Editor Note: This paper was prepared for the “Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate” workshop held by the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, European Commission in Lisbon, Portugal (January 26—28, 2011).

I am an “outsider” to the field of climatology in two respects: by professional training I am an economist, and as regards my research I am in dispute with proponents of some elements of what is commonly called the “consensus” scientific position.1

With regards to my economics background, I note that economists routinely undertake scientific research on matters of acute political controversy, yet the field remains generally congenial and productive; whereas the policy controversies connected to climate research have resulted in seriously disrupted and damaged collegiality in climatology. Why the difference between the two fields? I suggest attention be paid to two reasons: the habit on the part of climate and meteorological societies to issue “expert statements” on behalf of members, and the role of the IPCC.

The Key to Intellectual Freedom in Economics: No Society Statements

I am a member of the American Economic Association (AEA) and the Canadian Economic Association (CEA). The AEA Constitution commits it to (emphasis added):

The encouragement of perfect freedom of economic discussion. The Association as such will take no partisan attitude, nor will it commit its members to any position on practical economic questions.

Likewise the CEA constitution forbids issuing statements:

The Association has for its object the advancement of economic knowledge through the encouragement of study and research… and the furtherance of free and informed discussion of economic questions. The Association as such will not assume a  partisan position upon any question of practical politics nor commit its members to any position thereupon.

Economists believe that freedom of discussion requires a prohibition on our major societies issuing position statements. There is wisdom in this! Individual experts can speak for themselves if they desire. Official “society” statements put words in peoples’ mouths, imposing groupthink and conformity and fostering bitterness on the part of those who find themselves with no voice. They silence and marginalize members who disagree with some or all of the statement, demoting them to second-class citizens in their own profession, regardless of their numbers or credibility as scientists.

Official statements replace the slow process of winnowing scientific truth by promoting a political “appeal to authority.” It encourages journalists, policymakers, educators and others to rest their case on
the “Expert Statement” rather than on the evidence. Consequently, public debate becomes less informative, and more authoritarian.

Climatology will not regain collegiality and freedom of discussion, and will continue to suffer factionalism and alienation, until its scientific societies do as economics societies do and forbid issuing
position statements on members’ behalf.

Unintended Consequences of the IPCC

The IPCC is not a neutral observer of climate science. It is a massive star that has pulled the entire field into its orbit. Papers are written or not written based on whether they suit the IPCC process. Projects get funded or not, and accepted at journals or not, based on their IPCC prospects.

The IPCC recruits Lead Authors who are prominent advocates of its preferred views, and their status as Lead Authors subsequently elevates their credentials so that their views acquire canonical status, reinforcing the impression of universal consensus.

Suppose the International Monetary Fund (IMF) created an economics version of the IPCC, which proceeded to issue an Assessment Report and Summary for Policymakers every five years that was promoted as the consensus view of what “every mainstream economist believes.”

Suppose further that the IMF was committed to one particular school of economic thought, such as New Keynesianism, that they ensured that all the lead authors of the IMF report were dedicated New Keynesians, and that the report inevitably concluded the New Keynesians are right and their critics are wrong (or do not even exist).

And finally, suppose that the IMF report was sponsored and endorsed by government departments who benefited by promotion of New Keynesian ideas, and that major funding agencies and university oversight agencies also began to endorse, support and promulgate the views in the IMF report.

It should be obvious that all of this would, over time, degrade the intellectual climate in the economics profession. It would do so even if New Keynesianism is true—and more so otherwise. Members of the research community would be forced to respond to the warped incentives created by such a dominant institution by embracing, or at least paying lip service to, New Keynesianism.

Over time it would be costlier and costlier to be publicly identified as a critic of New Keynesianism, and as critics became marginalized by political forces the IMF’s declaration of a “consensus” would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Those who were disposed to support the IMF view would find it easier to get funding and academic posts, and journals would be more receptive to their papers since they would gain prominence by being cited in the IMF Report. Likewise journals would be increasingly reluctant to publish critics since their papers would be marginalized and subject to official denigration. Over time, people who had serious doubts about New Keynesianism would learn to suppress them and leave the field, or accept marginalization and negative career consequences.

All these things are playing out in climatology as the IPCC exerts its force over the profession. For those who find the IPCC unreceptive or hostile to their research the result is bitterness and alienation.

When the Inter-Academy Council was asked to review IPCC procedures they found a “near-universal” demand by those they interviewed was for Reviewers to have more authority, especially in ensuring that alternative or dissenting views receive proper consideration (pp. 22–23).

The IPCC appears to have ignored this suggestion and others like it. In light of the distortions the IPCC is creating, and its apparent unwillingness to undertake reform, I do not know how this situation can be resolved without shutting down the IPCC altogether.

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1 My publications have argued that land climate data are likely contaminated with non-climatic warm biases, that the
hockey stick paleoclimatic reconstruction used unreliable methods and overstated its reconstruction significance, and
that climate models are significantly over-predicting warming rates in the tropical troposphere.

This line of reasoning was recently incorporated into statements made by Dr. Patrick Michaels when testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

During the questions and answers portion of the hearing, one of the other panelists, Dr. Benjamin Santer, quickly objected and claimed that Pat was “wrong” because he didn’t take into account the cooling influence of aerosols when determining how much observed warming should be assigned to greenhouse gases.

A day or so following the testimony, Judith Curry hosted a discussion on her blog site Climate Etc. to further examine Michaels’ logic. In her remarks introducing the thread, she too suggested that Pat was “obliged” to include sulfates in the calculation. When I stepped in to offer additional explanation, RealClimate’s Gavin Schmidt commented that he hoped I was “kidding,” and John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M commented that my explanation was “nonsense.”

So with all these erudite folks claiming that Pat Michaels and I are wrong, I figured I ought to take another look into the logic behind our conclusions.

