There was an interesting article on August 3 2009 by Andy Revkin [thanks to Benny Peiser for alerting us to this] titled “Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel”. This article includes the following text:
“…… scientists who question the likelihood of a calamitous disruption of the Earth’s climate accuse the panel of cherry-picking studies and playing down levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming.
‘It just feels like the I.P.C.C. has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper,’ said John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a former panel author.
In an interview, Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the I.P.C.C., rejected the charge of bias, noting layers of transparent peer review. “
John Christy is completely correct on his view of the IPCC as a gatekeeper. The IPCC WG1 report is a biased advocacy document. I have documented the gatekeeper format of the WG1 2007 IPCC report in my Appendix in
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy. Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp.
There was a useful proposal in the Revkin news article that should be pursued. In the article, it states
“……..Dr. Nicholls, a climate scientist at Monash University in Victoria, Australia [proposed] that the group [in his proposal this would be the IPCC scientists] write more focused, expeditious reports on issues relevant to setting policy. Dr. Nicholls suggested that the panel could eventually shift to reviewing the flow of research on more basic questions through a constantly updated Wikipedia-style system.”
This is an good idea, but the ability to update a Wikipedia-style system must be available to all climate scientists, not just a cherrypicked subset of this community.
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. 