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While it may be expedient to enlist the authors of various kinds of research to compile respective chapters in the IPCC reports, is expediency really what we want in a document that will be used to craft global energy policy? I should hope not! A thorough and accurate assessment of the science is what is required, and I think that comes from authors who can review the available science without the preconceived ideas that come from doing the actual research.

There seems to be an unstated assumption that only those involved in the actual research can truly understand the nature of the science. That begs the questions: Why publish papers if no one outside your own little clique can understand them? Why ask the global community to change and sacrifice if one can not explain the science well enough to be understood?

All it really takes are individuals who have a sufficient scientific background to be capable of understanding the science as it is presented. In addition, related fields should be included in authoring the assessments. The flaws in the Hockey Stick were not brought to light be experts in the field of paleo-climatology, but by those familiar with statistical analysis.

In reality, there are many qualified people of science capable of overseeing the compilation of the various aspects of AGW science and have no stake in the outcome. Kenneth Blumenfeld suggests one source, although graduate students entering the same field for which they are compiling the research for the IPCC, might be susceptible to some influence pedaling.

While experts in the field should certainly be involved in writing the chapters, I would argue that the best possible solution would see lead authors who are well-established men and women of science, but not directly associated with the climate-change community, overseeing each chapter. They would be most capable of evaluating the science unemotionally and without bias. They should also be paid well for this diversion from their current projects and studies.

These same lead authors could then compile the Executive Summary with additional assistance from professors of math, statistics, logic and other sciences. At no time should a politician or bureaucrat be allowed anywhere near the document or the lead authors until it is signed, sealed and delivered.

Unfortunately, I believe this will never happen as the IPCC has become its own (very large) clique, that would not take kindly to turning the reigns over to outsiders.

Agree with Jim. In the previous thread suggested Steven Wienberg as an example of someone who would be a good lead author. He is well respected, clearly has the brains, and writes very well. There are many scientists at the end of thier careers, who are not looking for research money and have the time to do this.

As for the second point. I'm not sure we need an alternative, that would not be solved by addressing the first. Summaries and abstracts serve a very usefull purpose. They need to be well written and reflect what is in the main document. If they do that, then the problem dissapears.

Jim, you say: "I would argue that the best possible solution would see lead authors who are well-established men and women of science, but not directly associated with the climate-change community..."

I think that it's time for a new fallacy. I'll call it "the fallacy of being a scientist." If you are not intimately familiar with the climate system, then, scientist or not, you will have to become so. This would take a substantial amount of time on the front-end, *before* you could even begin writing. To make this happen, you would have to be forgiven your normal work load--teaching appointments, committee responsibilities, advisorships, ongoing research. In my brief experience, most departments are not that forgiving.

Now, from my perspective, if the shoe were on a different foot, I would not be excited. For example, my current work in the climatology of extreme and hazardous weather is supposedly preparing for a career working with *some aspect* of the climate system, probably starting near my current topical focus. And I am really looking forward to that career. If some international body tapped me to be a lead author in an investigation of something way out of my domain--maybe the Index of Biotic Integrity or some metric that evaluates impacts of water quality on macroinvertibrates--I probably would develop some sort of anxiety disorder. It would take me a lot of reading just to get up to speed on the basics. I experience shallow breathing just thinking about it.

I agree there are certainly demographic possibilities for summary writers - to eliminate the inbred fund hounds and their dupes. One sees the obvious immaturity of those who use terms such as "septic" to describe skeptics. Even they may grow up and become objective someday though.

In the meantime, those whose futures depend on fear for funding should be kept at bay along with the politicos.

It comes back that there is an entire subculture involved in defending an icon of scientific subversion - the "HS." Neither should those who have defended such ... fiction (to be extremely polite) be allowed anywhere near a summary writers pen (or keyboard...) as they have proven their lack of character.

Steve. You just said: "One sees the obvious immaturity of those who use terms such as "septic" to describe skeptics." IMMEDIATELY after saying: "the inbred fund hounds and their dupes".

What are you, a cartoon character?? Have you absolutely no sense of irony, or do you not even read what you write? Sheesh.

I'm afraid I don't see much merit in Kenneth's suggestion that graduate students should write it. It would be a brave student indeed who didn't simply parrot his supervisor's POV - quite possibly to a greater extent than the suprevisor would have done himself.