Our Logic

First let’s get a couple of things out of the way up front. The argument about whether or not the inclusion of sulfates is required to arrive at a logically correct conclusion has nothing whatsoever to do with the veracity and/or applicability of the scientific papers from which I’ve drawn some numbers (see my earlier post for details about these findings). I am not suggesting that there isn’t plenty of room to argue that aspect of things, just that such a discussion does not impinge on the discussion of our logic. So I’ll set aside discussion of those issues in order to focus on the topic at hand.

I’ll state the following things simply as given (if it helps I’ll add this disclaimer “The following are for illustrative purposes only”):

1) The observed warming from 1950-2009 is 0.7°C
2) 0.2°C of that is due to a warm bias in the measurements
3) This leaves 0.5°C of actual warming
4) The anthropogenic increase in well-mixed greenhouse gases is responsible for +3.0 W/m2 of extra climate forcing (positive climate forcing imparts a warming pressure on global temperatures)
5) Sulfate aerosols are responsible for -1.5W/m2 of climate forcing (note this is a negative forcing which imparts a cooling pressure)
6) Black carbon (a.k.a. “soot”) aerosols are responsible for 1 W/m2 of added forcing (warming)
7) Stratospheric water vapor changes are responsible for 0.5W/m2 of added forcing (warming)

I’ll stress again, I use these numbers to make the math cleaner. They are in the ball park, but not intended to represent the exact or even best-guess values. So please set aside any heartburn about them (also note that natural variability is not considered here, but most definitely should be in a more formal evaluation).

Also, the IPCC was unaware of numbers 2, 6, and 7 at the time it made its “most of the observed warming” statement quoted above.

In my MasterResource article and in Pat’s testimony, the logic as to how to assign various amounts of observed warming to various factors is as follows:

The 0.5°C of actual warming [in (3)] was caused by three factors, GHGs, black carbon, and stratospheric H2O. In percentage terms, GHG contributed 67%, black carbon contributed 22% and stratospheric H2O contributed 11 percent. This is calculated by taking the positive forcing from each factor and dividing it by the sum of the positive forcings. Thus for GHG, you get 3.0/(3.0+1.0+0.5)=0.67, or 67%. To determine how much of the actual temperature change that GHGs were responsible for, we multiply 0.5°C by 67% and get 0.34°C—which, we pointed out was about 50% of the “observed” warming of 0.7°C (listed in (1)). Thus, the IPCC statement rests on thin ice.

To this, Santer/Schmidt/Nielsen-Gammon/Curry cried “foul!” claiming that we have committed a sin of omission by not factoring in the negative climate forcing contributed by sulfate aerosols.

Their Logic

When calculating the percentage contribution from each climate forcing agent, they maintain that we should have divided each element’s contribution not by the sum of the positive forcing, but by the sum of all forcings (including negative ones). So instead of dividing by (3.0+1.0+0.5)=4.5 like we did, we should have used (3.0+1.0+0.5-1.5)=3.0.

And, they argue, that had we done that, we would have found out that GHGs contribute 100% of the warming, black carbon 33%, stratospheric H2O 17% and sulfates -50%. Therefore, even taking into account measurement errors (listed in (2) above) GHGs still contribute more than half of the observed warming. And the IPCC is right and Michaels and I are wrong (see John Nielsen-Gammon’s explanation at Climate Etc. for further evidence of this line of reasoning).

It is now my turn to reply, “Nonsense!”

Pieces Greater than the Whole?

You can’t divide a physical quantity into pieces that together are greater than the whole. Which is precisely where the latter logic leads you.

The flaw in the Santer/Schmidt/Nielsen-Gammon/Curry logic is in confusing “potential” warming with “observed” or “actual” warming.

I completely agree that using the numbers above, GHGs contribute 0.5°C*100%=0.5°C of potential warming, black carbon contributes 0.5*33%=0.17°C of potential warming, and stratospheric H2O contributes 0.5*17%=0.08°C of potential warming and that of this 0.75°C of potential warming, sulfates offset 0.25°C of it, leaving 0.5°C of observed warming.

But, in employing potential warming to divvy up observed warming is mixing apples and oranges, and leads to results that don’t make practical sense.

Take for instance this hypothetical situation:

GHG = 2 W/m2
Black Carbon = 2 W/m2
Stratospheric H2O = 2 W/m2
Sulfates = -4 W/m2
Observed Warming = 0.5°C

If this were the situation, you would arrive at the answer that GHGs are responsible for 100% of the warming AND black carbon is responsible for 100% of the warming AND stratospheric H2O is responsible for 100% of the warming. This result allows you to assign any and all warming to whatever your favorite postive forcing element is. Certainly this is creative, but it is not practical.

Doing things my way, you get the logical result that each positive forcing element contributes 33.3% to the warming and is equally responsible for what has been observed.

So there you have it, two different ways of describing the observed warming.

I’ll leave it up to you all to decide which one is the more reasonable.

The IPCC’s Take

But before I go, I’ll leave with one additional thing to consider.

Here are two successive statements in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers of its Fourth Assessment Report (p. 10).

The first you will recognize:

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

And here is the separate bulleted statement that comes next:

“It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would have otherwise taken place.”

Clearly the IPCC recognizes the difference between observed warming (as reflected in the first statement) and potential warming (as reflected in the second statement).

Bottom Line

The latter IPCC statement will remain true so long as the value of the net climate forcing remains less than that of the GHG forcing (which would take a significant scientific finding to overturn). I think this is the gist of what Santer/Schmidt/Nielsen-Gammon/Curry are saying, and that such a major development has not occurred.

The former statement, however, and the one whose veracity is being assessed by Pat Michaels and I (and the one highlighted by the IPCC and the EPA), is more readily falsifiable through even relatively minor tweaks to our understanding of the various influences on the climate system. And Pat and I are claiming that such minor tweaks have occurred and have led to a falsification of the IPCC statement—or at the very least, demonstration that it is undeserving of the level of confidence placed upon it by the IPCC.

I welcome on-topic comments.

Additionally, we offer a compilation of all other IAC submissions that we could find scattered across the web—a service that the IAC does not itself provide.

