UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent and Rebecca Lefort, UK Telegraph
The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.
The IPCCs remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change. The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.
The IPCCs remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change. The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming. The IPCCs remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.
In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.
However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.
The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a masters degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps. The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.
It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCCs report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.
This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and its conclusions are unaffected. But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCCs use of unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature.
Professor Richard Tol, one of the reports authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: These are essentially a collection of anecdotes. Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been. There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense.
The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by governments worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people. The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming.
It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000. The report also states that the section is intended to assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects. But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.
The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s. Mr Bowen said: I am surprised that they have cited an article from a climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes. The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps. Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons
There is still loads of good stuff pouring out.
A donkey pulls a cart across the frozen sea near Liaodong Bay of Bohai in Jinzhou, Liaoning province, January 22, 2010. The worst sea ice was seen on Saturday in Bohai Sea in northeastern China this winter with 51 percent of the water covered by ice
A donkey pulls a cart across the frozen sea near Liaodong Bay of Bohai in Jinzhou, Liaoning province, January 22, 2010. The worst sea ice was seen on Saturday in Bohai Sea in northeastern China this winter with 51 percent of the water covered by ice