I'm actually not convinced that Mann is at fault here for promoting his own research. It would be interesting to know if there were any objections raised by other authors and reviewers, and if so, how they were dealt with. Maybe there is evidence that he was over-protective of his turf but I've not seen or heard of it. Anyway, whoever writes the thing is bound to see things from their own point of view, whether they are a scientist or not - surely what matters most is that it has a meaningful process of review and accepts credible criticism from those not directly involved. That may be difficult to achieve if the authors feel under siege from the denialist lobby of course, and it is only human nature to get defensive in the face of criticism.

James,

I don't think anyone (including me) was claiming any particular "merit" to my comments. However, I disagree with you about it requiring a "brave student indeed." Who says the advisor has a POV (that is substantial, worth parrotting) in the first place? There are still plenty of professors in the atmospheric sciences who do not do climate change research. (For readers who were not aware of this: climate change is but one important subtopic within the atmospheric sciences; there are many others)

My point (which may have missed) was to illustrate the difficulty in moving away from expert-authors. I think the idea of having lead authors come from other disciplines is absurd. Would you do it? If we don't go that route, and we also abandon expert-authors, then what? Our choices are not obvious. Graduate students popped into my head first (probably because I am one).

In any case, I like looking down the road. How many IPCC assessments are going to be written during your career (and mine)? I have a feeling this issue is going to come up every time, so we should think about the options.

Well, if the grad student is in an unrelated field, then there is unlikely to be much attraction for them in spending a couple of years learning about climate science. Besides, everyone has an opinion about global warming, qualified or not :-)

IMO there is no credible alternative to using experts - just clearly stating the alternative (that it might be preferable to have the IPCC report written by people who _don't_ know much about the subject) should make that clear enough. As to how it can ensure that it is not only comprehensive and representative, but also seen to be so - I dunno. I would have preferred to see a much more open discussion of the drafts though. I wonder if election of authors would be possible - but who would vote, and would it result in anything better than the tyranny of the majority?

James, Kenneth-

Thanks for the excahnge ... isn't there a middle ground here in using experts, but just not those whose work comprises the intellectual center of the chapter they are writing?

After all the NRC found a mostly independent group to assess the HS debate ...

Thanks!

I am not convinced that your premise (that the authors' work did comprise the intellecual centre) is valid. But of course any relevant expert is likely to have contributed some citable work.

A challenge: let's see a suggested author list, of about 10 experts for each chapter, who could not be susceptible to the accusation that they have promoted their own research.

I'm still interested in hearing anything relating to whether Mann did actually push his own research, or whether others did it for him - and in either case, were there voices raised against at the time, or are people merely being wise after the event? Is anyone actually complaining about how it was presented in Chapter 2? Or are the complaints actually about the SPM and even Houghton's press conference? I'm assuming that Mann's input was limited to that of a lead author (one of about 10) on a single chapter, but corrections are welcome.

As far as the "Hockey Stick" is concerned, what were the alternatives considered for inclusion? According to the IPCC homepage, the Panel exists to, "assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change".

Surely one component of this task is to assess the paleoclimate record and to try to synthesise a "best guess" climate reconstruction. While there have undoubtedly been a lot of attacks on Mann et al., I have yet to see any serious alternative reconstructions that explain more of the available data better. The practice of science generally involves using observation and experimentation to distinguish between two or more competing hypotheses. But if you don't have multiple valid hypotheses, then it is hard to see how bickering over who is on the panel matters. That is like arguing about whether or not voters are properly registered in an election where there is only one name on the ballot.

Kenneth,

I realized after posting my initial comments that I was being a bit to general. I was not thinking of a biologist or quantum physicist as a lead author, but someone in an 'Earth Science' field. As you said in a later post: "There are still plenty of professors in the atmospheric sciences who do not do climate change research." These are the people of which I was thinking. I might expand the list to include geologists, chemists and others who would be able to contribute a more diversified perspective; perhaps not as lead authors, but as contributors to the process.

I also suggested that they be paid well. If you could make 10 years salary in 2, would you not consider postponing your own research for a few years?

Also, lead authorship should be a one-time event. One might argue that this would lead to a lack of continuity in the IPCC reports. But the reports should be about the science. If the science is robust, competent lead authorship should have little influence on the content.

While these suggestions might be more cumbersome and expensive, one must consider that the IPCC reports are used as the spring board to global energy policy, effecting every man, woman and child on the planet! Lets take the time and money to do it right!