Background

The IAC bills itself as “a multinational organization of science academies created to produce reports on scientific, technological, and health issues related to the great global challenges of our time, providing knowledge and advice to national governments and international organizations” and as such has been asked by the United Nations to:

[E]stablish a Committee of experts from relevant fields to conduct the review and to present recommendations on possible revisions of IPCC processes and procedures. In particular the IAC Committee of experts is asked to recommend measures and actions to strengthen the IPCC’s processes and procedures so as to be better able to respond to future challenges and ensure the ongoing quality of its reports.

Such a review has been welcomed by all quarters—and is especially relevant considering the revelations of the apparent shortcomings of IPCC procedures that have been revealed both directly from the contents of the Climategate emails as well as the increased scrutiny it has received as a result of the Climategate revelations.

The IAC invited and received a number of opinions from “knowledgeable experts and thoughtful observers regarding IPCC’s processes and procedures for producing assessments.” However the IAC does not seem to be making the submissions public prior to the release of the its final report (and even then, is planning on stripping the names from the comments). As many of these comments may be of immediate interest, we have collected together the IAC submissions that we could find scattered about the web. We include a link to these comments at the bottom of this article. Undoubtedly there are others that we have overlooked. If any one knows of any that we have missed, please feel free to draw our attention to them (providing links if possible ) in the Comments section of this post, and we’ll do our best to add them to our main collection.

Comments by David Henderson

In his comments to the IAC, shared with MasterResource in the article “Reforming a Flawed Process: The IPCC and Its Clients,” David Henderson was particularly critical of the IPCC’s lack of adherence to its own set of governing principles:

In the ‘principles governing IPCC work’, laid down by the Panel’s member governments, the IPCC is required to conduct its assessments on ‘a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis’. This requirement has not been met. The process of preparation of the Assessment Reports is far from being a model of rigor, inclusiveness and impartiality. It has shown itself to be professionally flawed.

Henderson detailed evidence of  IPCC flawed procedures and made suggestions for improvement in the areas of disclosure, inclusiveness, and audit.

All sound like good ideas.

David has drawn our attention to two other sets of comments that provide further support for these general ideas—comments by economists Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph and Gordon Hughes of the University of Edinburgh.

Each has submitted lengthy comments for the IAC’s consideration describing IPCC weaknesses and offered ideas for fixing them. We excerpt from the comments here, and encourage our readers with greater interest to spend some time with the full comments.

McKitrick Comments

Ross McKitrick lays out a 13-step procedure for writing new IPCC reports that notably established a 21-member Executive Advisory Board (EAB) largely made up of qualified individuals whose areas of expertise lie outside the traditional field of climate science, such as “mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering, chemistry, economics, biology, medicine, computing, and other areas.” The EAB would serve as advisors to the IPCC Chapter authors when questions arose on technical issues and when authors and reviewers disagreed. The EAB would serve as a check, keeping IPCC authors from steering the text in a direction that doesn’t well-reflect the full range of scientific knowledge.

McKitrick’s general recommendations to the IAC are well summarized in his response to the IAC’s request “Comment on the sustainability of the IPCC assessment model. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative process?”

He offers these well-reasoned thoughts:

I have outlined an alternative process above. Those suggestions are focused on WGI [Working Group I]. As for WGII and WGIII I see little need for them since the sponsoring governments appear to make very little use of their reports. I would suggest WGIII simply be abolished and WGII be reformed along the lines I suggested for WGI.

I think you should also recognize that the IPCC began before the Internet did, and its structure is now obsolete. It adopted a rigid bureaucratic structure that had some relevance in the days before the internet imposed deep transparency on public organizations. But times have changed, and public expectations have evolved. Henceforth, from the start of the chapter review process, the attention of international bloggers will be intense, and every aspect of the report-writing process will now be done in a fishbowl. Without major reforms to the process, the next Assessment Report will simply explode on impact. All it will take is for one error to be found, or one email to be leaked, or one graph to be manipulated, and the entire report will be discredited.

This is not because there are armies of nasty bloggers out there who are being unreasonable (although even if there are armies of nasty bloggers out there, they are not going away so you need to find a process that can still function in their presence). It is because the IPCC has become one-sided and brittle, and has no real ability to cope with legitimate differences of opinion. That makes it inevitable that there will be growing numbers of critics who see it as biased and insular. The choice is whether simply to press onwards with the hope the IPCC will somehow regain its former glory, or to consider whether the critics actually have a point, in which case the process is in need of correction.

McKitrick’s full set of comments are available here.

Gordon Hughes Comments

Gordon Hughes’ comments offer a bit of a different take than do those of Ross McKitrick and concentrate on the poor handling of the reports from IPCC Working Groups II (impacts and vulnerabilities) and Working Group III (mitigation). Hughes offers up this summary of the IPCC problems and potential solutions:

The problems in the IPCC process stem from a confusion of assessment and advocacy. Some parts of the AR4 report are simply outrageous if it is a body that is expected to provide a careful and dispassionate assessment of the evidence that is currently available. In many areas, the dispassionate conclusion – for the time being – must be that we do not know. Clearly, that answer is viewed as not being acceptable by those who are firmly convinced that something – anything – should be done to address what they believe to be the consequences of climate change. But, passionate opinions must not be treated as evidence.

If the Review Panel considers that it is appropriate for the IPCC to be an advocate for some action designed to address issues of climate change, then let us be clear that this is the way in which it operates and everyone can stop pretending that it provides a dispassionate assessment based upon evidence alone.

On the other hand, if the Review Panel considers that the IPCC’s role is to provide independent assessment rather than advocacy, then the body must step back from any involvement in discussions of how to respond to the possibility of climate change. It cannot, for example, be involved in any negotiations concerning future treaties about climate change other than at a purely technical level. This should apply not only to the IPCC as an organisation but also to any individual who plays a substantial role in carrying out the assessments and writing the reports. This is a standard principle for avoiding conflicts of interest which is routinely applied to judicial bodies and must operate in this context.

