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Dr Vincent Gray has been a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception. A letter written by him to a fellow scientist has been posted on the internet, in which Dr Gray charges the IPCC with failing to respond adequately to his comments and questions.
In short, the IPCC is stonewalling one of its own experts.
I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles.
Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely.
Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition.
I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound.
Dr Gray goes on to challenge the two core claims of the IPCC: that the globe is warming and that this global warming is attributable to increasing carbon dioxide emissions.
With regard to the first claim, that global warming is occurring, he points out something that basic statistical theory corroborates: There are no sound measures of Earth’s average temperature.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.
This claim fails from two fundamental facts
1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made.
How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average?
What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming.
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected"
It is an elementary principle of sample theory that one cannot use an unrepresentative sample to make inferences about the phenomenon under investigation. The locations where thermometers are sited were not selected randomly—indeed, quite the opposite: they were selected for convenience. Such a sample cannot form the basis for estimates of the planetary temperature.
h/t: Greenie Watch
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Oh, well.
Here in BC, Gordon Campbell brought in his carbon tax budget, which is sure to become law in July this year. One of his Global Warming “gurus” is Andrew Weaver at UVic, who is on Gordo’s “Climate Change Panel” and who had a part in the recent IPCC report. I think Weaver had Gordo drink the warmist kool aid (his IPCC link was too much for Gordo).
So much for the BC economy.
Hopefully, Dr Gray’s letter will get wide distribution.
I must say the idea of an “average global temperature” has always had me shaking my head. As if taking random measurements from a few random points on a few random bits of land has some meaning. It is much the same as taking the temperature on the balcony of my Kitsilano condo, one at UBC, one at SFU, one in downtown Vancouver; another one somewhere in Victoria; one in Prince George; one in Uclulet; one on the Rogers Pass summit; completely ignoring all the lakes, rivers, and coast lines; and then claiming the average means something for all BC. The title of this book says a lot, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”.