IPCC's Fatal Flaw

[Keepitsimple]

Ever wonder why we don't hear that much in the mainstream media about how climate change is largely due to natural factors - like solar activity and cloud activity, among others? That's because they are not human induced and if they are not human induced, then the IPCC gives them short-shrift. Oh sure, you'll see an article here and there for a day or two and then poof, it's off the radar. Heaven forbid that new discoveries of natural climate change should foul up the IPCC computer models. Here is the mandate of the IPCC (my bold), taken from their own website:

The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage.

Their mandate should have said:

......relevant to the understanding of the risk of climate change, and the contributing factors of human activity.......

But it does not say that - it pre-supposes that human activity is the major cause of climate change.....and remember, the IPCC does not conduct any research (see mandate) - it simply reviews and assesses scientific work. And who gets to be an IPCC contributing scientist? Well, someone who falls within their mandate of human-induced Climate Change of course. And what about those scientists who happen to be doing leading edge work on natural climate change factors? Let's just say that they might have a tough time getting their work past the IPCC gate-keepers.

Edited November 27, 2007 by Keepitsimple

[luvacuppajoe]

It should be no surprise that this very flaw you point out raises considerable doubt on their peer-review process, as John McLean explains.

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives the impression that its Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) was thoroughly and diligently reviewed and the statements contained in the report were endorsed by a very high percentage of reviewers.

This analysis of the reviewers' comments for Working Group I (WG I) shows that the reality is rather different and that there is surprisingly little explicit support for the key notion, that humans are very likely (90% to 95%) responsible for climate change...

...General Conclusions

Three conclusions follow. First, the IPCC is merely presenting what it regards as a consensus among published scientific papers – in effect, a giant review article rather than original research.

Secondly, in order to produce a paper on some aspect of climatology a researcher needs funding. In the current environment that funding is very obviously directed towards studies which assert that the human influence on climate is substantial. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the number of papers adhering to what has become a “party line” can be presented – rightly or wrongly – as a “consensus”.

Thirdly, the dominance of research presupposing a human influence also means that the IPCC editing teams are likely to consist of people predisposed to view the situation in that light.

In these circumstances any review which casts doubt about assertions based on or related to a human influence on climate will be just what many reviewers found it to be –- frustrating and futile.

[Riverwind]

Here is a really scary example of how the 'presumed outcome' seriously affects science: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

This article addresses the apparent contradiction in the historical record that shows CO2 rising *after* the temperature rises (suggesting that increases in CO2 are a result of warming and not a cause).

The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.

...

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a "feedback", much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.

A scientist with an open mind would have gone back and asked whether the assumption that CO2 causes warming is, in fact, correct. Edited November 28, 2007 by Riverwind

[ScottSA]

A scientist with an open mind would have gone back and asked whether the assumption that CO2 causes warming is, in fact, correct.

A scientist with a functioning primal brainstem would have seen the stark absence of a human agency in that warming period, so all the anthropomorphic feedback loops in the world don't mean nuttin' anyway.