David Henderson’s submission has addressed matters of disclosure/transparency, inclusiveness and audit. All of these are important and relevant if the IPCC is to carry out a function of independent assessment. I would add that the IPCC should not attempt to create a consensus when none exists. It can, of course, report differences of evidence and interpretation of that evidence. It might call for additional investigations which could shed light on or even settle such differences.

I would also emphasise that there can be no mixing of advocacy and assessment. This particular well is so polluted with mistrust and confusion that the IPCC has to go down one route or the other. Indeed, it may now be the case that no one will believe that the IPCC is capable of acting as an independent body charging solely with the responsibility for assessing the evidence concerning climate change. If that is, indeed, what the Review Panel believes that its function should be, then something close to a new start is required with a very clear break from the past methods of working and behaviour.

At an absolute minimum, no chapter or Working Group report should proceed to publication unless and until it can be positively demonstrated that the team responsible have made all reasonable efforts to canvas and incorporate the full range of evidence and analysis relevant to the topic of the chapter or report. This is not merely a matter of soliciting such material, but a positive obligation to seek it out and incorporate it in the final text. Reporting that there is an agreement to differ and presenting two or many sides of one or many issues is acceptable, but any failure to report on differences should lead to suspension of publication and, if necessary, replacement of the authors and/or editors of the chapter or report.

It is sad but not entirely surprising that the work of the IPCC has become so contentious. The world does not lack passionate advocates for action to address climate change. But there is no other organisation that is equipped to undertake the essential function of dispassionate assessment. If that is to be the role of the IPCC in future, then a clear set of rules designed to avoid all actual or apparent engagement in activities that might be classed as advocacy must be instituted. Countries with experience of quasi-judicial independent panels or inquiries can provide various models of what is required to avoid conflicts of interest. But it is important to realise that the primary job of a reformed IPCC should not be to reach definitive conclusions but to report on the evidence that has been submitted and to present or clarify matters of dispute. Reporting on the examination of such evidence is part of that job, but the outcome may well be a conclusion that no particular case can be regarded as more likely or proven.

The full set of comments to the IAC from Gordon Hughes are available here.

And for those interested in other viewpoints on how the IPCC should go about conducting itself, here is our compilation of those submissions to the IAC that we have come upon thus far (and thanks in advance for our readers for helping us assemble the most complete list possible).

Comments/Presentation to the InterAcademy Council (IAC) on IPCC Processes and Procedures

Comments to the IAC

David Henderson (Academic Advisory Council of the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation): http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/reforming-a-flawed-process-ipcc/

Ross McKitrick (Professor of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario)
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/iac.ross_mckitrick.pdf

Gordon Hughes (Professor of Economics, University of Edinburgh)

Richard Tol, Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://ipccar5wg2ch10.blogspot.com/2010/05/submission-to-iac-second-draft.html

Roger Pielke Sr. (Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University)
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/my-comments-on-questionnaire-on-ipcc-processes-and-procedures/

Marcel Crok (science journalist):
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/interacademy-council-iac-review-of-the-ipcc-input-by-marcel-crok/

Multiple Authors:
http://clearclimatecode.org/opening-up-the-ipcc/

Presentations to the IAC

John Christy (Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Director, Earth System Science Center and Alabama State Climatologist at University of Alabama in Huntsville):
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/christyjr_iac_100615.pdf

Kiminori Itoh (Engineering Department at the Yokohama National University):
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/itoh-iac21.pdf

Some other presentions to the IAC are also available at the IAC website, including those by:

Hans von Storch (Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Germany):
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/storch.IAC.1006.ppt

Christopher Field (Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington)
http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/cf_iac_reviewU_6-15-10.pptx

[Editor note: David (P. D.) Henderson, formerly head of the Economics and Statistics Department of the OECD, is currently Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is headed by Nigel (Lord) Lawson). This is his first post at MasterResource.]

Over the past 22 years, governments everywhere and a great many outside observers have put their trust in the official expert advisory process as a whole and the IPCC process in particular.

I have come to believe that this widespread trust is unwarranted. But it is not just the IPCC process that is in question here. The basic problem of unwarranted trust goes further: it extends to the chronically biased treatment of climate change issues by responsible departments and agencies which the Panel reports to, and in nationally-based organizations which they finance.

Here is what I recently submitted to the InterAcademy Council.

Background

I am Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. On 26 May the InterAcademy Council invited the Foundation to submit written comments to the independent Review Committee. At the suggestion of the Director of the Foundation, Dr Benny Peiser, I am submitting herewith my own comments. While this submission is personal, it has been endorsed by the GWPF.

I am an economist, not a climate scientist. I became involved with climate change issues, by accident not design, towards the end of 2002. Up to that time, I had formed no considered views on the subject, and had seen no reason to question the work and role of the IPCC. I was an uninvolved spectator.

To begin with, my main involvement was limited to some economic and statistical aspects of this huge and complex array of topics. Over time, however, my interests and concerns have broadened in ways that I had neither planned nor anticipated. Increasingly, and unexpectedly, I have become critical of the way in which issues of climate change have been viewed and treated by governments across the world.

In particular, I have become a critic of the official expert advisory process which governments have created and continue to rely on, within which the main single element is the work of the IPCC as reflected in its successive Assessment Reports. Over the past 22 years governments everywhere, and a great many outside observers too, have put their trust in the expert advisory process as a whole and the IPCC process in particular. I have come to believe that this widespread trust is unwarranted

In the remainder of this note I first summarize my reasons for holding this view (‘diagnosis’) and then sketch out some broad suggestions for improvement (‘prescription’). In the interests of brevity, I have not directly responded to the list of ten questions that the Inter-Academy Council has drawn up. In answer to the first question, however, I have played no part in any of the IPCC assessments.