I can't help but think that these proposed modifications to the IPCC process are not just solutions in search of a problem. The only real problem has been PR and that is the result of a concerted effort to create that problem, can any process make itself immune to the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? Hardly.

What *was* the problem with the SPM? The HS has not been shown to be wrong, rather the contrary. The criticisms of the particulars of that single study are very tangential to the central conclusions, which are tangential to the central issue the IPCC addresses. Did Mann do something improper to get that study in or more prominently featured? James has asked for some evidence, I've never heard any.

There is nothing seriously flawed in the IPCC process (at least in the aspect under discussion: expert authors). The flaws are in the mechanisms of public discourse and policy making.

Jim, pay them heaps of money? Can't you hear your own voice crying conflict of interest, bribery, paid schill etc?

Coby said:
"I can't help but think that these proposed modifications to the IPCC process are not just solutions in search of a problem."

Now *that* is funny. You really don't see any political (e.g. Oil for Food scam) influence in the "Summary for Policymakers"?

I'm not sure why Coby and others don't get it. The issue is not about whether or not the hockey stick is close to reality, it's whether or not it's valid science. It's the same as if somebody drew it freehand and then said "see, this proves "global warming."

It's not about the hockey stick, it's about science.

The fact that Mann did it should disqualify him from any "expert" authorship. That also goes for anyone sponsoring the blog created to defend that particular piece of fiction.

Let's not forget that the "I" in IPCC stands for "Intergovernmental". If I'm not mistaken, delegates from the governments get a crack at the report before it's released - and negotiate key language in the SPM such as "the balance of evidence suggests...". It would seem to me that some of the concern expressed here for the role of scientists in the drafting of the SPM is overstated when you consider who else is involved. Perhaps if the governmental delegations played as large a role in writing the table of contents at the beginning of the process as they do debating draft language at the end of the process, the report would achieve more of the policy relevance Roger seeks.

The IPCC process is necessarily much more about collating and synthesizing scientific work than vetting the accuracy of individual pieces. The bulk of the vetting work is supposed to be done at the journal peer review/editorial level prior to publication, according to our established norms. (And yes, while bad articles get through, the journals have an extreme interest in catching crap before publication, as the egg on the faces of Nature and Science for human cloning, etc. can attest.)

Therefore, each participant in the IPCC process (myself included) should be able to make a reasonable assumption that the science in a cited article is accurate. The question therefore is much more about promotion than the science -- should Mann be allowed to promote his own work? In this I cannot fault Mann, as he is but one of at least twenty people (Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, Review Editors, and Expert Reviewers) on EACH chapter. Where were those folks?

As far as using grad students to write lit reviews, I'm all for it. If I and my fellow grad students in Lamont-Doherty's oceans and climate physics division would have been given that task as a semester or year-long seminar I think the result would have been outstanding and would have obviated the promotion/conflict problem.

Finally, the conversation between KB, JC and JA about outsiders (whether very outside or only slightly) doing the assessments illustrates an important point: Mann's work wasn't done by a dendro guy (Hughes is, but being 3rd author who knows how much input he had), it was done by a stats guy and pivoted on stats. True "assessment" of the work, if that's what we're going to strive for in addition to collating and synthesizing, needs a true stats person helping with the review. That could be one very valuable outside addition, although not being familiar with the body of lit means they wouldn't be of much use in pulling together the relevant papers.

Kevin -

I don't think many people have a problem with the actual work done. It's the subterfuge involved with the Summary for Policymakers, which glossed over the uncertainties. As I understand it, there was not, let alone a peer review process for it, even a chance for the actual scientists who did the work to review it before publication.

"the journals have an extreme interest in catching crap before publication, as the egg on the faces of Nature and Science for human cloning, etc. can attest"

Um....I'm sceptical of that. It seems to me that they (Nature and Science, that is) hype everything to the fullest extent possible, precisely because the penalty for publishing "crap" is negligible compared to the benefits of publicity.

And FWIW, in general the "contributing authors" have absolutely no direct input to the text. This term merely means someone who supplied some results that were used (not just a cited paper, but some actual content such as a graph). I just thought I'd like to make that clear as I'm listed as such on one chapter :-) We can of course comment just the same as anyone else, through the review process.

It's good to see that no-one has any substantive criticism about Mann's (or indeed anyone else's) behaviour as a lead author of a chapter.

James-

There have been plenty of public issues associated with IPCC lead authors. And there of course also many non-public issues that arise.

