that they have cited an article from a climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes.”

The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps.

Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons.

The IPCC has faced growing criticism over the sources it used in its last report after it emerged the panel had used unsubstantiated figures on glacial melting in the Himalayas that were contained within a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.

It can be revealed that the IPCC report made use of 16 non-peer reviewed WWF reports.

One claim, which stated that coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby, quoted a feature article on the WWF website.

In fact the data contained within the WWF article originated from a paper published in 2004 in the respected journal Nature.

In another example a WWF paper on forest fires was used to illustrate the impact of reduced rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data was from another Nature paper published in 1999.

When The Sunday Telegraph contacted the lead scientists behind the two papers in Nature, they expressed surprise that their research was not cited directly but said the IPCC had accurately represented their work.

The chair of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri has faced mounting pressure and calls for his resignation amid the growing controversy over the error on glacier melting and use of unreliable sources of information.

A survey of 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report showed, however, that the majority still support Mr Pachauri and the panel’s vice chairs. They also insisted the overall findings of the report are robust despite the minor errors.

But many expressed concern at the use of non-peer reviewed information in the reports and called for a tightening of the guidelines on how information can be used.

The Met Office, which has seven researchers who contributed to the report including Professor Martin Parry who was co-chair of the working group responsible for the part of the report that contained the glacier errors, said: “The IPCC should continue to ensure that its review process is as robust and transparent as possible, that it draws only from the peer-reviewed literature, and that uncertainties in the science and projections are clearly expressed.”

Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation Resources for the Future who also contributed to the IPCC’s latest report, added: “The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy.

“It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative studies ignoring more positive alternatives.”

The IPCC failed to respond to questions about the inclusion of unreliable sources in its report but it has insisted over the past week that despite minor errors, the findings of the report are still robust and consistent with the underlying science.

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MINOR ERROR- SAME MINOR ERROR THAT LEAD TO THE IRAQ WAR- ERROR=LIES!

The errors in the IPCC report are only “minor” errors if, firstly, they do not amount to misrepresentations of fact or evidence, and secondly, they were not relied upon in any way by law-makers as a reason for adjusting their previous position on CO2 emissions in favour of statutory intervention.

In reality, of course, the exaggerations were part and parcel of a matrix of information designed to paint a picture of imminent catastrophe, without which the wheels of government might not have moved at all.

Whatever the original motivations of the manipulators, the fact remains that the IPCC is now a discredited organisation, and its report has been criticised even by its own contributors. It seems common sense therefore for the UK, perhaps in co-operation with the EC to divorce itself from the IPCC and undertake its own investigation into the phenomenon which currently goes by the name “climate change.”

I realise of course that this may provoke a scramble to load the committee with one mind set, but at least there will be an opportunity to start afresh and be more inclusive of hitherto muzzled climate scientists. Listening to both sides before formulating environmental policy is just plain commen sense. Otherwise, it’s all just voodoo.
Helen Barker
on January 31, 2010
at 12:24 PM
Report this commentPolly, what is wrong with using local knowledge is that it is not an application of the Scientific Method (question, research, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, communicate results). I am an engineer by eduction and vocation and am appalled by the fraud being perpetrated by the global warming crowd. I have always had a bit of a problem with some of the sciences, such as astronomy, zoology, biology to some extent, and ‘climate change science’, since they cannot apply the full scientific method by performing experimentation (how does one perform an experiment on a supernova?). The two most pure sciences are physics and chemistry since they do direct experimentation and measurement. Most others have to rely on observation of a phenomenon and fit those observations to the hypothesis. At the very least, with all the millions of being spent on ‘climate change science’, I would have expected that there would have been legions of researchers out measuring the loss of ice in glaciers. That they’ve relied on dubious sources for their information and not direct observation and measurement and then tried to pass that off as ‘science’ is inexcusable behavior for a scientist. The other thing that upsets me is that science requires a healthy give and take of ideas and have peer review of experiments and hypotheses. While there are certainly political aspects to science (the history of science is replete with politics), those in the sciences generally respect each other. in ‘climate change science’, those who question methods, results, hypotheses are called climate change deniers. This smacks more of a religious dogma than of a reasoned scientific approach. A real scientist would welcome a challenge to their work – if it stands up to scrutiny by peer review, it is probably right – if not, then peer review has found the fallacies in the work. These ‘climate change’ scientists are not scientists since they refuse to allow their work to be questioned. But as we are now finding out, their work is mostly fabricated, ignoring results that don’t fit their theory, and sheer faith in their belief. That’s a religion, not science.
Bob
on January 31, 2010
at 12:24 PM
Report this commentThis government of non-entities has fallen hook line and sinker for the climate change fallacy, a convenient “reason” to transfer billions from the West to the third world, which fits in well with their trendy lefty agenda. Cameron’s liberal lot are almost as stupid. The Telegraph must stick to its guns and keep on exposing the lies.
gray
on January 31, 2010
at 12:24 PM
Report this commentJust out of curiosity–are these the *only* two citations in the report? Or are they two among *hundreds*? And if the latter is the case, it would hardly be unusual to have 2 non-peer reviewed citations among hundreds of scientific cites, depending upon what those cites are intended to support.
Interpretive Thought
on January 31, 2010
at 12:05 PM
Report this commentDon’t worry folks , even though they have been found out again they will call all the doubters ‘flat earthers’ or ‘on a par with holocaust deniers’.
I have to ask myself just how does a railway engineer become the world’s ‘leading expert’ on climatology .
Stephen
on January 31, 2010
at 12:04 PM
Report this commentFollow the money…..
LadyChurchill
on January 31, 2010
at 12:02 PM
Report this commentAh yes, we’ve been here a lot in the past ten years or so. In principle, policy is supposed to be driven by robust evidence that stands up to certain tests. In practice, what we actually see is policy-based evidence. Reminds me a bit of the dodgy dossier.
RobertOxford
on January 31, 2010
at 12:02 PM
Report this commentWhat isn’t mentioned is that receeding glaciers and snow caps in many areas like the Andes, India, Mt. Kilimangaro(sp) are do in fact to the deforestation around them that no longer supplies the moisture neccesary for the snow to develop in the first place. This months National Geographic talks about the growing glacier in Chiles, Patagonia.
Tom
on January 31, 2010
at 11:50 AM
Report this commentGlobal Warming now resembles a religion much more than a science. It even comes complete with an initial Eden-like rainforest, Mankind’s fall from grace through an Original Sin of enjoying the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge (the industrial revolution) and a great flood sent to destroy Mankind for our evil industry.

