Yet Another Climate Science Mess
IPCC Error Ignites New Wave of Attacks on Research
SOURCE: AP/CHANNI ANAND
With the latest climate scandal—this time, involving dubious claims made about the likely fate of the Himalayan glaciers—the case grows ever more urgent for serious rethinking of science communication practices.
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Here we go again. In the all-out war to undermine the credibility of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—and with it, mainstream climate research—skeptics have once again found a relatively small weakness and blown it into a mega-scandal. And very sad to say, the IPCC has probably made the job a lot easier for them.
For the definitive account of what some are now calling “GlacierGate,” I refer you to Climate Science Watch’s Rick Piltz, whose exhaustive investigation and explanation shows clearly that the IPCC made an inexcusable error in the Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, Vulnerability) volume of its Fourth Assessment Report. The peer review process broke down, and very dubious (and, indeed, plagiarized) claims were published about the likelihood of the Himalayan glaciers vanishing, due to climate change, by the year 2035. The central offending sentence is the following:
Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).
Not only is this business about 2035 an exceedingly dubious assertion, but part of the error seems traceable to a simple typo—an original source made predictions for the year 2350, not 2035. When doubts were raised about the passage, however, the IPCC failed to respond either quickly or well. IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri even reportedly referred to a November Indian government report that questioned the IPCC’s findings about the glaciers’ vulnerability as “voodoo science.” Actually, the voodoo was all the IPCC’s, but the U.N. body only acknowledged its error several months after questions were first raised in the Indian report. “In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the IPCC coughed out on January 20.
As a result of these flubs, the “Glaciergate” scandal has grown vastly larger than it should have, and skeptics are calling not only for the resignation of Pachauri, but even the revocation of the body’s 2007 Nobel Prize. There are also allegations that the erroneous content was added to the IPCC report for stark political reasons, but this seems questionable.
So without exonerating the IPCC in this instance—there is no defense for such shoddy work—let’s attempt to inject a little sanity here. The IPCC goofed, but we should keep matters in perspective. We’re talking about one tiny section of a 938-page report on how climate change will affect different parts of the world. It would be amazing if errors did not slip into such a vast document, whatever the professed peer review standards may be. And the mistake was originally caught not by skeptics, but by scientists, including an IPCC report co-author. In the broadest sense, the scientific process is actually working here, even if the IPCC stumbled in this case.
Moreover, Himalayan glaciers are retreating, even if they’re not doing so faster than glaciers in other parts of the world, and even if they won’t be gone by 2035. As a team of scientists who exposed the IPCC’s mistake in a letter to the journal Science judiciously put it:
This was a bad error. It was a really bad paragraph, and poses a legitimate question about how to improve IPCC’s review process. It was not a conspiracy. The error does not compromise the IPCC Fourth Assessment, which for the most part was well reviewed and is highly accurate.
That seems like a very balanced take on “GlacierGate”—which itself follows just months after the devastating “ClimateGate.” It is impossible not to compare the two—even as it is also extremely disheartening to do so.
Once again, this flub and its aftermath raises deep questions about how climate scientists respond to crises and scandal. One of the simplest rules of public relations is that the cover-up is worse than the crime, and that certainly seems to describe what happened in this instance.
More generally, in the case of both GlacierGate and ClimateGate, it needs to be understood that while many science defenders will seek to set the record straight in these instances, and put whatever failing has occurred in proper context, that’s not really enough to distract attention away from a scandal. True, the larger picture of climate science doesn’t change because of the various “-Gates”; but in each case, that larger picture isn’t the story of the moment. The scandal is; and shifting out of the scandal frame, once it has been firmly established, is difficult or impossible to do. You can’t rewind a punch to remove a black eye; you have to wait for the black eye to heal. That’s why these messes should be avoided in the first place, or defused immediately when they happen. (It is hard to believe that, with skeptics out to find anything they can to undermine the IPCC, they could ever vanish completely.)
In broadest perspective, it is time to recognize that it is all-out war right now in the climate research arena. Climate scientists are under concerted attack, as is the scientific information they produce and defend. Moreover, it’s a nastier and, in many ways, a worse situation than what obtained while George W. Bush was president. We’ve swapped a centrally organized government effort to distort climate science for a kind of grassroots, guerilla war against it, driven by blogs and skeptic scientist amateurs who nourish a powerful sense of self-motivation, a generous helping of anger and outrage, and seem to smell blood in the water.