A few examples:

SAR Chapter 8 controversy - described in some detail by Myanna Lahsen:

Lahsen, M., 1999. The Detection and Attribution of Conspiracies: The Controversy over Chapter 8. In G.E. Marcus (ed.) Paranoia within reason : a casebook on conspiracy as explanation, University of Chicago Press, pp. 111-136.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1893-1999.21.pdf

There is also the not-long ago Landsea-Trenberth controversy chronicled on this blog.

My father has also raised issues about IPCC, as has James Hansen.

I've also raised issues about IPCC WGII treatment of disaster losses and sea level rise.

The bipolar views that we so often see (read through the comments above) that the IPCC is either perfect or corrupt will work against constructive improvement in the process.

Thanks.

James- In response to your comments on the IPCC process, unless this practice has been altered in the latest assessment, the Lead Authors have the final say as to what is included in their respective chapters, including how the text is written and what peer reviewed research is ignored.

This has resulted several of the chapters, including the Statement for Policymakers (SPM), presenting an unneccesarily narrow perspective on the topic of the chapter and in the SPM.

I discuss this issue on the Climate Science weblog; e.g. see http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2005/10/04/overlooked-issues-in-prior-ipcc-reports-and-the-current-ipcc-report-process-is-there-a-change-from-the-past/.

I think part of the problem here (in addition to the agendized noise) is a difference in the cultures of science and policy. In science it is perfectly normal- standard, even- to ask reviews and summaries to be done by experts with the most experience in the field. So review chapters are generally done by the same authors who did the groundbreaking research to open up that particular subdiscipline in the first place. So from the scientific point of view, Mike Mann is the obvious person to ask to do a synthesis, since he's been doing great research in that area for at least a decade.

To use a non-climate analog, E. Bruce Watson wrote a review paper on diffusion in silicate melts in 1991: E.B. Watson and D.R. Baker (1991) Chemical diffusion in magmas: An overview of experimental results and geochemical applications. In Advances in Physical Geochemistry, vol. 9, I. Kushiro and L. Perchuk, Eds. Springer-Verlag.

Why him? Because he had been actively working in the field since the late 70's (see his publication list at http://www.rpi.edu/~watsoe/publications.htm for details). And over his 12 year career in that field, he developed a reputaiton for knowing what he was doing, making substantive scientific contributions, and generally being the most knowledgable guy in the field of diffusion in silicate melt. The process for choosing a review author in the field of paleoclimate reconstruction presumably works in the same way as it does for people working in diffusion.

Because science is verifiable, you can't actually get away with doing it badly for more than a few years before somebody starts refuting your papers. So at least in the traditionally more academic areas of earth science research, where there is little at stake other than personal reputation, conflict of interest is not really something that people know or care about.

Roger,

I sure hope you were not referring to my remark:
"There is nothing seriously flawed in the IPCC process (at least in the aspect under discussion: expert authors)."

when you attributed the notion that the IPCC is "perfect" to (a) commenter(s) in this thread.

My recollection is that this was the strongest support expressed here, but of course that would mean your "bipolar" characterization is a straw man.

Lab Lemming asked what was the point of arguing about the 'hockey stick' if there were no competing interpretations of past climate. This goes to show what good PR can do for you.

The 'hockey stick' turned historical climate on its head! It was the outlier; a new interpretation of the historical data that was not shared by the climate community. There are hundreds, if not thousands of peer reviewed papers that, in total, provide strong evidence that natural climate variability, regionally and globally, is much larger than the 'hockey stick' portraits.

Mann's study was embraced by the IPCC because it fit the theory of man-made global warming, not because it was the dominant view of historical climate. If was strongly defended for the same reason. Many argued against it at the time, citing the evidence for the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Those arguments were dismissed with the statement that the MWP and the LIA were regional, not global climate events. Of course, the current warming is also quite regional, but that fact was generally ignored.

If the 'hockey stick' is considered by many as the best interpretation of the data, it is because of the tremendous PR campaign waged on its behalf. Now we know that the statistical methodology used to generate it was incorrect, but my orginal beef concerned the assumptions that were made about the proxy data. In my opinion, those assumptions had the effect of removing all variability from the older climate record by simply claiming the older data was less reliable. Using the same assumptions, I think we could do away with all the past ice ages and interglacial warm periods, and claim that historical climate was totally stable for billions of years, until humans created the internal combustion engine!

By adopting the 'hockey stick' as the 'only' interpretation of the data, the IPCC put too many eggs in one basket, and, according to many, clearly displayed their agenda.