Diagnosis

In the ‘principles governing IPCC work’, laid down by the Panel’s member governments, the IPCC is required to conduct its assessments on ‘a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis’. This requirement has not been met. The process of preparation of the Assessment Reports is far from being a model of rigor, inclusiveness and impartiality. It has shown itself to be professionally flawed.

The main headings of unprofessional conduct, none of which I would have noticed or suspected had I not become seriously involved, have been as follows:

• Over-reliance on in-group peer review procedures which do not serve as a guarantee of quality and do not ensure due disclosure;
• Serious and continuing failures of archiving and disclosure in relation to peer-reviewed studies which the IPCC and member governments have drawn on;
• Continuing resistance to disclosure of basic information which reputable journals increasingly insist on as a precondition for acceptance of papers;
• Basic errors in the handling of data, through failure to consult or involve trained statisticians;
• Failure to take due account of relevant published work which documented the above lapses, while disregarding IPCC criteria for inclusion in the assessment process;
• Failure to take due note of comments from dissenting critics who took part in the preparation of the Panel’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4);
• Resisting the disclosure of professional exchanges within the AR4 drafting process, despite the instruction of member governments that IPCC proceedings should be ‘open and transparent’; and last but far from least
• Failure on the part of the IPCC and its directing circle to acknowledge the above deficiencies, still less to remedy them.

Comprehensive exposure of these flaws has come from a number of independent commentators: in particular, in relation to key chapters of the highly influential AR4 report from the IPCC’s Working Group I, the work of Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick and David Holland has been outstanding, while the (2006) report of the Wegman inquiry is a key document.

In this context, I would particularly commend to the Review Committee two papers: David Holland’s ‘Bias and Concealment in the IPCC Process’ (Energy and Environment, Vol. 18, No. 7+8, 2007), and Ross McKitrick’s chapter in The Global Warming Debate, a book published in 2008 by the American Institute for Economic Research.

Both papers, with full supporting evidence, put in question, first, the claims to authority of arguments which have been at the core of the IPCC’s treatment of the scientific evidence, and second, the objectivity and neutrality of leading IPCC authors and reviewers.

These two documents predate

(1) the mass release of emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (’Climategate’), and

(2) the evidence that has emerged concerning sources and treatment of evidence in the AR4 report from the IPCC’s Working Group II (‘Glaciergate’).

Under both headings, and especially the former, what has now come to light powerfully reinforces the case made by critics of the IPCC process. Both developments are taken into account in the important paper which David Holland has just submitted as evidence to the Review Committee.

As noted, the defects in the IPCC process, and the official expert advisory process more broadly, have gone unacknowledged and unremedied by what I call the environmental policy milieu, and the critics have been largely disregarded. This high-level official failure, as also the defects themselves, are easily accounted for: both have resulted from chronic and pervasive bias.

Right from the start, members of the milieu, as of the IPCC’s directing circle, have been characterized by what has been well termed ‘pre-commitment to the urgency of the climate cause’. Today as in the past, the senior officials involved, in national governments and international agencies, are committed persons; and were this not the case, and known to be the case, they would not be where they are.

They and their predecessors would not have sought their respective posts, nor would they have been seen by UN agencies and member governments as eligible to hold them, had they not been identified as holding that human activities are putting the planet at risk. The official advisory process is run today, as it has been from the start, by true believers.

To repeat: it is not just the IPCC process that is in question here. The basic problem of unwarranted trust goes further: it extends to the chronically biased treatment of climate change issues by responsible departments and agencies which the Panel reports to, and in nationally-based organisations which they finance.

It is not only the environmental policy milieu that is to blame for the mishandling by governments of climate change issues. As a former Treasury official and international civil servant, I have been surprised by the failure of economic departments in OECD member countries to audit the evidence bearing on climate change issues, their uncritical acceptance of the results of a process of inquiry which is so obviously biased and flawed, and their lack of attention to the criticisms of that process which have been voiced by independent outsiders – criticisms which they ought to have been making themselves.

A similar lack of resource has characterized the Research Department of the IMF and the Economics Department of the OECD. In all these departments and agencies, there has been a conspicuous failure of due diligence.

Prescription

The chief moral to be drawn is straightforward. In an area of policy where so much is at stake, and so much remains uncertain and unsettled, policies should be evolutionary and adaptive, rather than presumptive as they are now; and their evolution should be linked to a process of inquiry and review which is more thorough, balanced, open and objective than has so far been the case.

Under the latter heading, two broad lines of official action could be followed. One is to focus on the IPCC process, by making it more professionally representative and watertight, while the other is to go beyond it. The more that can be done under the first heading, the less the need for action under the second. I believe that both can contribute, the more so since action under the second heading can be taken by national governments on their own account.

In his submission to the Review Committee, referred to above, David Holland has made 15 specific recommendations for improving the IPCC process. All of these are good suggestions. Here I would emphasize, in more general terms, three related aspects of reform, including but not confined to the IPCC. These are disclosure, inclusiveness and audit.

As to disclosure, two basic changes to IPCC practice should be made, with wider implications.

First, it should be clearly laid down, in the instructions to the Panel from its member governments, that no published work would qualify for consideration in the IPCC assessment process without evidence of proper archiving and full disclosure of data and code. Journal editors should be informed accordingly.

Second, governments should ensure that the IPCC assessment and review process actually conforms to the official requirement that it should be objective, open, and transparent. Specific proposals to that effect are made in David Holland’s submission.

Due disclosure would in itself promote greater inclusiveness, and both are required for more effective audit. With disclosure, non-subscribers to received opinion would be more fully informed and could no longer be easily disregarded or set aside; hence they would have better reason to take part in an assessment process which has become increasingly conformist with time.

Nor is it just critics of prevailing scientific opinion who should become more involved, with official knowledge and consent. There is an important role to be defined and made effective for neutral expertise, in the context of what has been rightly described as ‘the need for comprehensive audit of the quality of the science-based information on climate risk that is currently being used by governments to set public policy’.

