Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Template:Histinfo

Bias to overstate "dangers" and to ignore science

Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol assert that most scientists involved in climate research believe that the IPCC reports accurately summarize the state of knowledge, but several scientists have objected publicly to this assertion: Keith Shine, Frederick Seitz, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, etc.

But the current version of the article passes on this assertion as if it were a fact - rather than attributing this POV to its advocates. --Uncle Ed 10:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Ed, You can easily agree with the IPCC report - and still disagree whether the Kyoto protocol is appropriate or not. They are two different kinds of animals - one is a scientific assessment of current knowledge - and the other is a particular political implementation of what some feel is the consequence of the scientific knowledge. One belongs in the scientific sphere - and the other is entirely in the political arena. --Kim D. Petersen 11:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Kim, You are missing the point of what Ed means. Regarding Kyoto, he wasn't commenting on its appropriateness or validity. Rephrasing Ed's point: There are scientists who disagree with the IPCC's report, even some of those who were part of the research team. Supporters of Kyoto say all scientists agree. By the way temp rose first, then CO2. 68.180.38.31 (talk) 13:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Both of your premises are wrong to an extent. There are very few scientists who disagree with the IPCC report, and even fewer disagree that are part of it (to my knowledge one to two). As for supporters of the Kyoto protocol claiming that all scientists agree is completely wrong. They don't. They claim a consensus (which is entirely correct), but a scientific consensus does not mean unanimity. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The view the IPCC is biased towards alarmism is well-established in WP:RS literature. It is the reason the NIPCC was formed. I have included a short paragraph on the IPCC's bias towards alarmism, including criticisms by Pielke and the Holland peer-reviewed paper in Energy and Environment. What I have written could be improved because many scientists have complained about the alarmism. The fact the article has nothing on this before I got here is evidence the editors of the article are not being NPOV. RonCram (talk) 14:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Theres just a couple of problems with your response. A) NIPCC is not peer-reviewed and not a WP:RS. B) E&E is not a WP:RS and finally C) using Pielke in the way you do is WP:UNDUE towards a single point of view. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

All that is true, but there is another problem: Rons sources don't support his assertions. There is nothing in the Holland quote to support alarmism (the Holland quote *is* a stupid strawman: I fully support the idea that the IPCC isn't a monopoly authority: the papers it refs exist, after all). Neother does the first Peilke ref; I didn't bother check the rest (blog postings saying "you should have cited *my* paper, waaaah, aren't useful sources for anything, really) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

GA on hold

Key issues

• Short dot points need to be incorporated into a main body of prose which flows better. Some short sections should be merged
• References are missing in places
• Full ref info is not filled in some places and not consistently after the punctuation mark. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• • since there has not been much work on this article in the past 9 days, I have failed its GAC. All the best with further imporvements. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

In the section Debate over Climate Change 1995 you provided biased and incomplete presentation of facts. You omitted link towards Seitz' article in WSJ http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/ipcccont/Item05.htm. Further, it would be interesting to insert some of the sentences from the original report and deletions and corrections made by Santer in the final version. Reading current version of this section one hardly can imagine what was the real big deal with that report? Here you can find pretty extensive list of Santer's deletions and correction: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/reply_to_john_houghton.pdf.

Probably it would be most informative to say that following scientific sentences agreed upon previously by scientists were omitted from the final version by Santer:

"None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases"

"No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."

"Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced."

--Djovani 11:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The two references you cite cannot be considered reliable sources by even the wildest exercise of imagination. Raymond Arritt 12:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

IPCC Lead authors

The Category:IPCC lead authors is used to identify the lead authors of the IPCC reports but is currently being considered for deletion at: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 8. The discussion is still open for comments and hasn't been decided yet, but should this come to pass, I was wondering whether this information should be held as a list on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report or could it fit on its own list page, rather like: List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. Preferences? (Please reply at Talk:IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) Ephebi 15:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

These articles related to global change are a mess

The section title says it all. When one reads articles related to global change on Wikipedia he finds a redundant mess of opinions which leaves the reader confused, and witha slight sensation that the issue is not a scientific, but a political one. Which is exactly what DETRACTORS of the issue want: to degrade it from a risk worth to be studied and tackled till there's time to avoid disaster to a Communist mental jerkoff, forgive the profanity.

