'Never mind the heat, climate change is hoax by gravy-train scientists'

Rajendra Pachauri says glaciers mistake in IPCC report was 'human failure'

Head of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits error but defends use of 'grey literature'

Press Association

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 May 2010 13.10 BST
• Article history

Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri prepares for a press conference at the United Nations building in Bangkok. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri prepares for a press conference at the United Nations building in Bangkok. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the international body which produces key reports to advise governments on climate change, today defended the use of "grey literature" which is not published in scientific journals.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has come under fire after a high-profile mistake was exposed in its most recent assessment of the scale and impacts of global warming — a claim the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

The claim came from a report by charity WWF and was based on remarks made by an Indian scientist which were never published in a scientific, peer-reviewed journal.

The IPCC has said it regretted the mistake, revealed at the height of the row over climate science which blew up amid efforts to secure a new global agreement to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions.

In a hearing today of the InterAcademy Council, an organisation of the world's science academies which is conducting an independent review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC, Pachauri described the inclusion of the glacier claim as "human failure" which should not have happened.

But the IPCC's chairman said there was a need to use information which was not from peer-reviewed scientific journals, because in some places that was the only research that had been done.

He said the media and other sections of society had misunderstood the role of such information, labelling it grey literature, "as if it was some form of grey muddied water flowing down the drains".

Dr Pachauri said academic work being done by bodies including the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, national governments and charities "cannot be ignored", but had to be closely examined to make sure it was robust.

He said the mistake about the glaciers should have been picked up by the authors of the section of the Fourth Assessment report in which it was included, or by its reviewers.

He said there had been comments from contributors before publication but "they were not very specific in this regard".

He told the hearing in Amsterdam: "Somehow it just missed everybody's attention.

"It is in my view a human failure which happened a few times, we just have to make sure something like this doesn't happen once again."

Dr Pachauri said the mistake was buried in the 1,000 page report and did not get used in the much-shorter summary which is written for use by policy-makers.

And he said: "We have been less than adequate in informing the public that, yes, there was an error but that does not take away anything from the fact the glaciers are melting at a very rapid rate.

"This is where our communication skills need to be enhanced."

Even if the Himalayan glaciers did not melt by 2035, glaciers around the world were in decline, with water supplies predicted to fall and the melting ice contributing to sea level rises, he said.

"Although there was this error, there's a whole lot of valid information and assessment on glaciers which we can only ignore at our own peril and the peril of generations yet to come," he said.

The CO2 Deception Atmospheric CO2 is Not a Pollutant

Truthspeaker74 — 27. April 2010 — Please Read Discription thanks..........
Thankyou to http://www.co2science.org for their kind permition to Upload this Great Video http://www.youtube.com/user/co2science

Isolated for 42 days in chambers of ambient
and elevated CO2 concentrations, they periodically documented the
growth of cowpea plants (Vigna unguiculata) via time-lapse photography
with quite impressive results indeed...............Carbon dioxide is
good for the environment.
The simple fact must be restated to counter environmentalists'
baseless allegations that the accumulation of man-made carbon dioxide,
produced by cars, power plants and other human activities, is causing
dangerous global warming. Indeed, far from being a poisonous gas that
will wreak havoc on the planet's ecosystem, carbon dioxide is arguably
the Earth's best friend in that trees, wheat, peanuts, flowers, cotton
and numerous other plants significantly benefit from increased levels
of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
doesn't just make a plant bigger. Carbon dioxide also makes plants
more resistant to extreme weather conditions. Bigger trees, increased
resistance to bad weather, improved agricultural productivity and a
boon to rainforests are just some of the many benefits that carbon
dioxide bestows on the environment. With little evidence that carbon
dioxide triggers dangerous global warming but lots of evidence showing
how carbon dioxide helps the environment, environmentalists should be
extolling the virtues of this benign greenhouse gas.

BBC British Brainwash Corperation says 'No malpractice' by climate unit

The row surrounds e-mails hacked from the University of East Anglia

There was no scientific malpractice at the research unit at the centre of the "Climategate" affair, an independent panel has concluded.

The panel, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, was convened to examine the conclusions of research published by the unit.

It began its review after hacked e-mails from CRU scientists were published on the web.

The panel said it might be helpful if researchers worked more closely with professional statisticians.

This would ensure the best methods were used, the report said.

The panel found that the work carried out by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich relied heavily on statistical methods.

"We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians," the panel remarked in its conclusions.

The e-mails issue came to light in November last year, when hundreds of messages between scientists at the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU) and their peers around the world were posted on the world wide web, along with other documents.

Critics said that the e-mail exchanges reveal an attempt by the researchers involved to manipulate data.

But a recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report into the e-mails concluded that the scientists involved had no intention to deceive.

The chair has also been challenged over his other interests. Lord Oxburgh is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables.

Critics say clean energy companies would benefit from policies to tackle climate change. But Lord Oxburgh insists the panel did not have a pre-conceived view.

The panel included Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, who had been examining the way CRU used statistical methodology to develop an average annual global temperature.

It is straightforward to get a measurement precise in space and time from an individual weather station - albeit with uncertainties attached.

But some countries have many weather stations, while others have very few, and there are sizeable areas of the Earth with no surface measurements at all.

Climate sceptics have argued CRU's statistical methods were inadequate.

The Copenhagen Treaty & The Climate Change Scam

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5