Only large donations to the high priests of the UN-IPCC, can wash away our collective guilt. Mankind may be saved from the apocalyptic wrath of AGW – but only if we repent and change our sinful ways.

Only with a religion could you have so many of the Global Warming apocalyptic stories and “science” discredited, and yet still have true believers continuing to keep the faith.

It is time to take a hard look at the facts and to stop believing these stories.

Alarming Stories Vs. the Facts:

“Polar sea ice levels are actually decreasing rapidly, polar bears are starving as a result of not being able to get out onto it to hunt, and sea levels are rising fast and will drown London and many Island nations”

No – Polar sea ice levels are not decreasing rapidly – quite the opposite:

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007.

No – Polar Bears are not starving – they are increasing very rapidly:

The global polar bear population has at least quadrupled in 40 years. Estimates from about 1970 – when they tightly regulated hunting, suggested about 5-6,000, and now the estimate is about 25,000.

No – sea levels are not rising at all.

The world’s leading authority on sea levels is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Morner, formerly chairman of the International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the verdict of Dr Morner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.

Despite fluctuations down as well as up, “the sea is not rising,” he says. “It hasn’t risen in 50 years.”

It is time to wake up & start examining the facts & science critically. Unless, you prefer to have faith in the new apocalypse, prophesied to come and punish Mankind for our terrible sins?…

The world is ending, Repent now – before it’s too late!

Stephen Just
on January 31, 2010
at 11:44 AM
Report this commentThe bottom line is that the IPCC is no longer fit for purpose. It should be disbanded and replaced by a panel of proven climate scientists who will approach the matter in an entirely objective manner.
And all the grants that have been given to Pachauri’s organisation in India should be reclaimed.
Rentner
on January 31, 2010
at 11:40 AM
Report this commentAn old English Proverb – ‘There are none so blind as those who cannot see’ and a quotation from Jean Giraudoux ‘All men are the same. They take no notice of the stag in the thicket because they’re already chasing the hare.’
Both refer both to the believers and sceptics as far as the alleged Global Warning phenomenon is concerned. Until the Scientists produce real and believable research we will never know the truth.
Peter Holme
on January 31, 2010
at 11:30 AM
Report this commentIt is high time these criminals are prosecuted and sued for our money back!

The IPCC has been blatantly misleading the world on a number of issues. Al Gore should be investigated for his likely role in this deception and fraud.

The Telegraph really should push for this investigation and criminal prosecution, in spite of its controversial nature.

Well done to The Telegraph for exposing these climate criminals!