Instead of reporting any single word from anyone connected, those who carry the burden of editing these articles should carefully concentrate on solid facts. I'm not a stupd and know even too well that often science becomes matter of opinion or dogma (see the Big Bang and black holes mantra in cosmology, which is actually influenced by a Western monotheistic religious view), but this issue has to do with human basic survival. Global warming is only a piece of a more genral debate about a simple concept: we have only one Earth and cannot waste it. Resources are not infinite, and they'll soon finish if we go along this way still for some DECADES. And that's all. That's not ideology. That's mathematics.

User:Basil II 12:59, 12 October 2007 (CET)

I have to agree. Work needs to be done on these articles.141.155.133.231 16:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Basil have you considered the simplest solution? Maybe this mess is exactly what looks like? Have you considered the possibility that this article is entirely accurate when describing a redundant, non-scientific political mess? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.196.232.174 (talk) 13:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I did. And I concluded as above, that SOMEONE wants the matter to appear in that (dim) light. I'm not THAT stupid, and do not believe anything that is said easily, even in regards to global warming.

User:Basil II 12:59, 12 October 2007 (CET)

Nobel Prize Category

Is there a policy (or convention) on adding organizations as Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates? That should be added when someone gets around to cleaning up the article. tdmg 19:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have added it to the category. And... CONGRATULATIONS IGPCC. On the other hand, this would be a featured article.--HybridBoy 05:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

better definition of 'conservative'?

The article currrently states: ' A "conservative" bias in the sense of right-wing, pro-corporate leanings and influences has been documented by the release of a famous memo by ExxonMobil to the Bush administration ' ... which causes more problems than it solves. In today's world, being a right wing organisation/political party, or being a corporation, or being a Conservative (with a capital C) can still be compatible with supporting the IPCC and taking action against climate change. Anyone suggestions for some better wording? Ephebi 15:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I've reworded and given it a POV-ectomy (that section in general is not particularly well written). An important principle of clear writing is not to use the same word in two different senses, so let's restrict "conservative" to the meaning of scientifically conservative; i.e., non-speculative. Raymond Arritt 16:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

More on History

The article is lacking much about the Panel history. For example, who was the Chair back in 1988?--Connection 09:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

House of Lords report

The section on 'Criticisms of the IPCC' and 'IPCC process' contains a quote from a report described as "UK House of Lords Science and Economic Analysis and Report on IPCC for the G-8 Summit". Where does this name come from? According to the PDF, the report was produced by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee, and is called 'The Economics of Climate Change'. I read the report some time ago, but I can't remember the 2005 G-8 summit being mentioned.Enescot 02:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Go for the title in the report itself William M. Connolley 09:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutral???

The language of the opening sentance reeks of bias:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a puppet body for Green campaigners, masquerading as a group tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity."

Shouldn't this be edited into more neutral language? 63.70.91.229 (talk) 21:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I took out:

Roger A. Pielke Sr. also suggests that the IPCC process, under its current structure, constitutes a conflict of interest : "The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow. (...) Assessment Committees should not be an opportunity for members to highlight their own research and that which supports their personal scientific conclusions without properly placing into perspective the diversity found in the peer literature."

because (a) its nonsense and (b) as it itself admits, this is a very minority POV. Its nonsense because everyone else recognises the obvious - that you can't possibly have people making the report who don't know whats going on; and those are the people doing the research William M. Connolley (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

What you say may be true, but that does not mean that there is no conflict of interest worthy of note. Pielke also suggests solutions to this. As for the notability issue, I find what you say interesting since Real Climate itself discussed the matter, according to Mr. Pielke :

"Real Climate has sought to argue that the IPCC process is transparent (see). They clearly contradict themselves in their post, however, where they write

Who is Mr Pielke? But RP Sr isn't beyond misrepresenting people, so you need to find and verify the RC discussion before relying on it William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

“The authors of the report used the input from the reviewers to improve the report. In some cases, the authors may disagree with the comments - after all, it is them who are the authors of the report; not the reviewers.”