More broadly, and going beyond the IPCC process, a new start is needed in the official handling of climate change issues. Neither the current official policy consensus nor the advice on which it rests should be treated as authoritative or final. Both should be seen, not as established doctrine, but rather as a body of working assumptions.

As such, they should be made subject to rigorous testing and review; and it should be a leading concern of policy to ensure that such testing and review takes place. The whole notion of a now-settled consensus should be discarded.

Governments should promote open exchanges of view and contrasting informed assessments. It should no longer be presumed either that the scientific debate is over or that the present official expert advisory process is professionally up to the mark, which it is not.

Appendix: David Henderson Profile

Britain’s David Henderson was formerly (1984–92) head of the Economics and Statistics Department of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (the OECD) in Paris.

Before this, he had worked as an academic economist in Britain, first in Oxford (Fellow of Lincoln College) and later (1975–83) in University College London (Professor of Economics); as a national civil servant – in the 1950s, as an Economic Adviser in Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the 1960s, as Chief Economist in the UK Ministry of Aviation; and as an international civil servant (with the World Bank (1969–75), where he was at one stage Director of the Economics Department.

In 1985 he gave the BBC Reith Lectures, which were published in book form under the title of Innocence and Design: The Influence of Economic Ideas on Policy (Blackwell, 1986).

Since leaving the OECD, Henderson has been an independent author and consultant, and has acted as Visiting Fellow or Professor at the OECD Development Centre (Paris), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels), Monash University (Melbourne), the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris), the University of Melbourne, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London), the New Zealand Business Roundtable, the Melbourne Business School, and the Institute of Economic Affairs (London).

From 2001–09 he was a Visiting Professor at the Westminster Business School, London. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He is an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and in 1992 he was made Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.

While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

Some climate scientists have distanced themselves from the IPCC Working Group II’s (WGII’s) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, prefering instead  the stronger hard science in the Working Group I (WGI) Report—The Physical Science Basis. Some folks have even gone as far as saying that no errors have been found in the WGI Report and the process in creating it was exemplary.

Such folks are in denial.

As I document below, WGI did a poor job in regard to Antarctic sea ice trends. Somehow, the IPCC specialists assessed away a plethora of evidence showing that the sea ice around Antarctica has been significantly increasing—a behavior that runs counter to climate model projections of sea ice declines—and instead documented only a slight, statistically insignificant rise.

How did this happen? The evidence suggests that IPCC authors were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work in lieu of other equally legitimate (and ultimately more correct) findings, were being guided by IPCC brass to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both.

The handling of Antarctic sea ice is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident in the IPCC reports, but is simply one of many examples in which portions of the peer-reviewed scientific literature were cast aside, or ignored, so that a particular point of view—the preconceived IPCC point of view—could be either maintained or forwarded.

Background

The problems with the IPCC’s handling of the trends in Antarctic sea ice was first uncovered and presented a week or two ago in an article posted over at the World Climate Report—another blog with which I have been involved with for a long time.

In this MasterResource article, I have dug a bit deeper into what lies behind the IPCC’s “assessment” of the trends in Antarctic sea ice that is presented in its WGI Fourth Assessment Report. What I’ve uncovered clearly illustrates the difference between a “review” of the literature and an “assessment” of the literature. The former would include as much of the literature on the topic under consideration as possible, while the latter carefully selects from the literature to make a particular case. As such, the results of a “review” would be pretty constant across different assemblages of folks doing the reviewing, while the results of an “assessment” strongly depend on just who is doing the assessing. Case in point, compare the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report with the equally glossy and thick Assessment Report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Both start with the same body of literature, and yet they arrive at completely different conclusions.

Getting into the Detail

This is clearly evident in the section on recent sea ice trends in Antarctica. The IPCC dedicates part of one paragraph to the topic (IPCC AR4 Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2.2, p. 350-351) incorporating one reference (“Comiso (2003)”) which turns out to be a book chapter (i.e. not part of the peer-reviewed literature). The NIPCC on the other hand dedicates two full pages to the subject and incorporates 14 citations from the peer-reviewed literature (NIPCC, Chapter 4, Section 4.2.1, p 152–154).

The IPCC concludes, after its brief analysis, that while there has been an apparent increase in the sea ice extent around Antarctica from 1979 through 2005, that the increase has been slight and not statistically significant.

The NIPCC, on the other hand, finds that the trend in Antarctic sea ice has been about 2 to 3 times as great as the IPCC reported and, in fact, is quite statistically significant.

True, the NIPCC Report was published after the IPCC Assessment, so it includes a few citations that were published in the literature subsequent to the IPCC inclusion deadline, but still, there were plenty of publications that were extant at the time of the IPCC preparation that should have better guided the IPCC finding.

For some reason, the IPCC opted to ignore the vast majority those papers (and associated datasets). Consequently, as we shall see, the NIPCC’s assessment turns out to be superior to the IPCC’s.

The fact that the IPCC’s assessment was extremely limited and narrow did not go unnoticed in the IPCC review process (the set of expert and government reviews for various drafts of the IPCC AR4 can be found here).

One commenter (Ola Johannessen, who himself has published on sea ice trends) complained about the First Order Draft of the AR4 Chapter 4 that:

Section 4.4.2.2 [the section on sea ice trends]: The presentation of hemispheric, regional and seasonal trends is also incomplete, misleading and biased to NASA work (Comiso).

To which the IPCC replied:

Taken into account in the revised text.

A look at the final, published version of Section 4.4.2.2 shows that, in fact, there is only one reference to data on sea ice trends, that to Comiso (2003). The only other reference in the section (Belchansky et al., 2005) is to explain reasons for interannual variability and the Belchansky et al. reference was already present in the First Order Draft. So it hardly seems like Johannessen’s comments were “taken into account,” instead it seems like they were ignored.

