What is wrong with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

Question

Ok -- this panel -- http://www.ipcc.ch/ - found in extensive reports and studies that global warming is occurring and is "very likely" man caused.

Where are they wrong? Their study and back up is available on that website. I'm looking for anything specific that has been refuted, not just generalities, how the UN can't be trusted and all that. I want to know where they are wrong - what data is wrong -- how have they misinterpreted it. Something specific please.

dpj5 -- as I mentioned in the question -- saying the UN is biased is one thing. But they put their data out there. Where is the data wrong. Even a biased person can be right, if the data supports them. So, if the data is wrong, someone must have shown it to be wrong. Right? So what's wrong?

Mr. Jello -- what of their proof, which they have presented and is available at the link I posted, is wrong? What is questionable? What conclusions have they reached that are not warranted?

Answer 1

The problem with IPCC report is that their finding that anthropogenic causes account for 90% of global warming over the 20th century is completely false. They offer NO evidence to support this claim. In fact, the truth is just the opposite, maybe 10% of GW is man made.

The IPCC report attributes approx. 10% of warming to increases in the output of the sun. However, NASA and American Geophysical Union studies show this to be untrue. If you look at the first link below, you will find a new release from NASA regarding "NASA STUDY FINDS INCREASING SOLAR TREND THAT CAN CHANGE CLIMATE." The report says "Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century. If a trend comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a SIGNIFICANT COMPONENT of the global warming the IPCC reports to have occured over the past 100 years." Yet the IPCC puts it at 10% - how is this a SIGNIFICANT COMPONENT. The IPCC is obviously discounting the most important factor in global warming, the sun.

If you look at the second link, you can see that a study showing the 11 year average of the number of sunspots follows almost exactly the temperature trend over the 20th century. We know that the CO2 increase over the 20th century don't match the temperature record at all. CO2 has increased on an exponential curve while temperature has risen, fallen, risen, fallen and risen again.

If you look at the third link, you will find an abstract to a report from the AGU which was the first (and as far as I know) only study that looked not only at the number of sunspots, but the size of sunspots, the increase in the amount of UV and Total solar irradiation and the size and intensity of magentic plages around the sunspots. The study shows that "Correlation of our total irradiance time series with Temperature accounts statistically for 80% of the variance in global temperature over that period..." 80% if global warming, yet the IPCC tries to suggest it is just 10%.

The data simply does not support the IPCC conclusions. The earth has warmed slightly over the last 150 years, following several centuries of cooling known as the little ice age. The little ice age was caused by a reduction in the sun's output known as the maunder minimum. The return of the sun's normal output matches the temperature increase over the last century almost exactly. The sun is responsible for MOST of the warming the earth is now experiencing.

Answer 2

Look at SPM-2 on the AR4 in the site you provided. This is the part that gives a run down on anthropogenic "contribution".

Note first that the phrase "a contribution" is not the same as "cause". If you have had a family member that fought in WWII, then they "contributed" to it - they did not "cause" it. The IPCC could have chosen any wording they wanted, and it's VERY obvious that they did not choose "cause".

Second, note that the two temperature-related phenomena are the highest rated at "LIKELY" , not "very likely" as you stated (>66% vs >90%), for evidence of man's contribution. Additionally, one of these only applies to nights - ie, the models do not correlate a daytime contribution by man.

Third, the remaining phenomena are only rated as "more likely than not" (>50%), and if you look at the footnotes no attribution studies were done to come up with this - it's only a "scientific guess", except in the case of droughts which they apparently do have some studies. But still just a slightly better chance of being right than flipping a coin.

I think "what's wrong" is the manner in which folks are interpreting what's being said.

Answer 3

Some of these responses remind me of the Council's reaction to scientific evidence that the planet was going to explode in the 1st Superman movie - "The planet is merely shifting it axis" which meant that they had to do nothing to change the situation. Same here. Margret Thatcher gave a heartfelt speech to the UN decades ago pointing out that climate change was real and the biggest threat to the human race. The ice cores irrefutably show the dramatic atmospheric changes starting with the Industrial Revolution that have no comparison in the history of the planet in the speed of the change. Moreover, there is no "natural" causes that could cause such a dramatic change in this short period.

Answer 4

I suspect part of the confusion comes from the reporting of the IPCC reports in the popular media.

Hardly a day goes by that I do not see some article in the popular media that cites the IPCC reports and completely misstates what is in the reports.

Many of the complaints that I see on this site that claim the IPCC reports are wrong are referring to articles in the popular media that claimed the IPCC reports as authority for some statement in the article. The only problem is that the author of the article said the IPCC reports made statements that are not anywhere to be found in any of the IPCC reports.

The people who criticize the IPCC reports need to read the reports themselves, not what the popular media says about the reports.

In fact everyone needs to read and understand the actual IPCC reports, not what the popular media says about the reports.

Answer 5

Have we become a nation of people that blindly believes what the so called experts tell us or do we search out the truth for ourselves? I think the former is true.

Answer 6

Jello clearly hasn't read the report. "Very likely" is defined in the text as 90% confidence.

The scientists wanted to say "extremely likely" defined as 95% confidence. The policy guys from the US and China cut it back a bit by changing "extremely" to "very".

It's funny that the deniers claim the IPCC reports are political. As this example shows, the policy edits are minor and they go to making the report more conservative about man made global warming, not less.

Answer 7

It is headed up by the UN probably the most corrupt and inefficient organization known to man.

Answer 8

"Very Likely" is subjective opinion. It is not scientific fact.

Would you fly on an airplane the the FAA said was "very likely" it wouldn't crash? I wouldn't. I would like to see more definitive proof first.

The climate is very complex. There should be no rush to do something just for the sake of doing something.

Answer 9

Taken from your link "The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation".

Do you think a group whose role it is to find the scientific basis of risk of human induced climate change is going to be objective?

Answer 10

thats the thing........you are going to be searching for a long time....who says they are wrong....how can you put 600 CLIMATE scientists together and say they are wrong when they are talkign about climate.....they made very strong statements and you usualyl wont see scientists say that but they are that confident....you arent going to find anything wrong....the deniers are trying to punch desperate holes in a sound arguement....they say it is biased, but they refuse to say that the oil companies paying other scientists are biased.... if yours going to listen to anyone i would listed to the group of scientists that have spent their life studying the subject not some random person who sold out to an oil company