Leaked copy of IPCC's AR5 Draft Report

[marchesarosa]

IPCC AR5 draft (IPCC Fifth Assessment Report) leaked!

Claimed to contain admission of enhanced solar forcing.

Alec Rawles writes,

I participated in “expert review” of the Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”), and am now making the full draft available to the public. I believe that the leaking of this draft is entirely legal, that the taxpayer funded report report is properly in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, and that making it available to the public is in any case protected by established legal and ethical standards, but web hosting companies are not in the business of making such determinations so interested readers are encouraged to please download copies of the report for further dissemination in case this content is removed as a possible terms-of-service violation. My reasons for leaking the report are explained below. Here are the chapters:


Summary for Policymakers
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean
Chapter 4: Observations: Cryosphere
Chapter 5: Information from Paleoclimate Archives
Chapter 6: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols
Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
Chapter 8 Supplement
Chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models
Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
Chapter 13: Sea Level Change
Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
Chapter 14 Supplement
Technical Summary..........

Lead story from the Second Order Draft: strong evidence for solar forcing beyond TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) now acknowledged by IPCC

Compared to the First Order Draft, the SOD now adds the following sentence, indicated in bold (page 7-43, lines 1-5, emphasis added):

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.

The Chapter 7 authors are admitting strong evidence (“many empirical relationships”) for enhanced solar forcing (forcing beyond total solar irradiance, or TSI), even if they don’t know what the mechanism is. This directly undercuts the main premise of the report, as stated in Chapter 8 (page 8-4, lines 54-57):

There is very high confidence that natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing. In particular, over the past three decades (since 1980), robust evidence from satellite observations of the TSI and volcanic aerosols demonstrate a near-zero (–0.04 W m–2) change in the natural forcing compared to the anthropogenic AF increase of ~1.0 ± 0.3 W m–2.

The Chapter 8 authors (a different group than the Chapter 7 authors) are explicit here that their claim about natural forcing being small compared to anthropogenic forcing is based on an analysis in which the only solar forcing that is taken into account is TSI. This can be verified from the radiative forcing table on page 8-39 where the only solar variable included in the IPCC’s computer models is seen to be “solar irradiance.”

This analysis, where post-1980 warming gets attributed to the human release of CO2 on the grounds that it cannot be attributed to solar irradiance, cannot stand in the face of the Chapter 7 admission of substantial evidence for solar forcing beyond solar irradiance. Once the evidence for enhanced solar forcing is taken into account we can have no confidence that natural forcing is small compared to anthropogenic forcing.

The Chapter 8 premise that natural forcing is relatively small leads directly to the main conclusion of the entire report, stated in the first sentence of the Executive Summary (the very first sentence of the entire report): that advances since AR4 “further strengthen the basis for human activities being the primary driver in climate change” (p.1-2, lines 3-5). This headline conclusion is a direct descendant of the assumption that the only solar forcing is TSI, a claim that their own report no longer accepts.

The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect. Dozens of studies (section two here) have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices, suggesting that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change, very little of which could be explained by the very slight variation in TSI. At least the Chapter 7 team is now being explicit about what this evidence means: that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing must be at work.





Read Alec Rawls' full article plus discussion comments on WUWT here
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/13/ipcc-ar5-draft-leaked-contains-game-changing-admission-of-enhanced-solar-forcing/

[marchesarosa]

Looks like a bit of a battle is in progress between Chap 7 and Chap 8 authors! Exciting! "Consensus" is so boring, isn't it?

[pippop]

Dec 13, 2012 23:55:16 GMT marchesarosa said:

Look like a bit of a battle is in progress between Chap & and chap 8 authors! Exciting! "Consensus" is so boring, isn't it?

Yes.

Are any of the words in the OP your own?

[marchesarosa]

Andrew Revkin of the New York Times says,

A WikiLeaks-style Web dump of drafts of the 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides fresh evidence that the organization’s policies and procedures are a terrible fit for an era in which transparency will increasingly be enforced on organizations working on consequential energy and environmental issues.......

more here
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/leak-of-climate-panel-drafts-speaks-to-need-for-new-process/

[marchesarosa]

A large “all in one” RAR file of the entire Second Order Draft of the IPCC's AR5 Report has been created by a reader “hippo”

Link to the entire set of documents, as single RAR archive:
www.filedropper.com/wwwstopgreensuicidecom

then click on "Download this File"


Another first for the sceptical blogosphere!

[aubrey]

Yes, I'm going to spend the rest of the day reading that.

No, wait, I'm off to the hospital now. Then I'll find something else to do.

See you later.

[aubrey]

Actually, "Claimed" is a good work, isn't it? I've really got to go now.