Stephen Just
on January 31, 2010
at 11:29 AM
Report this commentIt’s called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not Climate Science. Don’t any of the warmers get it? They have to find this so called change or they don’t have a reason to exist. It’s like all the other climate groups that have sprung up based on this nonsense. They can’t go back now, they’re all in. Gore’s one of them. I think the guy’s an idiot, but I also think he’s smart enough to know the writings on the wall. That’s why we haven’t heard a thing from him.
John
on January 31, 2010
at 11:23 AM
Report this commentThe greater shambles is that you so-called journalists in the main stream media are about 6 months behind various blogs and behind even your colleague Richard Booker IN THE SAME NEWSPAPER!!! You breathlessly use terms like “it can be revealed” and “revelations uncoverd by the Sunday Telegraph” but all this has been sitting staring us in the face for months if not years. I wonder who learnt from whom in cooking up facts and trying to control the dissemination of information – the crooks at the IPCC from you or you from the IPCC – after all you’ve been slavishly reprinting any old rubbish handed out by the IPCC and the other doom-mongers for years now – and now it really is costing us in the blizzard of legislation and taxation we now face. Well when I’m up to my neck in taxation as a result of your participation in this ruinous cabal, I shan’t have the time or money to pay for or read newspapers and i think i will be better off for it. Why not just stick to digging up stories about footballers and their private lives.
James Denning
on January 31, 2010
at 11:13 AM
Report this commentIf there is no better source of information, what is wrong with using local knowledge?

Many ‘discoveries’ are not discoveries at all. America was not discovered in 1492 – the existing inhabitants had known about it for a very long time.

Nowadays, the word discovery seems to imbue the ‘discoverer’ with false authority on a subject.

I am not defending the IPCC and I tend to agree with the cynical comments about greed and power and self motivation being the main drives, rather than saving the planet. Saving the planet is a convenient vehicle for their schemes.

Having said that, I am concerned about climate change, but less so than I am about population growth and vanishing resources…I don’t think a crisis point is far away, maybe later this century. Not a new prediction, of course, but it doesn’t get much media exposure. And anyway, I can’t see anyone changing the most basic of human behaviour of procreation, greed and domination.

We are doomed, Capt Mainwaring.
Polly
on January 31, 2010
at 11:12 AM
Report this comment”The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.”

No, and the actuality may be the cause of a lot of what certainly seems to be “bad” science from the IPCC.

The IPCC was established, and its founding documents so state, to investigate possible HUMAN influence[s] on climate. Thus. from day one, it was not even supposed to pay much attention to other influences (such as the stimated fifty BILLION [US] tons of CO2 released by termites [!] each year, never mind such irrelevancies as Solar activity).

From being concerned only with one bit of evidence, it was quite a natural process to become convinced that what was being studied was of overwhelming importance. And that nothing else mattered for the field as a whole. And eventually to insisting that no attention be paid to other evidence sources, and finally to outright supppression of data and gross manipulation of what data was to be allowed.

John A
on January 31, 2010
at 11:04 AM
Report this commentLet us not forget that certain countries are making billions out of ‘carbon trading’ none more so that India. The IPCC head is the owner of the company that recently announced the closure of the Corus plant in the UK.

It is reported that the company will receive up to £1 billion in carbon credits for this and will be given EU funding to help build a plant in India.

This is a similar pattern over other ‘scientific’ fallacies. Big Pharma make billions from smoking cessation and provides financial bursaries to the scientists providing the evidence to support the fallacy of passive smoking.

