I have read on verious web sites and articles that senior people from the IPCC panel have resigned over the years because of the unscientific cherry-picking of data to suport their claims of anthopogenic climate influence, culmiating in the walk-out of the IPCC deligation to the Russian Academy of Science in 2004 when asked a question, the aswer to which was contradictory to the IPCC position.

If this is true, as an amateur earth scientist, will it eventualy leave scientists with the same lable as the politicians \"Can\'t trust a word the\'re saying\". Also, again if it is true, why are we number crunching if the results will be ignored if the answer is \"An Inconvenient Truth\" for the IPCC.

There\'ll continue to be contentious issues on the subject of climate, especially as the world gets closer to \"peak oil\", and the fossil fuel companies start using alternate sources of crude oil. (e.g. Canadian oil sands, happening now.)

If you want a \"good\" source of info, there\'s a few years worth of reading on RealClimate.
Wikipedia article on RealClimate.

If this is true, as an amateur earth scientist, will it eventualy leave scientists with the same lable as the politicians \"Can\'t trust a word the\'re saying\".

That depends on how bored people are, and how much spare time they have on their hands.

Also, again if it is true, why are we number crunching ...

For the reason giving under Experiments, which is linked from the front page of this site.
The different experiments have different reasons for being run. It\'s best if you read about each of these for yourself.

The original reason for the project was to try and improve the understanding of what factors affect climate, and in what way. It\'s since branched out a bit.
There\'ll always be weather, and also the long time average of weather, called climate.
So there\'ll always be someone trying to make forecasts better.

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Backups: Here

It seems to me, from another layman\'s point of view, that we have gone through a watershed in the last year or so when climate prediction has ceased to be largely a scientific issue and has become a hugely political issue. For which, three cheers, because this is what scientists have wanted: to make it a major, global, political subject. On the down side, in the political world people will treat it with all the political wheeling and dealing that they use with any other subject rather than the carefully calculated rigour that good scientists apply.

The thing we all have to remember is that, whatever arguments, dissensions, chicanery, disagreements, etc emerge, the base of scientific models completed isn\'t going to go away. Our CPDN results take human knowledge forward and future scientists will be able to come back to our data and re-use it in many different ways to push understanding of climate behaviour forward. So if we keep on crunching, despite the political storm, we are continuing to make a worthwhile contribution.

I have read on verious web sites and articles that senior people from the IPCC panel have resigned over the years because of the unscientific cherry-picking of data to suport their claims of anthopogenic climate influence, culmiating in the walk-out of the IPCC deligation to the Russian Academy of Science in 2004 when asked a question, the aswer to which was contradictory to the IPCC position.

Hi Sprinterst, welcome to the forum.

Could you please give us links to reports of the incident you describe?

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Cpdn news

I have read on verious web sites and articles that senior people from the IPCC panel have resigned over the years because of the unscientific cherry-picking of data to suport their claims of anthopogenic climate influence, culmiating in the walk-out of the IPCC deligation to the Russian Academy of Science in 2004 when asked a question, the aswer to which was contradictory to the IPCC position.

Hi Sprinterst, welcome to the forum.

Could you please give us links to reports of the incident you describe?

I started with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy and followed links from there. I also referenced the book \"The Real Global Warming Disaster\" by C. Booker ISBN 978-1-4411-1052-7 page 113 - 119 (the walk-out at RAoS).

What prompted my search was the \"Hocky Stick\" graph used by the IPCC without the Mededival Warm Period or the Little Ice Age in evidence. Even with my limited knowledge of Earth Science I knew this was wrong.

What prompted my search was the \"Hocky Stick\" graph used by the IPCC without the Mededival Warm Period or the Little Ice Age in evidence. Even with my limited knowledge of Earth Science I knew this was wrong.

There are nice little essays on a variety of such issues at Skeptical Science, including Was there a Medieval Warm Period?