Oh you have, good. Don't see the promised COI stuff though William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This means that the authors are gatekeepers who can prevent alternative perspectives from being presented. They did exercise that power in preparing the 2007 (and earlier) IPCC Reports. The conflcit of interest reported on in the current Climate Science weblog can be shown clearly in this admission from Real Climate."

Of course the authors have to judge the comments. Who else could? RP is just pushing his POV here, and trying/failing to enlist RC William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

No matter what RC said; I am not sure that I agree with how RP interprets RC's comments about this. But the main point is that you seem to strongly believe that because it is the authors' necessary role to review comments they are therefore exempt from any COI situation, whereas this is fallacious. The fact that this is their role does not mean that they are not in a COI at the same time. I think RP has a point regarding this situation. --Childhood's End (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, only pointing out that this is a minority RP view that this is something to be complained of, and his quote admits it. It needs to be a more general complaint to be notable William M. Connolley (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As a sidenote, you are "discussed" on Pielke's site today (about the 2003 heat wave)... --Childhood's End (talk) 16:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeees I know, see above William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, sorry about it - hoped the two sides could agree for once... :) --Childhood's End (talk) 18:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Conservative?

Oops, I rolledbacks [1] Mirkin Mans change - apologies, wrong button. But I meant to revert it - it needs some word, like conservative, to indicate the direction William M. Connolley (talk) 08:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• "Objectivity" or "Objectivity and bias"? Thus criticisms that it either underestimates, or overestimates, effects can both be recorded under this heading. Ephebi (talk) (Though many articles group all such things under the single heading of "Criticism") 08:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

2500 Scientists

Does anyone have a list of the 2500 scientists mentioned in the IPCC report? Vegasprof (talk) 02:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

For the AR4, Working Group I contributors are here;[2] Working Group II contributors are here[3]; and Worjing Group III contributors are here.[4] I don't have lists of contributors for previous reports handy, but they doubtless exist somewhere. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps someone should check if the names are legit. Would you volunteer? ;) Brusegadi (talk) 03:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a lot of names. But I don't see any list with close to 2500 names. This is my first look at any details of the IPCC report, so I haven't figured out the structure yet. Is there some sort of overview that explains how it was put together? Vegasprof (talk) 11:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The main IPCC site is http://www.ipcc.ch. Look around until you find what you need. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The most relevant thing I could find is here, though that is probably not what you're looking for. (P.S. the number of contributors listed probably around 1,500-2,000 based on rough extrapolation.) ~ UBeR (talk) 18:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Amount of Scientists

I thought that most of those 3,000 weren't scientists. Also it should be mentioned that only 52 of the IPCC scientists decided that Global Warming was likely to be caused by us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.152.172 (talk) 10:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

History

Might I suggest a "History" section to this article?12.26.68.146 (talk) 14:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Brusegadi (talk) 02:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Alarmist bias of IPCC reports

A glaring weakness of the article at present is the absence of any discussion of the alarmist bias of the IPCC reports. The alarmism has been criticized by a large number of scientists, yet the article reads as if the only criticism is that the IPCC has been too conservative in its estimates. Below is a paragraph I contributed that introduces the topic. It is far from perfect and statements by many other scientists could be added to this paragraph. But we need to discuss this on the Talk page has my contribution has been deleted without any effort to make it better.

===Alarmist bias of IPCC reports===

Several climatologists have criticized the IPCC for bias. Roger Pielke has been critical of the IPCC's selection of scientific papers,, specifically regarding its assessment of near surface temperature trends. Pielke has also been critical of the conflict of interest in the IPCC assessment process.

