WG1 IPCC Chapter 1 – More Scientifically Erroneous Statements

Climate Science has selected two errors in Chapter 1 of the 2007 WG1 IPCC Report to highlight in this weblog.

These are

1. They write

“This is the so-called butterfly effect: a butterfly flapping its wings (or some other small phenomenon) in one place can, in principle, alter the subsequent weather pattern in a distant place. At the core of this effect is chaos theory, which deals with how small
changes in certain variables can cause apparent randomness in complex systems.” [page 105]

This is an incorrect statement of what the “butterfly effect” really means, as discussed on Climate Science

What is the Butterfly Effect?

More on the Butterfly Effect

The perpetuation of the incorrect understanding (that in the real climate system, such a small perturbation can affect large scale weather systems) illustrates how poorly written and researched the IPCC Chapter actually is.

2. The second error (and it is a big one) is their unsubstantiated claim that

“Projecting changes in climate due to changes in greenhouse gases 50 years from now is a very different and much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now. To put it another way, long-term variations brought about by changes in the composition of the atmosphere are much more predictable than individual weather events.” [from page 105]

This is a remarkable claim, and forms the basis of the entire IPCC concept. The hypotheses that need to be tested to support their claim (and which should have been presented in Chapter 1 of the IPCC Report) are discussed on the Climate Science weblogs:

Are Multi-Decadal Global Climate Simulations Hypotheses? Have They Been Tested, and, If So, Have the Hypotheses As Represented By the Models, Been Falsified?

Three Hypotheses On The Role of Human-Climate Forcings In The Climate System

Comment on the Real Climate Post on “Short and Simple Arguments For Why Climate Can Be Predictedâ€? . Climate Science Disagrees With Their Statement

Is Climate Prediction Sensitive To Initial Conditions?

Their claim that�

Projecting changes in climate due to changes in greenhouse gases 50 years from now is a very different and much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now.”

is such an absurd, scientifically unsupported claim, that the media and any scientists who swallow this conclusion are either blind to the scientific understanding of the climate system, or have other motives to promote the IPCC viewpoint. The absurdity of the IPCC claim should be obvious to anyone with common sense.