Johannessen further complains about IPCC’s use of only one sea ice dataset, commenting “There should be a sentence added before ‘An updated version of the analysis done by Comiso…’ (which, by the way, appears to an update that is not a published or accepted paper)” and then going on to suggest many additional references that should be added to this section. The IPCC responds:

“Taken into account with the inclusion of Johannessen et al. (2004) work. But AR4 is meant to be the most recent assessment, not a history of prior assessments. Updates of data sets using previously published methodology is acceptable for IPCC.”

Interesting. First, in the published version of Chapter 4, the reference to Johannessen et al. (2004) does not appear in the section of the Chapter 4 under discussion—so apparently the IPCC was just bluffing about including it. Second, the IPCC affirms that being an “assessment” doesn’t mean having to include all relevant literature (i.e., it includes only literature that it deems to be relevant). And third, that using updates of previously published datasets is acceptable in the IPCC process.

In this case, points 2 and 3 seem opposed to each other. For the IPCC has deemed one particular dataset, that of Comiso (2003), to be most relevant, despite the fact that several other “recent” datasets existed.

Let’s look into the IPCC’s reliance on Comiso (2003) a bit further (Comiso by the way was a contributing author to IPCC AR4 Chapter 4).

The IPCC reference of their sea ice data is to Comiso (2003) which is the following book chapter (available here):

Comiso, J.C., 2003: Large scale characteristics and variability of the global sea ice cover. In: Sea Ice – An Introduction to its Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Geology [Thomas, D. and G.S. Dieckmann (eds.)]. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK, pp. 112–142.

The analyses in this book chapter use a sea ice algorithm developed and improved by Dr. Josefino Comiso during the 1980s and 1990s (Comiso’s technique was known as the “Bootstrap” algorithm). At the same time, there was another algorithm to derive sea ice from satellite observations that had been developed and improved by Dr. Donald Cavalieri and colleagues during the same span (Cavalieri et al.’s technique was known as the “NASA Team” algorithm). Both algorithms produced pretty similar results when deriving sea ice extent in the Arctic, but in the Antarctic regions, the results—especially the trend results—differed rather significantly. This difference was well-recognized in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (e.g. Zwally et al., 2002; Comiso and Steffen, 2001). Comiso’s Bootstrap method produced a much smaller and insignificant increase in Antarctic sea ice while the NASA Team algorithm produced a larger, statistically significant increase. Another analysis, by Watkins and Simmonds (2000) produced a trend that agreed better with the NASA Team results than Comiso’s Bootstrap results.

All these facts were acknowledged by the researchers involved as evidenced by discussions in Zwally et al. (2002) and Comiso and Steffen (2001), with each group more or less showing more reliance on their own methodology.

Further, an update to the NASA Team algorithm (known as NASA Team version 2) was published by Markus and Cavalieri in 2000. This update had the impact of producing an even greater trend in the extent of Antarctic sea ice (over the original NASA Team algorithm) and enlarging the discrepancy with Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm.

All of this was extant in the peer-reviewed literature at the time of the IPCC AR4 production and yet the IPCC “assessed” things this way:

Most analyses of variability and trend in ice extent using the satellite record have focused on the period after 1978 when the satellite sensors have been relatively constant. Different estimates, obtained using different retrieval algorithms, produce very similar results for hemispheric extent, and all show an asymmetry between changes in the Arctic and the Antarctic. As an example, an updated analysis done by Comiso (2003) spanning the period November 1987 through December 2005, is shown in Figure 4.8. [emphasis added]

The statement in bold above was well-established at the time to be wrong, at least as it applied to the Southern Hemisphere. So obviously, even at this point, it is clear that the IPCC had conducted an inaccurate “assessment” of the literature.

Not surprisingly, of the existing “retrieval algorithms,” the one which showed the smallest (and statistically insignificant) trend in the Southern Hemisphere was the one used in “Comiso (2003)” which was selected as the example used by the IPCC.

How convenient.

It is even somewhat debatable whether even the “updated analysis done by Comiso (2003)” showed an insignificant trend.

The First Order Draft of Chapter 4 contained the following illustration of Southern Hemisphere sea ice, along with the caption “Sea Ice extent anomalies … the Southern Hemisphere based on passive microwave satellite data… [l]inear trend lines are indicated for each hemisphere….the small positive trend in the Southern Hemisphere is not significant. (Updated from Comiso, 2003).”

Figure 1. Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 First Order Draft.

Notice two things, 1) the figure depicts monthly ice extent anomalies from November 1978 through October 2004, and 2) the trend through them seems to be statistically significant (i.e. the confidence range does not include zero), given in the illustration as 9089.2 +/- 2970.7 km²/year or 0.735 +/- 0.240%/dec.

Yet, for some reason, the accompanying text claims that the trend in Figure 4.4.1b is insignificant (AR4 First Order Draft, page 4-14, lines 9-10):

The Antarctic results show a slight but insignificant positive trend of 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade.

This inconsistency was brought to the IPCC Chapter 4 authors’ attention by several IPCC commenters. Commentor John Church wrote “I do not understand why this trend is insignificant – it is more than three times the quoted error estimates” and Stefan Rahmstorf wrote “How can a trend of 0.7 +/- 0.2 be ‘insignificant’? Is not 0.2 the confidence interval, so it is significantly positive?” The IPCC responded to both in the same manner “Taken into account in revised text.”

And boy did they ever!

The Second Order Draft of Chapter 4 included the following figure (which ultimately was the one included in the final publication):

Figure 2. Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 Second Order Draft (this graphic was Figure 4.8 in the IPCC AR4 published version of Chapter 4).

The caption still read “the small positive trend in the Southern Hemisphere is not significant” but now the trend had become “5.6 +/- 11 x 10³ km² per year.”

Note two things 1) the monthly sea ice anomalies were replaced by annual anomalies, and 2) the trend shrunk by 38% and now actually was statistically insignificant.

So how did this come about?

First off, the IPCC used a well known statistical trick to lower the significance of the increase—that is, switch from monthly values to annual values. This trick generally has little impact on the trend value, but can have a sizeable impact on the statistical confidence of the trend. A trend that is supported by a larger amount of individual data points (in this case, monthly values) has more statistical confidence than the same trend supported by fewer data point (in this case annual data values). So, by using annual data instead of monthly data, the IPCC effectively lowered the perceived confidence of the Southern Hemisphere sea ice trend.