In a peer-reviewed paper, David Holland "concluded that the IPCC has neither the structure nor the necessary independence and supervision of its processes to be acceptable as the monopoly authority on climate science. Suggestions are made as to how the IPCC could improve its procedures towards producing reports and recommendations that are more scientifically sound.

References

Please discuss this below and make suggestions regarding other scientists who agree. For example, Christopher Landsea should probably be in this section rather than having his own section. I'm sure there are others.RonCram (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with your section is that its basically a synthesis/original research of unrelated critique, that has a heavy emphasis on a specific scientist - who is basically saying: "They should have used my research". And finally of course that you use un-reliable sources such as the E&E paper. (which according to WMC - you've also misinterpreted (see top discussion)). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that your many references to Pielke, doesn't in any way or form support the wording "alarmist". Which makes it WP:POV on top of all the other things. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron - I'm sure you didn't like the answers you got above, but you won't get away with just ignoring them William M. Connolley (talk) 21:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Kim, Roger Pielke and Dallas Staley are not one person. They have more specifics on IPCC bias than most of the items I have seen written. I do not see how ignoring them helps the article. It seems to me the best way to address any concerns regarding WP:UNDUE is to include crticisms from a greater number of scientists and by adding the Christopher Landsea section into this section. Pielke and Staley are not writing just about the Pielke articles that have been ignored by the IPCC. If you actually read the links, you will see articles by a number of other scientists were ignored because the articles did not reinforce the alarmist conclusions of the IPCC. You claim E&E is not a reliable source, but that is wishful thinking on your part. E&E is a peer-reviewed journal. Saying it is not peer-reviewed or not reliable could put Wikipedia in danger of a lawsuit. William, you may not like the Holland quote but his criticism is there because the IPCC is drawing conclusions that are not supported by the science. Other scientists can be added to this list and given time they will be. Ignoring the criticism of IPCC alarmism will not make it go away. RonCram (talk) 22:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron, you're not listening. Let me try again: even in the unlikely event of anyone accepting E&E as an RS, you quote still doesn't support alarmism. Its about IPCC processes. It could just as easily support the idea that IPCC is too conservative. On the other topic, your assertion that E&E is peer reviewed is unsupported. I don't believe it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron, we are all in danger of a lawsuit for everything we do or don't. That shouldn't keep us from telling the truth. E&E is not a reliable source, and its not peer-reviewed as that term in normally understood. The editor in chief has admitted that she is "following [her] political agenda -- a bit, anyway" - a statement that I can only shake my head at. Pielke (jr.) has publicly stated that had he regretted publishing there. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

William, E&E is peer-reviewed. I have exchanged emails with the editor. Whether you believe it or not does not really matter. The journal claims to be peer-reviewed and there is no evidence to the contrary. Regarding Holland, perhaps you have not read him. He is complaining about processes because the IPCC is only summarizing the alarmist literature. Your comment is nothing but a stalling tactic. Stephan, I agree that her statement was not wise but that does not change the fact it is peer-reviewed. It seems to me her greatest fault may be that she seeks out reviewers who may be favorable to a particular article. That is not uncommon in climate science. RonCram (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The Holland paper is available here in its enttirety. [5] RonCram (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

More evidence of IPCC alarmism

The Washington Times has an interesting commentary piece regarding IPCC alarmism. [6] The author comments on the "Hockey Stick" controversy and the forecasting practices of the IPCC. J. Scott Armstrong is a leading thinker in scientific forecasting and his review of IPCC practices shows they violated many forecasting principles. [7] RonCram (talk) 22:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

JSA is a self-publicist, for sure. The article is the same old recycled junk William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

JSA is a leading thinker in this field, involved with several scientific journals on forecasting. The fact the IPCC did not even review the principles they used to determine if they were doing it right is reminiscent of Michael Mann innovating statistical methods without checking with any statisticians to see if he was correct. He wasn't. Whether you like the writings of JSA or not is really not the point. The point is the IPCC has violated these forecasting principles to further their alarmism. RonCram (talk) 22:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron, you're frothing again. Calm down William M. Connolley (talk) 22:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