Climate scientists must take this new threat with the utmost seriousness. Frankly, I’ve never seen things this bad, or climate research so vulnerable in the public eye. It is crisis time, folks. And the attacks are just going to keep on coming.
Chris Mooney is the author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”
Comments on this article
Mr. Mooney, I differ from your characterization of what’s happening now. As one of the ‘attackers’ (I presume that’s where you would place me–I write daily on Examiner.com about the failings of the climate industry and have co-authored a book about Climategate) my perspective should at least allow you to know your enemy better–for I think at the end of the day you and I are at opposite ends on this.
There are attacks on scientists–especially those involved in the Climategate scandal. But that’s a handful of people, really. Mann, Briffa, Jones, Ammann, Wahl, maybe a few others. And there are institutional attacks on global warming, brought out by the usual suspects–Heartland Institute, CEI, and the like.
But the overwhelming majority of comment and complain that I see (and usually write about) concerns people like you, not scientists at all. It is the communicators (and what I would term serial exaggerators) that have everybody hot under the collar.
I believe global warming is real and needs to be addressed now. I was an enthusiastic supporter of candidate Obama’s energy proposals and am (a more tepid) supporter of President Obama’s plans. But I believe that global warming has been exaggerated by people like you, Joe Romm, and a cast of hundreds who have pushed the scientific message aside and have jumped out in front with claims that do not have the same level of scientific confidence than previously published reports in the IPCC and other places.
If you look at who’s being attacked, it’s Pachauri–who is emphatically not a scientist. It’s Phil Jones and Michael Mann, who are, but who have fairly obviously misbehaved, to put it charitably. It’s the IPCC–but because they are dragging gray literature into their reports and replacing science with articles from rock climbing magazines, and for stonewalling protests about the glacier mishap since 2004. There are 23 references to the WWF and Greenpeace in AR4. I’m not arguing their right to be heard–but they don’t produce peer-reviewed science.
It’s you and your like that most of us are really after–not the scientists. Look around–even James Hansen gets his share of respect in the lukewarmer and skeptic communities, for having the courage of his convictions and being consistent.
It’s the communicators who have done a miserable job, Mr. Mooney–they jumped out in front of the science and the scientists and now they (you) are getting attacked for that. The only one of you lot who looks better today than three months ago is Gavin Schmidt, mostly due to his manning the fort single handedly at Real Climate after Climategate broke. Where were you?
There is a war on science. But it’s not just the Republicans who engage in it. Science is in the middle and gets either misused or attacked by both sides. That’s not new. But you are a partisan player and you should be taking the heat for what’s going on–it’s not the scientists people are angry at.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:55 pmTom, the vast majority of deniers do attack the science, even if you may not. Climate and glacier gate have resulted in a demonization campaign against climate scientists severely disproportionate to the statements of passionate opinion in a few emails and the typographical errors and gray research that precipitated the whole mess.
And attacking Chris for advocating for climate scientists is rather unfair.
NASA, MIT, the IPCC, the Defense Department and many, many more prominent sources recognize the very real and growing risk of climate change outside of the petty politics of the matter. A recent MIT study showed a 10% probability of a 12.4+ degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature by the end of this century. The same study showed a 100% probability of a greater than 3.6 degree Fahrenheit increase over the same period.
To say such results range from bad to catastrophic is not an exaggeration. To say that many climate scientists are shocked and even afraid of the implications of their own research is not a lie.
The very scientist you hold up, James Hansen, has criticized the IPCC for being too conservative on a number of counts, including sea level rise. The IPCC has noted a potential rise of 19 to 59 centimeters over the next century. Hansen has claimed that a 5 meter rise is not out of the question.
But given the number of people hunting IPCC witches, is it any wonder that body is more conservative than Hansen on a number of key issues?
And while you generally disparage non-scientists who support the science and an appropriate response to a growing threat, the Defense Department prepares for world-wide climate changes powerful enough to disrupt national security.
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:26 am