Coby- Thanks. No I was not referring to you specifically, but the general tendency of discussion of the IPCC to focus at the extremes. But unless you've studied the IPCC in some depth I do wonder what your basis is for concluding that there is "nothing seriously flawed" in the issue of expert aurthors.

This might be a really naive, lab-monkey question, but how does it serve the interests of a researcher to have a particular model or hypothesis adopted by an international panel? As far as I know, none of the climate researchers are heavily invested in alternative energy business. In addition, climate scientists have no qualms about trashing the sacred hypotheses of environmentalists, when the data allows them to do so- Just look at how Broeker shredded the "Anthropocene" hypothesis this January in EOS. I mean, sure, it is nice to have your graph on the front of a UN report, but is it worth turning yourself into a target? I dunno. If anything, though, any scientist who does put in own work forward in such a forum is going to have to do a damn fine job at backing it up, compared to your average paper.

As for the non-expert editors, would anything that they produce be robust enough to withstand NSF panels, senate investigations, and all the other extra levels of scrutiny?

As for Roger's question on action, it is a bit of a catch 22. Modelers should be able to tell us what the climactic consequences of any particular emmissions regime will be. But how climate shifts effect various industries and people requires study by experts in those various fields. Trouble is, those non-climate people don't have any incentive to explore the issue- For non-climatologists like foresters, crop-breeders, beekeepers, etc, the issue may not even be on their radar.

I think that it would help if the policy makers stated a clear policy goal. For example, "We want to minimize the economic damange from climate change" or "We want to minimize the damage to ecosystems." or "We want to maximize short term economic growth, but learn what the consequences will be next century."

I think that scientists are much better at figuring out how to achieve goals set by policymakers (land on the moon, make an atomic weapon, sequence the human genome) than they are at crafting policy. But politicians these days don't seem to be real long on the vision thing.

"The bipolar views that we so often see (read through the comments above) that the IPCC is either perfect or corrupt"...

...appears to be a straw-man primarily of your own construction.

But let's talk about constructive ideas for improving the process. What do you suggest? Using inexpert authors seems like a non-starter to me, but I'd be interested in ways of opening up the discussion of the contents. AIUI, the draft documents and all reviewer comments are basically made available to anyone who asks for them, so there is nothing secret about it, but we can't talk about it!

James-

Thanks.

In my post I suggested one way to improve the process in the IPCC, which would be to explicitly define criteria of "policy relevance." What is the basis for deciding how the IPCC is organized, what information is included/excluded, and who gets to participate?

Simply setting forth clear and unambiguous criteria would go a long way in my view to improving the IPCC process, and likely its relevance to decision makers. I can think of no reason why the IPCC would not desire such criteria of "policy reelevance."

Thanks.

James Annan asks, "But let's talk about constructive ideas for improving the process. What do you suggest?"

I've already suggested a change that would unquestionably improve the process. Choose 30 scientists. Ask them to give their very best predictions for industrial CO2 emissions, CO2 atmospheric concentrations, methane atmospheric concentrations, and surface and lower tropospheric temperature, and sea level rise relative to 1990 for the years 2010, 2020, 2030 and 2040. (The temperatures would be 5-year averages, centered on the year in question.)

In 2010, give $20,000 each for the people closest to each temperature prediction, and $10000 each for the people closest on CO2 emissions, CO2 atmospheric concentrations, and methane atmospheric concentrations. Give half as much to the second best prediction, and 1/3rd as much for the third best prediction.

Double the rewards for 2020, and double them again for 2030 and 2040. For less than $2 million, you'd get far better predictions than the IPCC has come up with for tens of millions of dollars. (In part because the IPCC has come up with NO predictions for tens of millions of dollars.)

It will be startling how paying for honesty (instead of paying for dishonesty) will improve the results.

As long as IPCC climatologist have not explained the extreme warming that suddenly started around Spitsbergen in winter 1918/1919, their global warming findings should be met with suspicion, as the very substantial warming was so enorm while initially regional restricted, that a causing by CO2 can be excluded with high certainty. The first to recognise the sudden warming was the Norwegian scientist B.J. Birkeland for the first time in 1930 as probably the greatest yet known statistical temperature deviation on earth (according: www.warchangesclimate.com). The source of warming was the ocean. What else could it have been. While IPCC will not be able to prove that it was CO2, they have ignore the event until now.