Further evidence that the IPCC should be disbanded is the extent of non-peer reviewed literature that supports the “findings” in Assessment Report 4 (AR-4). A team of people (43 Citizen Authors) from 12 countries participated in a review of AR-4. And they found that 21 of the 44 chapters that make up AR-4 had flunking grades. The Non-consensus.org blog supplied the following summary and table:
United Nations countries belong to an organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which publishes a report every six years. Often referred to as the “climate bible” the latest one was released in 2007 and is relied on by governments around the world. Billions of dollars are spent on national and international policies based on its findings. Judges consult it when trying cases. Scholars and journalists cite it thousands of times a year.
The IPCC report contains 44 chapters and is nearly 3,000 pages long. Written by people organized into three teams – Working Group 1, 2 and 3 – it consists of three smaller reports bundled into one.
This Citizen Audit focused its attention on the peer-reviewed literature claim. A team of 43 volunteers from 12 countries examined the list of references at the end of each chapter. We sorted these references into two groups – articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals and other references. (Non-peer-reviewed material is often called “grey literature”.)
21 out of 44 chapters contain so few peer-reviewed references that the IPCC received an F. The IPCC relied on peer-reviewed literature less than 60 percent of the time in these chapters.
5,587 references in the IPCC report were not peer-reviewed. Among these documents are press releases, newspaper and magazine articles, discussion papers, MA and PhD theses, working papers, and advocacy literature published by environmental groups. To read the full report click here.
A look at the details indicates that Working Group 1—PHYSICAL SCIENCE BASIS, got all of the “A’s” and 3 of the 5 “B’s”. Although they did not meet the standard that EVERYTHING was peer-reviewed literature, they came by far the closest to that standard of the three Working Groups. We noted in a previous blog that the Oxburgh Committee reviewing the CRU fiasco had excused the CRU scientists saying that they may have made mistakes, but it was the IPCC AR-4 authors that put in the temperature exaggerations. However, the Coordinating Lead Authors for the WG-1, Chapter (3), Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change were none other than Phillip Jones and Kevin Trenberth. Those two gentlemen are featured prominently in the Climategate leaked e-mail and this puts to lie the Oxburgh Committee excuses.
WG-2— IMPACTS, ADAPTATION AND VULNERABILITY had 0 “A’s”, 2 “B’s”, 5 “C’s”, 3 “D’s” and 10 “F’s”.
WG-3—MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE had no “A’s or B’s”, 1 “C”, 1 “D” and 11 “F’s”.
The Summary For Policy Makers was loosely based upon the AR-4. The juicy part for the media was the terrible things that were going to happen to the Earth if CO2 emissions were not brought under control. And most of this came from the failing-grade WG-2 and WG-3.
See also The IPCC Must Go-Part 3
Climate Change Sanity 