Esssentially the question is whether you suppose that what is the case in a particular region (e.g. a Medieval Warm Period in and around Europe) is actually the case everywhere in the world (e.g. both hemispheres). It could be, in which case the Hockey Stick should show it. But if the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are regional and not global events then the Hockey Stick - which is a reconstruction of global temperature - should not and will not show them. So for you to be worried about the Hockey Stick on this basis you would have to believe that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age applied to the whole world - and that requires convincing evidence.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who will use these kinds of arguments without ever acknowledging the confusion of local with global. When challenged they simply move on to another topic.

By chance yesterday I just finished reading Fred Pearce\'s New Scientist article, 18 March 2006. Sorry my reading is so out of date but whenever I read the magazine in bed I fall asleep after a few paragraphs.

But the arguments are still relevant.

The second graph on the web page shows the 2001 IPCC northern hemisphere reconstruction for 1000 - 2000 compared with graphs for the same area by Jones 1998, Briffa 2001, Esper 2002, Huang 2004, Moberg 2005, d\'Arrigo 2006 plus the recent instrumental record. The reconstructions are variously based on tree rings (with and without the controversial bristlecone pine data), corals, ice cores, historical records, lake and ocean sediments, boreholes, and records of glacier length. None of these northern hemisphere reconstructions shows much of a medieval warm period whose geographical extent is uncertain.

Regional temperature changes in reconstructions are quite large but they usually cancel each other out.

Every reconstruction shows definite, though not constant, warming for about the last 80 years. The recent (to 2000) rise in the instrumental record is sharper than the reconstructions.

The shape doesn\'t look like a perfect hockey stick but it still looks approximately like a hockey stick.

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Cpdn news

What prompted my search was the \"Hocky Stick\" graph used by the IPCC without the Mededival Warm Period or the Little Ice Age in evidence. Even with my limited knowledge of Earth Science I knew this was wrong.

There are nice little essays on a variety of such issues at Skeptical Science, including Was there a Medieval Warm Period?

Esssentially the question is whether you suppose that what is the case in a particular region (e.g. a Medieval Warm Period in and around Europe) is actually the case everywhere in the world (e.g. both hemispheres). It could be, in which case the Hockey Stick should show it. But if the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are regional and not global events then the Hockey Stick - which is a reconstruction of global temperature - should not and will not show them. So for you to be worried about the Hockey Stick on this basis you would have to believe that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age applied to the whole world - and that requires convincing evidence.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who will use these kinds of arguments without ever acknowledging the confusion of local with global. When challenged they simply move on to another topic.

On the local/global thing I see were I went wrong. The N.Atlantic is, of course, only local in this context, I was not thinking big enough.

By chance yesterday I just finished reading Fred Pearce\'s New Scientist article, 18 March 2006. Sorry my reading is so out of date but whenever I read the magazine in bed I fall asleep after a few paragraphs.

But the arguments are still relevant.

The second graph on the web page shows the 2001 IPCC northern hemisphere reconstruction for 1000 - 2000 compared with graphs for the same area by Jones 1998, Briffa 2001, Esper 2002, Huang 2004, Moberg 2005, d\'Arrigo 2006 plus the recent instrumental record. The reconstructions are variously based on tree rings (with and without the controversial bristlecone pine data), corals, ice cores, historical records, lake and ocean sediments, boreholes, and records of glacier length. None of these northern hemisphere reconstructions shows much of a medieval warm period whose geographical extent is uncertain.

Regional temperature changes in reconstructions are quite large but they usually cancel each other out.

Thanks for the link. I suppose the big question is not \'is the climate warming\' but is it anthopogenic, a natural cycle or a mixture of both. So keep on crunching numbers until there is an answer.

Every reconstruction shows definite, though not constant, warming for about the last 80 years. The recent (to 2000) rise in the instrumental record is sharper than the reconstructions.

The shape doesn\'t look like a perfect hockey stick but it still looks approximately like a hockey stick.

Speaking of the Medieval Warm Period:
Scientists confirm positive CO2 feedback

(The last paragraph.)

Speaking of the Medieval Warm Period:
Scientists confirm positive CO2 feedback

(The last paragraph.)

Thanks for the link, an interesting study.