William, you are being insulting again. Try to deal with the facts rather than making personal attacks. RonCram (talk) 22:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Nir Shaviv writes an interesting piece on IPCC bias regarding climate sensitivity here. [8] RonCram (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Fred Singer has a presentation in which he claims "the IPCC fails to consider important scientific issues - any one of which would upset its major conclusion that 'most' warming is 'very likely' human caused." [9] It is very clear that Singer believes the IPCC is ignoring evidence so it can be alarmist. RonCram (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The BBC defends the IPCC against the charge of bias

Here is another interesting article. [10] The author, Richard Black, concludes that the charge of bias against the IPCC is unwarranted, however, the article proves that the charge of bias is commonly known. Black ignores the blog postings of Pielke, the audit by Armstrong, the resignation of Landsea and many other facts in evidence. But at least Black proves the charge of bias is commonly expressed by skeptics. RonCram (talk) 22:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep he says that its the "vociferous community of climate sceptics". And he also shows us that most of the claims are unfounded. But you still haven't shown us how its not undue weight to the opinion of a small group, which do not even agree on what the bias is. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Kim, he does not show the claims of Pielke, Armstrong, Landsea and others are unfounded. He just does not deal with them. He dismisses the claim of Reid Bryson saying only that Bryson did not have the documents needed to investigate further. I do not understand how you can consider these scientists as WP:FRINGE. It is a ridiculous position. Pielke is an ISI highly cited researcher. Bryson is the father of modern climatology. What makes you think they have to "agree" on the exact bias? The IPCC is capable of having many biases. Experts are more likely to see and care about biases more closely related to their expertise. For example, Landsea is going to care about hurricanes more than Armstrong does.RonCram (talk) 00:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron, the trouble is that you are trying to synthesize individual opinions, into something that isn't supported. Bryson and Pielke do not agree on this. Landsea complained not about the IPCC - but about Trenberth, and guess which POV was the dominating one in the AR4 - Trenberth's or Landsea's? Hint: it wasn't Trenberth. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Kim, do you really want to have a separate section for each scientist's criticism? That does not make any sense to me. Regarding Trenberth and Landsea, Landsea resigned from the IPCC because of Trenberth. Trenberth continued to hold his position with the IPCC. It is possible the IPCC toned down their alarmism on this point, (after all, the science was on Landsea's side) but that hardly precludes criticism of the IPCC. It is rather a good illustration of how far the IPCC will go to support their agenda even when it goes against the science. The article is lacking when it comes to this point. It reads as if it was written by a PR firm instead of being an objective account. RonCram (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Republicans charge the IPCC with bias

I realize this is a political document and not the work of scientists but I think it makes some good points. [11] One of the interesting sources this document references is an opinion piece by Ian Castles titled "The role of the IPCC is to assess climate change not advocate Kyoto." [12] Castles writes: "The IPCC's failure to consider the Hansen "alternative scenario" and its dismissal of the Castles and Henderson critique are disturbing signs that the Panel's role in the assessment of the science of climate change has now become subservient to its role in supporting a specific policy agenda." In most cases, that policy agenda means they the IPCC has to hype the science and threat of warming in order to spur people and governments to action. RonCram (talk) 00:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Pielke's charge of IPCC bias

