IPCC Caught in Two Cover-Ups of Erroneous Data

This is infuriating. Back in early December—just days before the Copenhagen “climate” conference—BBC News (Doing the job American journalists won’t do) reported:

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035”. The authors deny the claims.

Leading glaciologists say the report has caused confusion and “a catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology”.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when The U.K. Times (Also doing the job that American journalists won’t do) wrote:

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research.

Now the plot thickens yet again: The U.K. Times (Still doing the job American journalists won’t do) reported yesterday that the IPCC knew about the error, but ignored it:

January 31, 2010
Panel ignored warnings on glacier error
Jonathan Leake

THE United Nations climate panel ignored warnings by leading scientists not to publish false claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

One warning, in 2006, a year before the report was published, came from Georg Kaser, an Austrian glaciologist who was a lead author on another section of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He said: “I sent warnings to the IPCC telling them the claim about Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 was false.”

2006? That was four years ago. The IPCC has been covering up scientific errors about rapid glacier melt for four years. So what does the IPCC say now that they’ve been found out?

Another warning came from Gwyn Rees, a British hydrologist who oversaw a £300,000 study funded by the UK government in 2001 to assess the claims about rapid melt.

His findings were published in 2004 — three years before the IPCC report — and also showed there was no risk of rapid melt. …

An IPCC spokesman said it regretted the error but pointed out that glaciers were still melting — albeit far more slowly than its report had suggested.

“Regrets the error?” That’s supposed to make it all OK? What if a spokesman for George W. Bush had said he “regretted the error” about no WMD being found in Iraq? Just saying. Besides, of course the glaciers are melting. We’ve been coming out of an ice age for centuries. Melting glaciers are natural!

These people are dangerous. The prosperity and security of our entire country rests on the actions of these scam artists. And our clueless ideologue of a president, who promised he’d restore the integrity of science that had allegedly been violated under Bush.

But wait! There’s more! Yesterday The U.K. Times (Still doing the job American journalists won’t do) also reported this other cover-up. Yes, two cover-ups exposed in one day:

January 31, 2010
UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim
Jonathan Leake

A STARTLING report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 2007 benchmark report that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland.

The source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists. They had based their “research” on a study published in Nature, the science journal, which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

This is the third time in as many weeks that serious doubts have been raised over the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change. Two weeks ago, after reports in The Sunday Times, it was forced to retract a warning that climate change was likely to melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. That warning was also based on claims in a WWF report.

The IPCC has been put on the defensive as well over its claims that climate change may be increasing the severity and frequency of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

This weekend Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, was fighting to keep his job after a barrage of criticism.

This chair of the IPCC is fighting to keep his job? If the IPCC really gave a crap about science—and they have demonstrated over and over and over again that they do not—they would kick this guy out on his ear. He’s a disgrace to the entire field of science, and if he has any degrees, they should all be retracted. And the IPCC should be required to return its Nobel “Peace” Prize.

Here’s my favorite part:

Scientists fear the controversies will be used by climate change sceptics to sway public opinion to ignore global warming — even though the fundamental science, that greenhouse gases can heat the world, remains strong.

You gotta love this politically-charged language: “Controversies”? You mean lies. Cover-ups. Scandals. “Used by climate change sceptics (sic) to sway public opinion to ignore global warming?” Of course skeptics will “use” them! The “scientists”—yes, I’m putting that in quotes. They’re not scientists; they’re agenda-driven political hacks—are wrong. There is no global warming. The “scientists” are worried about public opinion being swayed? The public should be informed of the truth—shouldn’t they?

Besides, even before all this garbage came out, the public is already ignoring global warming. A Pew poll came out last week listing the American public top priorities for 2010 [h/t Watts Up With That]. Of 21 topics, global warming came in dead last. 

 

The public is wising up. More and more people are realizing that man-made global warming climate change always was and still is a hoax.