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IPCC's 69 year old boss writes lustfully of young wench

OK, I know I asked the question in the last post, can it get any worse?

Apparently it can. UN IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri has just released a febrile bodice-ripper to melt what little is left of his credibility.

The former train engineer who became the epitome of the intelligence and integrity of climate science is now doing his own bit for global warming in his new book Return to Almora, as Anthony Watts reports with a WARNING- EXPLICIT CONTENT FOLLOWS:

BREAKING: New shock embarrassment for IPCC - it just keeps getting worse

The UN IPCC is tonight reeling yet again after revelations some of its 'peer reviewed' science was in fact based on a university student's essay, and an article in a popular climbing magazine.

The Sunday Telegraph in Britain is reporting:

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.

The latest goofs by the IPCC follow revelations that its Himalayan glaciers prediction was based on a magazine article and a WWF pamphlet, and that instead of peer reviewed studies the IPCC report is littered with citations based on Greenpeace and WWF press releases.

New Scientist admits: climate Emperors had no clothes

"Some argue that the views of an untutored blogger, or even a scientist from another discipline, should never carry the same weight as those of someone with a lifetime's expertise in a relevant field. But if occasionally the emperors of the lab have no clothes, someone has to say so. The wider review of science made possible by the blogosphere can improve science and foster public confidence in its methods. Scientists should welcome the outside world in to check them out. Their science is useless if no one trusts it."

Quite.

IPCC was Greenpeace and WWF sock-puppet

We've already seen this week how the IPCC's "peer reviewed" literature that it boasted about included great screeds of propaganda pamphlets produced by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF).

Now we can add Greenpeace as a 'credible' source in several of the working group reports as well, along with an NZ Greenpeace connection as pointed out by Donna Laframboise.

All we need to do now is find a link between the IPCC and those climate criminals at the University of East Anglia...

Too good to pass up

My mate Mark Gillar emailed this little gem through to me overnight, but my TGIF deadline committments got in the way of watching it. Until now.

You have to, you really have to.

Hot Topic in denial

Had to laugh. Hot Topic's Gareth Renowden has been eating crow, rather than truffle, over claims by Britain's Chief Scientist that climate skepticism has merit.

In one comment this week he writes:

"...you are talking nonsense. I have never claimed that the “science is settled”

Yet this is the same Hot Topic that published this post when TV3 news dared to say the science was not settled:

TV3 news hit one of its lows last night.  Reporter and presenter Samantha Hayes was in Aitutaki in the Cook Islands for the visit of Greenpeace’s ship the Esmeralda on its Pacific climate impact tour, with Sign On ambassador Keisha Castle Hughes on board [Greenpeace release]. I was watching the news item with interest when I thought I heard the reporter saying “while the science is far from settled…”.  Since my hearing is not reliable I checked on the TV3 news website.  I had heard aright.  Here is the full sentence: “While the science is far from settled, Greenpeace is convinced that Aitutaki is on the front line of climate change.”

I shot off an angry comment to TV3 without too much reflection.  I’ve been wondering since how a news programme as significant as TV3’s could think it proper to include a caveat like that in the middle of their report, and decided to write a post on it.  As I was under way an email arrived from the producer John Hale in reply to my comment.  It answered my wondering. He referred to the significant body of informed opinion that disagrees with my position, and went on to say that 3news is not a vehicle for either lobby, but is expected to be balanced, fair and accurate.  So there it is.  The 3news team are still labouring under the impression that there is a serious scientific debate about the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and they must reflect that in their reporting. 

I can understand Walker's outrage: how dare a media organisation try and introduce balance to the climate change debate?

Of course, the real embarrassment to Messrs Walker and Renowden at Hot Topic is that TV3 were quite right to add the caveat about Pacific Islands given my earlier post here, and a WattsUpWithThat post here.

New peer-reviewed study suggests IPCC models overestimated warming feedback from CO2

Just as Chicken Little pontificates about the minutiae of a Monckton allegation about warming amplification being overstimated by six of seven times, along comes a new study in Nature that compared real data with the computer models and found CO2's feedback warming effect has been exaggerated in the models by five or six times.

Funny thing, serendipity.

A note for the pedants: the Monckton claim and the Nature paper are approaching a similar problem (magnitude of feedback warming) from slightly different directions (Monckton's comment relates to rise in temp caused by doubling of CO2, whilst the Nature paper examines the increase in CO2 caused by a rise in temperature), but the general thrust of the arguments is similar: extra carbon dioxide is not going to cause as much feedback as previously claimed.

UPDATE: Chicken Little's feathers are ruffled by my attempt to use non-technical language, so if you've just clicked through, here's how the Houston Chronicle reports it:

By ERIC BERGER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Jan. 28, 2010, 10:41PM

A pair of climate papers published this week in the world's top science journals may offer some hope that rising levels of carbon dioxide won't imminently bring the planet to boil.

One paper concerns the effect of a warming climate on oceans and other sources of carbon dioxide on Earth, and found they will be slower to release more CO2, and thus do less to amplify warming than previously expected.

The second study analyzed a decline in water vapor — a potent greenhouse gas — in the upper levels of the atmosphere and found that it may have contributed to a decade-long halt in the rise of global temperatures since 1998.

Both studies are a bit technical, but they are important because they get to the cutting edge of climate science.

Amid the over-reaching catastrophic claims of environmentalists on one side, and cries of global warming being a great hoax from the other, there is actually a good deal of common ground among scientists.

All agree concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are increasing, and there's a general agreement that a doubling of CO2 levels this century, by themselves, will produce an increase of 1.5 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit in global temperatures.

Positive feedback

By itself, this would not be catastrophic for the planet.

What scientists are actually interested in better understanding are so-called “feedback” loops from rising CO2 levels, which in turn could substantially amplify warming to catastrophic levels.

For example, as CO2 levels rise, and temperatures go up, the thinking is that the area of the planet covered by snow will decrease. Snow is very effective at reflecting heat back into space, so anything that replaces it will absorb more heat and further warm the planet.

This is a positive feedback. The question is: Will rising CO2 levels produce more positive or negative feedbacks?

For some scientists, including the skeptical Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the jury on feedbacks remains out.

“Climate science is a field that is not highly developed,” he said. “Really, it's still in its infancy.”

Other climate scientists would disagree, but as the two new papers this week show, researchers are still grappling to understand the balance of feedback loops.  (read the rest here)

Verdict in: Climategate scientists broke law

I'll bet the climate science community was not expecting this.

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.

The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.

The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.

That's Phil Jones gone in a puff of smoke...and the reputation of CRU with it.

Climate socialists move to Plan B

Faced with the collapse of the IPCC, UK Prime Minister and Socialist International delegate Gordon Brown has wasted no time going for plan B, a global tax on financial transactions and/or banks.

I talked about the Tobin Tax here previously, as it has been mooted as a UN moneyspinner to set up a global governance structure.

Clearly climate doesn't have credibility any more, but Brown thinks he can con the public into supporting his Trojan Horse if it's ridden by a different jockey.

He carefully fails to mention the fact that if the world's governments tax banks more, it'll be the public who ultimately pay it. The major banks aren't stupid, and neither is Brown.

IPCC lead author on Pachauri's conflicts of interest: It looks real bad

Australia's ABC network 'buried the lead' in their schizophrenic coverage of an interview with IPCC lead author Andy Pitman.

Pitman was trying to defend the IPCC, but interviewer Eleanor Hall forced him to concede that revelations of financial grants to research the false glacier melt claim "looks extremely bad...absolutely it looks bad".

Pachauri's position as IPCC boss is officially untenable. Even his supporters are deserting. He must resign.