Based on the comments of William Connolley and Kim above, they obviously would like readers to believe Pielke's criticism of the IPCC was because the IPCC did not promote their scientific articles. Not true. Pielke and Dallas Staley published a list of scientific papers which would have toned down the IPCC alarmism if they had been considered. Some of the papers were authored by Pielke, but others were authored by JE Gonzalez, RC Hale, JF He, CR Holder, KG Hubbard, YK Lim, R Mahmood, and RS Vose - among others. Connolley's comments were apparently intended to mislead. Pielke was not just complaining about his papers being ignored. He was complaining about papers being ignored about two issues: land use/land cover changes being a big driver of recent warming and problems with the surface temperature record. If the IPCC had honestly surveyed the scientific literature, the forecast of future warming would have been less and the uncertainty would have been greater. It is important for editors to read the linked web postings and read it for themselves rather than take Connolley's word on anything. RonCram (talk) 05:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Pielke has repeatedly criticized the IPCC for concentrating on global causes and effects, and to pay too little attention to local ones. As far as I know, he has never claimed the IPCC overestimates global effects. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Stephan, it is quite clear Pielke believes the surface temp record has a strong warming bias that exaggerates the climate trend. AFAIK, Pielke has not attempted to quantify the non-climatic warming in the temp record, but it is very clear he believes it is present. This is why Pielke supports the work of Anthony Watts, so the artificial warming can be quantified. Pielke also attributes much of the warming to land use/ land cover changes instead of rising CO2. Land use/ land cover changes do not have a "tipping point," one of the favorite excuses of the IPCC for their alarmist forecasts. Without positive feedbacks leading to a "tipping point," most mainstream scientists would put climate sensitivity at about 1 degree C for double CO2. One degree would certainly not cause melting of the polar ice caps or catastrophic sea level rise. RonCram (talk) 02:35, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is biased

One of the best examples of the bias of this article is the section "Outdatedness of reports." While this is certainly an important issue, as it stands the article makes it sound as though the IPCC forecasts are too conservative and action needs to be taken more quickly. Not true. Because the cutoff for WG1 was in July 2006, the IPCC was not able to consider a number of important peer-reviewed articles published in 2007. These include the article by Roy Spencer on the negative feedback he and his team observed over the tropics that confirmed the "Infrared Iris Hyopthesis" of Richard Lindzen. It also includes the paper by Petr Chylek showing that climate sensitivity to aerosols and CO2 were dramatically overestimated in the past. Most importantly, the paper by Stephen E. Schwartz showing the climate sensitivity to CO2 was only about 1/3 of that estimated by the IPCC. Schwartz is still concerned about global warming but admits "we have time now." Instead of discussing these scientific papers, the article discusses the lack of polar ice. The article does not point out that this has happened twice before - in 1905 and 1944 - and that the ice came back promptly both times. Neither does the article point out that the ice has reformed (just like it did in 1906 and 1945). Instead the article quotes Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, making another alarmist statement that promotes policy - something that is strictly contrary to the charter of the IPCC. RonCram (talk) 02:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron, you're soapboxing again. The Schwartz paper is wrong [13] and so is the rest of your stuff William M. Connolley (talk) 08:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not soapboxing, I am pointing out the bias of this article. Schwartz is not wrong, Annan is wrong. The work of Schwartz has been partially confirmed by the Chylek paper which shows both aerosols and CO2 have been given too much credit.[14] Annan is still using assumptions that have been proven wrong. The main point is that observers on both sides are unhappy with the fact IPCC cutoff date was July 2006. Skeptics will point out that the majority of peer-reviewed science since then supports the skeptics. That is why Fred Singer started the NIPCC. But this article does not mention the NIPCC or the fact scientists are upset by the exaggerated alarmism of the IPCC. RonCram (talk) 16:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No-one, not even you, is interested in the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, as is evidenced by the state of its text William M. Connolley (talk) 19:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I spend quite a bit of time on the text prior to it being merged into the Singer page. At the time it was merged, it was a pretty decent article - much different than the article most of the people voted against. Someday I will find some time to improve this article and others. But the telling point here is that no one of the usual editors of this article is doing anything to make this article less biased. RonCram (talk) 03:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Earth

Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. --Iwilleditu^{Talk :)Contributions} —Preceding comment was added at 15:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

A bit of a format quibble

As I understand it, reverse chronological order is not the desired format on Wikipedia. Wouldn't changing the order of the sections to cover the events in the order they happened be best? -RunningOnBrains 13:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body...

Full of economists. But don't take my word for it.