From: Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@geo.uib.no>
To: Richard Somerville <rsomerville@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [Wg1-ar4-clas] Responding to an attack on IPCC and ourselves
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:16:33 +0100
Cc: wg1-ar4-clas@joss.ucar.edu

   Hi,

   just a quick reply. I am in on this, and will respond to a draft letter, in the hope that
   you will make the first, Richard? I agree that it can be short. It is strange to see this,
   knowing that the delegations I spoke to in/after Paris clearly said that the CLAs got it
   their way, and that I believe this is the strong common perception we also had as CLAs
   about the outcome.

   Best wishes,

   Eystein

   Den 8. mar. 2007 kl. 03.11 skrev Richard Somerville:

   Dear Fellow CLAs,

   The British magazine *New Scientist* is apparently about to publish several items critical
   of the IPCC AR4 WGI SPM and the process by which it was written.  There is an editorial, a
   column by Pearce, and a longer piece by Wasdell which is on the internet and referenced by
   Pearce.

   I think that this attack on us deserves a response from the CLAs.  Our competence and
   integrity has been called into question.  Susan Solomon is mentioned by name in
   unflattering terms.  We ought not to get caught up in responding in detail to the many
   scientific errors in the Wasdell piece, in my opinion, but I would like to see us refute
   the main allegations against us and against the IPCC.

   We need to make the case that this is shoddy and prejudiced journalism.  Wasdell is not a
   climate scientist, was not involved in writing AR4, was not in Paris, and is grossly
   ignorant of both the science and the IPCC process.  His account of what went on is
   factually incorrect in many important respects.

   New Scientist inexplicably violates basic journalistic standards by publicizing and
   editorially agreeing with a vicious attack by an uncredentialed source without checking
   facts or hearing from the people attacked.  The editorial and Pearce column, which I regard
   as packed with distortions and innuendo and error, are pasted below, and the Wasdell piece
   is attached.

   My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as
   possible, would be an appropriate response.  I think we ought to say that the science was
   absolutely not compromised or watered down by the review process or by political presure of
   any kind or by the Paris plenary.  I think it would be a mistake to attempt a detailed
   point-by-point discussion, which would provoke further criticism; that process would never
   converge.

   Please send us all your opinions and suggestions for what we should do, using the email
   list [1]wg1-ar4-clas@joss.ucar.edu

   I am traveling and checking email occasionally, so if enough of us agree that we should
   respond, I hope one or more of you (not me) will volunteer to coordinate the effort and
   submit the result to New Scientist.

   Best regards to all,

   Richard

   Richard C. J. Somerville

   Distinguished Professor
   Scripps Institution of Oceanography
   University of California, San Diego
   9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0224

   La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, USA

   --

     Here's the editorial that will appear in New Scientist on March 10.

     Editorial: Carbon omissions

     IT IS a case of the dog that didn't bark. The dog in this instance was the
     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

     For several years, climate scientists have grown increasingly anxious about "positive
     feedbacks" that could accelerate climate change, such as methane bubbling up as
     permafrost melts. That concern found focus at an international conference organised by
     the British government two years ago, and many people expected it to emerge strongly in
     the latest IPCC report, whose summary for policy-makers was published in Paris last
     month.

     It didn't happen. The IPCC summary was notably guarded. We put that down to scientific
     caution and the desire to convey as much certainty as possible (New Scientist, 9
     February, p 3), but this week we hear that an earlier version of the summary contained a
     number of explicit references to positive feedbacks and the dangers of accelerating
     climate change. A critique of the report now argues that the references were removed in
     a systematic fashion (see "Climate report 'was watered down'").

     This is worrying. The version containing the warnings was the last for which scientists
     alone were responsible. After that it went out to review by governments. The IPCC is a
     governmental body as well as a scientific one. Both sides have to sign off on the
     report.

     The scientists involved adamantly deny that there was undue pressure, or that the
     scientific integrity of their report was compromised. We do know there were political
     agendas, and that the scientists had to fight them. As one of the report's 33 authors
     put it: "A lot of us devoted a lot of time to ensuring that the changes requested by
     national delegates did not affect the scientific content." Yet small changes in language
     which individually may not amount to much can, cumulatively, change the tone and message
     of a report. Deliberately or not, this is what seems to have happened.

