Talk:Criticism of IPCC AR4

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Contents 1 Conservative / ? 2 This is criticism? 3 SRES scenarios outdated? 4 Biogeochemical factors 5 Depletion of hydrocarbons 6 AAPG 7 Armstrong

[edit] Conservative / ?

"Alarmist" is a POV opposite to conservative. I've tried "overstates the dangers of climate change" instead. There must be something better to put in that section than the trashy ISPM William M. Connolley 10:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You could use this - http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2005/01jan/gerhard.cfm - from the obviously self-serving AAPG. But are they any better? Dansample 02:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Has there been published criticism from the scientific community for the exclusion of ice-sheet flow? Given how widely the estimates of see level rise were cited in the popular press, it must have raised ire somewhere? Mostlyharmless 06:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is criticism?

The IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one, and it's malfeasance w/r/t representing what can be actually called a consensus in the field is not exactly top secret. Is this one of those subjects where the fervent true-believers redact good opposition points?

If you have good points, supported by reliable sources, then you should add them William M. Connolley (talk) 09:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SRES scenarios outdated?

I've read somewhere (can't find the link) that the atmospheric CO2 levels at present rise faster than the worst-case SRES scenario. This has also been mentioned as a criticism to the report in newspapers at least. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The rise may be faster at the moment, but only if you look at just a few years. The trends are still at/below SRES levels William M. Connolley (talk) 12:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That depends on how you calculate the "trend". It's at least possible that the SRES scenarios are far too optimistic. But I can't find any citations for this. Narssarssuaq (talk) 13:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you mean http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007.pdf. But its somewhat hard to understand: as I understand the SRES, they use ~ 1 %/y inc for GHG, which would be + ~50 ppmv since 1990. But the actual inc is more like +30. But the paper says "Carbon dioxide concentration follows the projections almost exactly" William M. Connolley (talk) 14:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/24/10288 is more like it. For instance, this article states that the carbon intensity of the world's energy usage is actually increasing, while all SRES scenarios project a decrease. SRES seems to have been too optimistic on behalf of renewables, and too pessimistic on behalf of the cheaper and simpler stuff: coal. Of course, it's hard to say if this trend will last, but maybe there's something in the article that can be used. Narssarssuaq (talk) 09:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC) To quote the article, "The strong global fossil-fuel emissions growth since 2000 was driven not only by long-term increases in population (P) and per-capita global GDP (g) but also by a cessation or reversal of earlier declining trends in the energy intensity of GDP (e) and the carbon intensity of energy (f). In particular, steady or slightly increasing recent trends in f occurred in both developed and developing regions. In this sense, no region is decarbonizing its energy supply. (...)Continuous decreases in both e and f (and therefore in carbon intensity of GDP, h = ef) are postulated in all IPCC emissions scenarios to 2100". Narssarssuaq (talk) 09:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

But notice you haven't quoted any numbers for atmos CO2 growth William M. Connolley (talk) 10:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

See fig. 1 in the article I linked to. The graph is sort of low-res, but I guess this qualifies for the "criticism" criterion of this Wikipedia article? Anyhow, the "e" and "f" problems are so significant they could be mentioned no matter what? Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biogeochemical factors

The biogeochemical factors are left out of IPCC's calculations, as they are too difficult to model. This means that the infamous methane releases from thawing permafrost and sublimation(?) of methane clathrate deposits under the sea are not part of the "1.1-6.4 degrees". Given that this is actually true, in my personal opinion the report could be criticised for not adding this extra uncertainty to the temperature increase prognoses, and that the latter thus become flawed. Since I'm not a reliable source, perhaps someone knows of some report that "criticises" the IPCC report from this angle. Narssarssuaq (talk) 13:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Depletion of hydrocarbons

Another point is that depletion of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) isn't modelled by IPCC. At least earlier reports have been criticised by the Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group at Uppsala University, see http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/index.html for an article dating back to 2003 and http://www4.tsl.uu.se/isv/UHDSG/ for their home page. They have apparently been involved in the Rimini protocol. Narssarssuaq (talk) 13:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC) Whether this makes IPCC's estimates "conservative" or not is not clear, as oil and gas can be replaced by coal, which will make things worse, or solar or nuclear power, which is a change for the better climatically speaking. Should we add this criticism? Narssarssuaq (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AAPG

The AAPG link is dubious [1] and isn't clearly AAPG considered opinion William M. Connolley (talk) 12:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Armstrong

[2] is a bit of a weird one. As far as I can tell, this is just band-wagon-jumping/self-publicity by J. Scott Armstrong. He is, after all, a prof of marketing William M. Connolley (talk) 21:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Marketing seems a relevant discipline: 9 out of 10 cats prefer.... Anyway the co-author, Kesten Green seems to specialise in the field of forecasting methods and so would be an expert for the section in question. Your prejudice against these authors requires a source to substantiate it otherwise it is just OR. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with prejudice, and everything to do with notability. This particular criticism hasn't been widely noted. Yep, its run its life on blogs and op-eds (ie. its 5 minutes of fame), but there hasn't been any serious response to it. Basically i agree with WMC, it looks like a way to market their new book, which btw. even included a "challenge" to Al Gore.

When and if, other researchers begin to take it serious, that means: publish research that supports/reputes Armstrongs assertions - then we can begin to consider it. As of now its undue weight. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)