The UN IPCC and The Great Global Warming Swindle
(October 24, 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.
But Dr Gray goes further: calling for IPCC's abolition.
SUPPORT FOR CALL FOR REVIEW OF UN IPCC
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.