     Senior IPCC scientists are not willing to discuss the changes, beyond denying that there
     was political interference. They regard the drafting process as private. This is an
     understandable reservation, but the case raises serious doubts about the IPCC process. A
     little more transparency would go a long way to removing those qualms.

   --

   Here's the Pearce column:

     Climate report 'was watered down'

     * 10 March 2007
     * From New Scientist Print Edition. [2]Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
     * Fred Pearce

     BRITISH researchers who have seen drafts of last month's report by the Intergovernmental
     Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became
     involved in writing it.

     David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited
     reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April
     2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than
     expected because of "positive feedbacks" in the climate system. Most of these references
     were absent from the final version.

     His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists' report and the
     final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of
     more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: "I was astounded at the
     alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The
     evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific
     material is overwhelming."

     He has prepared a critique, "Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?", which claims:
     "Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material." He
     plans to publish the document online this week at [3]www.meridian.org.uk/whats.htm.

     Wasdell is not a climatologist, but his analysis was supported this week by two leading
     UK climate scientists and policy analysts. Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the
     University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per
     cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New
     Scientist: "The public needs to know that the policy-makers' summary, presented as the
     united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by
     governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it."

     "The public needs to know that the summary has been watered down in subtle but vital
     ways by governmental agents"

     Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former
     ambassador to the UN, says: "I think David Wasdell's analysis is very useful, and unique
     of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail."

     Wasdell's central charge is that "reference to possible acceleration of climate change
     [was] consistently removed" from the final report. This happened both in its treatment
     of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion
     of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.

     For instance, the scientists' draft report warned that natural systems such as
     rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas
     emissions. It said: "This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2 °C of added
     warming by 2100." The final version does not include this figure. It acknowledges that
     the feedback could exist but says: "The magnitude of this feedback is uncertain."

     Similarly, the draft warned that warming will increase atmospheric levels of water
     vapour, which acts as a greenhouse gas. "Water vapour increases lead to a strong
     positive feedback," it said. "New evidence estimates a 40 to 50 per cent amplification
     of global mean warming." This was absent from the published version, replaced elsewhere
     with the much milder observation "Water vapour changes represent the largest feedback."

     The final edit also removed references to growing fears that global warming is
     accelerating the discharge of ice from major ice sheets such as the Greenland sheet.
     This would dramatically speed up rises in sea levels and may already be doing so. The
     2006 draft said: "Recent observations show rapid changes in ice sheet flows," and
     referred to an "accelerating trend" in sea-level rise. Neither detail made the final
     version, which observed that "ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica... could increase
     or decrease in future". Wasdell points out recent findings which show that the rate of
     loss from ice sheets is doubling every six years, making the suggestion of a future
     decrease "highly unlikely".

     Some of the changes were made at the meeting of government invigilators that finalised
     the report last month in Paris. But others were made earlier, after the draft report was
     first distributed to governments in mid-2006.

     Senior IPCC scientists contacted by New Scientist have not been willing to discuss how
     any changes took place but they deny any political interference. However, "if it is
     true, it's disappointing", says Mike Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center
     at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and a past lead author for the IPCC.
     "Allowing governmental delegations to ride into town at the last minute and water down
     conclusions after they were painstakingly arrived at in an objective scientific
     assessment does not serve society well."

     From issue 2594 of New Scientist magazine, 10 March 2007, page 10

   --

--

   <Wasdell_IPCC.pdf>

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   _________________________________
   Eystein Jansen, prof., Director
   Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
   Allégaten 55
   N5007 Bergen
   phone: +47-55583491, fax. +47-55584330
   [6]eystein.jansen@geo.uib.no
   www.bjerknes.uib.no

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References

   1. mailto:wg1-ar4-clas@joss.ucar.edu
   2. file://localhost/tmp/convertmbox32286.html
   3. http://www.meridian.org.uk/whats.htm
   4. mailto:Wg1-ar4-clas@joss.ucar.edu
   5. http://lists.joss.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/wg1-ar4-clas
   6. mailto:eystein.jansen@geo.uib.no