[marchesarosa]

You will continue as before Aubrey. I don't expect the faithful to lose their convictions easily no matter how faulty the foundation of their belief. I guess they will just die out.

[aubrey]

Reply on another thread, more or less.

But I'm not going to read stuff like that, come on. You're interested in it (interested is maybe too mild a way of putting it) and I'm not, really. And what I think doesn't really matter a jot, does it?

[marchesarosa]

Judith Curry Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia institute of Technology says about the AR5 leak"

I’ve downloaded the SPM (Summary for Policy Makers) and a few of the chapters. The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering. More on this in future posts.

Judith Curry received a Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, she held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, Penn State University and Purdue University. She currently serves on the NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee and has recently served on the National Academies Climate Research Committee and the Space Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group. Curry is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union.

------

Aubrey, you should disabuse yourself that Viscount Monckton is the be-all and end-all of climate scepticism. Since you only read the mainstream media, Greenpeace press releases and watch TV for information about climate your ignorance of the degree of scepticism about the IPCC CO2 cult amongst serious scientists, as well as informed laymen like Monckton, is unsurprising.

One does not have to barmy, Aubrey, to be interested in better understanding the fascinating conundrum that surrounds the climate. It is one of the most compelling scientific subjects of the age or hadn't you noticed? It has probably had more public money sunk into it that any other subject. Intellectually curious people naturally want to know more about it.

[aubrey]

I didn't say that an interest in climate change shows barminess. I do think that Monckton is barmy, though. It seems unlikely that he should be barmy about everything else but a fount of good sense on climate change.

I don't think I've ever seen a Greenpeace press release in my life. One or two adverts, maybe. I think I was a member in the 70s. If I was it was more to do with whaling than anything. I do like the way the some Govts think that killing Greenpeace members is ok, though.

It has probably had more public money sunk into it that any other subject.

Not sure about that. Maybe if you count the amount that has been spent on nuclear power as well?

[visitor]

A draft of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked on climate sceptic websites.

The 14-chapter draft report was posted on a US-based blog site called stopgreensuicide and then posted on another site critical of climate science.

The leaker and other climate sceptics have isolated one section of the draft to suggest that cosmic rays such as those of the Sun may have a greater influence on warming than had been claimed.

Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.

He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is "ridiculous".

"I'm sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite - that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,"

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036?WT.svl=news0

[marchesarosa]

The example of the variation on Galactic Cosmic Radiation caused by variation in the sun's solar wind is but ONE of the possible reasons accounting for the OBSERVED link between varying states of the sun and measured variability in climate.

GCR's are currently being researched at CERN by Jasper Kirkby's team which has yet to report its findings. Kirkby was interviewed in The Guardian on the same day the AR5 WG1 was leaked. Read his remarks under "Creating Clouds in the Lab to better understand Climate" www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/climate-change

There are tons of other work depending upon empirical research which link solar variation with climatic variation EVEN THOUGH THE MECHANISM MAY NOT AT THIS STAGE BE UNDERSTOOD. This is no reason for the IPCC to dismiss the connection as it has previously done and as is being attempted once more in the latest IPCC report except that it contradicts its brief to prove that CO2 is the MAIN driver of temperature.



Here is a list of the papers that explore the solar/climatic links courtesy of Alec Rawls, the reviewer who leaked the AR5 WG1 Report.





Bond et al. 2001, “Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene,” Science.

Excerpt from Bond: “Over the last 12,000 years virtually every centennial time scale increase in drift ice documented in our North Atlantic records was tied to a distinct interval of variable and, overall, reduced solar output.”

Neff et al. 2001, “Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago,” Nature.

Finding from Neff: Correlation coefficients of .55 and .60.

Usoskin et. al. 2005, “Solar Activity Over the Last 1150 years: does it Correlate with Climate?” Proc. 13th Cool Stars Workshop.

Excerpt from Usoskin: “The long term trends in solar data and in northern hemisphere temperatures have a correlation coefficient of about 0.7 — .8 at a 94% — 98% confidence level.”

Shaviv and Veizer, 2003, “Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?” GSA Today.

Excerpt from Shaviv: “We find that at least 66% of the variance in the paleotemperature trend could be attributed to CRF [Cosmic Ray Flux] variations likely due to solar system passages through the spiral arms of the galaxy.” [Not strictly due to solar activity, but implicating the GCR, or CRF, that solar activity modulates.