Scientific Integrity should very much be in the dock. The media has to stop sitting on it’s hands, and the Telegraph is to be applauded for these articles, but they also need to go after other fallacious science.
Robert Feal-Martinez
on January 31, 2010
at 11:02 AM
Report this commentMan made – as opposed to natural – climate change is the biggest hype and con since the Millennium Bug and Christianity
tony knott
on January 31, 2010
at 11:00 AM
Report this commentThe WWF is made only for those who run it – they do not care about the animals – so whatever they say has to be taken with a lot of salt.
savo
on January 31, 2010
at 11:00 AM
Report this comment”minor error” Glaciers melting by 2035???
IanB
on January 31, 2010
at 10:55 AM
Report this commentThe IPCC is staffed by zealots on a mission – predominantly one of financial benefit from varying sources, claiming that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases. Global warming is not caused by greenhouse gases. It is driven primarily by heat output from the sun – as related to solar magnetic flux, aka sun spots – together with rotational and orbital anomalies in the earth’s trajectory; and secondarily by the H2O cycle. As a result of this the level of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases increases. The “human” element of this increase in CO2 is less than 3%; the other 97% is merely incidental to global warming. Warmer oceans release CO2. A new book – Heaven and Earth – by one of the world’s top geologists, Aussie Ian Plimer, rubbishes the theories of the CO2 brigade. It is not well written since it was written in anger and in a hurry, but it makes the serious point that warming is good and cooling will eventually be catastrophic! He claims that the climate has been cooling since 1998 but this has been corruptly disguised, not least by IPCC. Unfortunately this can be disputed by taking different base years. The zealots are attacking him on this claim. This is only to be expected but in fact it is totally irrelevant to the main substance of the book whether we are currently warming or cooling. The crux of the matter is what drives warming – not CO2 – and whether it is good or bad.
PETER CLOSE
on January 31, 2010
at 10:23 AM
Report this commentThis is so crazy…we must start using our common sense, yes we need different energys..solor is out unless you live where the sun shines..cost 30,000.00 to put in and you;ll never see a return, oil will be with us for more years than
‘They” will ever allow one to say. Windturbos are usless..for any city, we can do this one by one..Not this World Cult that are nothing more than idoits who want your money, period.This is not about climate change its about Money and control.
welovetheUSA
on January 31, 2010
at 10:23 AM
Report this commentGlobal warming is driven primarily by heat output from the sun – as related to solar magnetic flux, aka sun spots – together with rotational and orbital anomalies in the earth’s trajectory; and secondarily by the H2O cycle. Co2 levels are secondary to other factors and have been up to 25 times higher than now, both during glaciations and during the highly beneficial interglacial phases [warmings]. The IPCC “hockey stick” graph showing runaway warming since 1 A.D. has airbrushed out [1] the Roman warming 100 B.C. – 450 A.D. during which grapes grew as far north as York [2] the Dark Ages 450 A.D. – 900 A.D. which saw off the Roman and South American civilisations [3] the Medieval warming 900 – 1300 when most of our monastries and cathedrals were built and [4] the Little Ice Age 1300 – 1850. Let’s get real and condemn this Greenhouse Gas religion to a page on Wikipaedia where it belongs!

PETER CLOSE
on January 31, 2010
at 10:23 AM
Report this commentThe IPCC is a disgrace and is now disgraced.
It is clearly nothing more than a mouthpiece for warmist propaganda.
What it has to say is valueless. Its own willingness to believe and publish any old warmist nonsense has destroyed it.
Charles Lee
on January 31, 2010
at 10:23 AM
Report this commentI think once again we see the politically driven agenda of so called ‘scientific integrity.

When is the media and the public going to wake up to a simple modern reality and that is Politicians tell scientists in their ’employ’, what result they want, and those scientists set about proving it.

There have been a number of books written about this process by highly respected scientists disgusted by their peers.

Look at Smoking Bans, attacks on Alcohol, food, and may other issues. These are politically driven agendas where science has been invented, but it still rolls on.

As your article says, the ‘scientists’ are still trying to say the science confirms MMGW. How many more revelations before this ‘scam’ is put to bed.

I guess ‘hell with freeze over first’. Mind you if the temperature continues to drop, that will be sooner rather than later.

From a very -10 degree Swindon, in Wiltshire.
Robert Feal-Martinez
on January 31, 2010
at 10:19 AM
Report this commentHave ANY IPCC findings and recommendations the basis of any scientific truth in them, or is it ALL gathered from other publications, papers and hearsay?

How is this allowed to continue, and why is Miliband (E) hell-bent on promoting his AGW dogma come what may, in the face of this rapidly crumbling and discredited organisation? It won’t get him any votes. Even worse, why is Cameron falling into the same trap? God help the UK if you have to suffer another period of NuLabour, or even a hung parliament.

I can see a rapid exodus….
Expat in France
on January 31, 2010
at 10:18 AM
Report this comment”… cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.”

“Disbanded?” “Prosecuted” may be in order, in light of the costs, both economic and otherwise, that the perjurous panel’s wild assertions have caused.
Gary
on January 31, 2010
at 10:02 AM
Report this commentThe problem with the false claims in the IPCC reports is not their reflection on the overall science thereof but that they all hype global warming in order to influence environmental policy. Put in visceral terms, the IPCC reports provide politicians the political cover they need to raise taxes to economically ruinous levels while ceding national sovereignty to unaccountable institutions such as the UN.

After the UEA emails and other news demonstrating that the IPCC reports and the bureaucracies generating them can’t be trusted, politicians can no longer get away with what they’d like to do to their constituents. Good work, UK press! You’re leading the world in this regard.
Lavaux
on January 31, 2010
at 10:02 AM
Report this commentI’m sorry, but all the Global Warming errors sound just like: Richard Nixon saying “I am not a crook”, when he was – Bill Clinton saying “I did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky” when he did – John Edwards saying “I did not have an affiar” when he did – and all the baseball players with huge muscles saying “I don’t use drugs” when they do. We all know they’re lieing, you just don’t care. Shame on you.
Chris
on January 31, 2010
at 10:01 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html
WILL THERE BE ANOTHER SUICIDE – BODY FOUND STABBED IN THE BACK, IN LOCAL WOODS?……………LYING SCUMBAGS!