Secondly, just how did the trend drop by 38% when adding another 13 months’ worth of observations? Well, it is not because of the influence of those extra months, as they fell very near the established trend line (in other words, they had little direct influence on the trend). And switching from monthly to annual data also wouldn’t do it. So it had to be something else. One possible explanation is that the figure from the First Order Draft was actually (mistakenly) depicting Comiso’s determination of the area of sea ice, rather than the extent of sea ice. There is a difference in definition between these terms. The sea ice extent is taken to mean the area which is covered by sea ice with a concentration of at least 15% (i.e. this includes regions that are 85% open water), while sea ice area is taken to be the actual area of sea ice itself (so the sea ice area is less than the sea ice extent). Under general circumstances, the two measurements are highly correlated, and their trends are very similar. However, in the case of the Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm, the trends in Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent and sea ice area were largely different. This fact raised some flags of concern at the time. Zwally et al. (2002) noted that the Bootstrap sea ice extent trends were the odd man out of all datasets. The area trends were similar across retrieval algorithms (all were significantly positive, including Comiso’s Bootstrap) and the extent trends were similar to the area trends in all algorithms except Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm. Zwally et al. (2002) took this to mean that something was likely wrong with the Bootstrap determinations of Southern Hemispheric sea ice extent (probably involving how data from two satellites was stitched together). Comiso and Steffen (2001) also noted the difference in the trend between sea ice area and extent produced by the Bootstrap algorithm, they attributed most of the difference to changes in how tightly the sea ice was packed together (a mechanism dismissed by Zwally et al.) but admitted that inter-satellite issues may also play a part in the trend differences.

Bottom line is that not only did the IPCC Chapter 4 authors have to carefully choose which sea ice retrieval algorithm to use, but they also had to be careful to use sea ice extent rather than sea ice area (somthing they quite possibly forgot that they needed to do in the First Order Draft of Chapter 4).

The IPCC justifies these decisions as being the result of their “assessment” of the topic and the literature—decisions that just so happen to minimize the apparent increase in Southern Hemispheric sea ice concentration. The result of the inclusion of any other then-extant dataset on Southern Hemispheric sea ice would have been to counter the IPCC’s “assessment” that the sea ice increase there was statistically insignificant.

Oh yeah, an “assessment” of a significant rise in Southern Hemispheric sea ice would have been quite inconvenient to another IPCC “assessment” that “[s]ea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and the Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.” So, no doubt the IPCC Chapter 4 Coordinating Lead Authors got a big slap on the back from the IPCC brass for avoiding that potentially embarrassing problem.

Parenthetically, I bet it would be fun to see the emails associated with the production of AR4 Chapter 4!

One last thing.

Less than a year after the IPCC AR4 was published, Comiso reported that indeed there was a problem with the Bootstrap algorithm as it concerned Southern Hemispheric sea ice extent (Comiso and Nishio, 2008). Correcting that problem increased the observed trend in Antarctic sea ice extent from November 1978 to December 2005 to 14,645 km²/year—a highly statistically significant value that is 2.6 times higher than reported by the IPCC and virtually identical to the trend from the updated NASA Team algorithm, described by Markus and Cavalieri in 2000 but completely ignored by the IPCC. Basically, everyone but Comiso (and the IPCC) was right all along.

Figure 3. Annual Antarctic sea ice anomalies from three datasets: the one used by the IPCC (Comiso, 2003; red); another extant at the time of the IPCC production (Markus and Cavalieri, 2000; blue); and the update to the IPCC analysis (Comiso and Nishio, 2008; cyan). The trend in the latter two datsets are more than 2.5 times larger than the IPCC trend and both are statistically significant (the IPCC trend is not).

Conclusion

On the topic of Antarctic sea ice trends, the “consensus of scientists”—as the IPCC likes to call itself—was wrong, led astray by the extremely poor “assessment” of the scientific knowledge-base made by a very few people who were directly involved in preparing that section—people who were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work, were being guided by higher-ups to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both.

From all I have been able to find out about this so far (including enlightenment gained from the Climategate emails into how other sections of the AR4 were carefully constructed), I would rate it “extremely unlikely” (in IPCC parlance, less than 5% chance) that what transpired was dumb luck, born of the IPCC authors’ unfamiliarity with the peer-reviewed literature—the very thing they were supposed to be assessing.

I am not sure which case is the most embarrassing.

References:

Comiso, J.C., 2001. Studies of Antarctic sea ice concentrations from satellite data and their applications. Journal of Geophysical Research, 106, C12, 31361-31385.

Comiso, J. C., and F. Nishio, 2008. Trends in the sea ice cover using enhanced and compatible AMSR-E, SSM/I, and SMMR data. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, C02S07, doi:10.1029/2007JC004257.

Cavalieri, D. J., P. Gloersen, C. L. Parkinson, J. C. Comiso, and H. J. Zwally, 1997. Observed hemispheric asymmetry in global sea ice changes. Science, 278, 1104–1106.

Cavalieri, D. J., C. L. Parkinson, P. Gloersen, J. C. Comiso, and H. J. Zwally, 1999. Deriving long-term time series of sea ice cover from satellite passive microwave multisensor data sets. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104, 15803–15814.

Markus, T., and D. Cavalieri, 2000. An enhancement of the NASA Team sea ice algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 38, 1387-1398.

Watkins, A. B., and I. Simmonds, Current trends in Antarctic sea ice: The 1990s impact on a short climatology, 2000. Journal of Climate, 13, 4441–4451.

Zwally, H.J., J. C. Comiso, C. L. Parkinson, D. J. Cavalieri, 2002. Variability of Antarctic sea ice 1979-1998. Journal of Geophysical Research, 107, C5, 3041, doi:10.1029/2000JC000733.