The blogosphere is alive this morning with the news that many more emails regarding the inner workings of the IPCC and associated anthropogenic global warming proponents have been released by a still unknown agent.

See blog articles at Air Vent, and Watts up with that for samples.

Following are some examples of email excerpts posted on the Air Vent site.  Keep in mind that these excerpts are without context. These excerpts purport to show that a small group is trying to manipulate the data and the public perception:

4443> Jones:

Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low  level clouds.

<1939> Thorne/MetO:

 Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical  troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a  wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the  uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these  further if necessary [...]

 <3066> Thorne:

 I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it  which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

Presumably this one refers to Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph:

2884> Wigley:

 Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of  dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]

1611> Carter:

 It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much  talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by  a select core group.

0714> Jones:

 Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about  the tornadoes group.

 1790> Lorenzoni:

 I agree with the importance of extreme events as foci for public and  governmental opinion [...] ‘climate change’ needs to be present in people’s  daily lives. They should be reminded that it is a continuously occurring and  evolving phenomenon

1485> Mann:

 the important thing is to make sure they’re losing the PR battle. That’s what  the site [Real Climate] is about.

2428> Ashton/co2.org:

 Having established scale and urgency, the political challenge is then to turn  this from an argument about the cost of cutting emissions – bad politics – to  one about the value of a stable climate – much better politics. [...] the most  valuable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change as vividly as  possible

1577> Jones:

[FOI, temperature data]

Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we  get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US  Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, has more on the story.  Initially there had been a question about the authenticity of the purported emails, but the Guardian story quotes Michael Mann as saying they look genuine.

This new release of additional emails comes just a week before the big United Nations climate change conference in Durban, South Africa.

Searchable database of Climategate 2 emails: http://foia2011.org/

See my post on the original Climategate of two years ago here.

Some real science might have leaked from IPCC

British reporter Richard Black of the BBC claims to have received a draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on extreme weather.

 In this draft, the IPCC seems to have backed off some of its past scary predictions and now says in the report:

 There is “low confidence” that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, “limited-to-medium evidence available” to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and “low confidence” on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen.

 In terms of attribution of trends to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the uncertainties continue.

 While it is “likely” that anthropogenic influences are behind the changes in cold days and warm days, there is only “medium confidence” that they are behind changes in extreme rainfall events, and “low confidence” in attributing any changes in tropical cyclone activity to greenhouse gas emissions or anything else humanity has done.

 “Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

 In that last paragraph, the IPCC admits that they don’t know what will happen.  This draft report must be vetted by policy makers and a final report is scheduled to be released Friday.  We will see how many of these “uncertainty” statements survive.

 See some other opinions/reports on this here, here, and here.

See also:

A Perspective on Climate Change a tutorial

Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect

Humans and the Carbon Cycle

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a draft summary of its upcoming report on climate change, and the media are hyping the scary scenarios.  Typical is the headline in the Arizona Daily Star: “Scientists: More weather crises are on their way.”

If you think about it a minute, that headline is  equivalent to this: “Scientists predict sun will rise tomorrow.”  Of course we have had and will continue to have weather extremes.

The headline is all too familiar.  Here is another headline from the New York Times:”Scientists Say Earth’s Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions.”  That headline was from September 18, 1995.

In the 1995 article, the IPCC made some predictions, one of which we can now test.  They predicted: “A striking retreat of mountain glaciers around the world, accompanied in the Northern Hemisphere by a shrinking snow cover in winter.”

It so happens that the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab keeps track of snow cover. The graph below shows that rather than a  decrease, snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has been increasing since 1995:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can also look at extreme high and low temperatures.  The National Climate Data Center has a map and table here, which shows that for each state, most of the extreme high and low temperatures occurred before 1950.  Of the 50 states, 29 had record lows and 35 had record highs prior to 1950.

We can also look at the trends for precipitation, drought, and hurricanes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The United States Geological Survey studied the relationship between floods and rising carbon dioxide.  The USGS found that for most of the country during the last 100 years, there is no strong statistical evidence for flooding increasing or decreasing with rising carbon dioxide.  In the southwest however, they found that flooding has been decreasing with rising carbon dioxide.

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.” –Dr. Stephen Schneider

The IPCC has lost all credibility except to the credulous press and those with a vested interest in maintaining the carbon dioxide myth.

See also:

The Assumed Authority

Book Review: The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, an IPCC Exposé