Plenty of anti-CO2 alarmists know about this stuff. Mike Lockwood and Claus Fröhlich, for instance, in their 2007 paper: “Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature” (Proc. R. Soc. A), began by documenting how “ number of studies have indicated that solar variations had an effect on preindustrial climate throughout the Holocene.” In support, they cited 17 papers, the Bond and Neff articles from above, plus:

Davis & Shafer 1992; Jirikowic et al. 1993; Davis 1994; vanGeel et al. 1998; Yu&Ito 1999; Hu et al. 2003; Sarnthein et al. 2003; Christla et al. 2004; Prasad et al. 2004; Wei & Wang 2004; Maasch et al. 2005; Mayewski et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2005a; Bard & Frank 2006; and Polissar et al. 2006.

The correlations in most of these papers are not directly to temperature. They are to temperature proxies, some of which have a complex relationship with temperature, like Neff 2001, which found a correlation between solar activity and rainfall. Even so, the correlations tend to be strong, as if the whole gyre is somehow moving in broad synchrony with solar activity.

Some studies do examine correlations between solar activity proxies and direct temperature proxies, like the ratio of Oxygen18 to Oxygen16 in geologic samples. One such study (highlighted in Kirkby 2007) is Mangini et. al. 2005, “Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past 2000 yr from a δ18O stalagmite record.”

Excerpt from Mangini: “… a high correlation between δ18O in SPA 12 and D14C (r =0.61). The maxima of δ18O coincide with solar minima (Dalton, Maunder, Sporer, Wolf, as well as with minima at around AD 700, 500 and 300). This correlation indicates that the variability of δ18O is driven by solar changes, in agreement with previous results on Holocene stalagmites from Oman, and from Central Germany.”

And that’s just old stuff. Here are four random recent papers.

Ogurtsov et al, 2010, “Variations in tree ring stable isotope records from northern Finland and their possible connection to solar activity,” JASTP.

Excerpt from Ogurtsov: “Statistical analysis of the carbon and oxygen stable isotope records reveals variations in the periods around 100, 11 and 3 years. A century scale connection between the 13C/12C record and solar activity is most evident.”

Di Rita, 2011, “A possible solar pacemaker for Holocene fluctuations of a salt-marsh in southern Italy,” Quaternary International.

Excerpt from Di Rita: “The chronological correspondence between the ages of saltmarsh vegetation reductions and the minimum concentration values of 10Be in the GISP2 ice core supports the hypothesis that important fluctuations in the extent of the salt-marsh in the coastal Tavoliere plain are related to variations of solar activity.”

Raspopov et al, 2011, “Variations in climate parameters at time intervals from hundreds to tens of millions of years in the past and its relation to solar activity,” JASTP.

Excerpt from Raspopov: “Our analysis of 200-year climatic oscillations in modern times and also data of other researchers referred to above suggest that these climatic oscillations can be attributed to solar forcing. The results obtained in our study for climatic variations millions of years ago indicate, in our opinion, that the 200- year solar cycle exerted a strong influence on climate parameters at those time intervals as well.”

Tan et al, 2011, “Climate patterns in north central China during the last 1800 yr and their possible driving force,” Clim. Past.

Excerpt from Tan: “Solar activity may be the dominant force that drove the same-phase variations of the temperature and precipitation in north central China.”

Saltmarshes, precipitation, “oscillations.” It’s all so science-fair. How about something just plain scary?

Solheim et al. 2011, “The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24,” submitted astro-ph.

Excerpt from Solheim: “We find that for the Norwegian local stations investigated that 30-90% of the temperature increase in this period may be attributed to the Sun. For the average of 60 European stations we find ≈ 60% and globally (HadCRUT3) ≈ 50%. The same relations predict a temperature decrease of ≈ 0.9°C globally and 1.1−1.7°C for the Norwegian stations investigated from solar cycle 23 to 24.”

Those two dozen there are just the start. Scafetta hasn’t even been mentioned.







Find more discussion all the links to these papers here

joannenova.com.au/2012/12/alec-rawls-responds-to-steven-sherwood-the-bad-professor-is-inverting-the-scientific-method/
and here
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/a-rebuttal-to-steven-sherwood-and-the-solar-forcing-pundits-of-the-ipcc-ar5-draft-leak/

[marchesarosa]

The basis of Rawls' critique of the IPCC's attribution of late 20th century climate change to CO2 is this

...we are very familiar with what statisticians call "the omitted variable problem" (or when it is intentional, "omitted variable fraud"). Whenever an explanatory variable is omitted from a statistical analysis, its explanatory power gets misattributed to any correlated variables that are included. This problem is manifest at the very highest level of AR5, and is built into each step of its analysis.

Rawls and many other's (forget the 97% of cats malarky!) believe the omission of solar variation from IPCC reports is not only an omitted variable "problem" but an omitted variable "fraud".

I agree.