IPCC: First AR5 SPM Report Lousy!

At long last, after years of waiting and leaks galore, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finally released the first in its 5th assessment (AR5) series on 9/27/2013.

The first, and most widely read of all the IPCC assessments, is the AR5 “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM).

It was years in the making. AR5 has 831 authors, 600 contributing authors and more than 9,200 cited scientific publications.

It took a full week of intense paragraph-by-paragraph editing in Stockholm to tweak the finalized, approved SPM. Then the report was introduced to the world in a gala, orchestrated media event.

Science aside, astonishing as this sounds, the first released IPCC AR5 “Summary for Policymakers” is the sorriest excuse of a document you could imagine. It isn’t finished, it’s poorly conceived, poorly written, confusing and filled with inconsistencies.

Given the inconsistencies, it calls into question its qualitative judgements.

If AR5 were turned in as a 36-page term paper, as is, the professor would either return it to be finished, or just give it a big fat “F”. It doesn’t even have a cover page.

Given it’s obvious defects, it is amazing that dozens of journalists world-wide writing reviews in major newspapers and making TV commentary never once comment on it. Why? Perhaps none of them looked at it at all. They depended on press releases for their stories instead.

Grade F!

The primary audience of a “summary for policymakers” are politicians, government officials and non-scientific decision makers.

Intended readers include those who can authorize spending the $100s of trillions it will take to fight global warming using IPCC recommended cap and trade taxes.

A glance shows how poorly the SPM is done.

At left is a typical page from the 36-page document. Highlighted in brown are major statements. Those are the ones quoted in newspaper reports and intelligible to decision makers.

The rest of the text are supporting statements and bullet points to be linked later to the larger AR5 WG1 report due out soon. Links are in braces like “{12.4, 14.8}“

Highlighted in green, by me, are annotations added to illustrate its defective, unintelligible design. It’s like a half built house.

On the top upper left on every page it indicates it is the “approved summary for policymakers“.

On this page you see there are two items saying, “[INSERT FIGURE SPM.8 HERE]” and “[INSERT TABLE SPM.2 HERE]“

The graphic and table exist, but at the end. A reader can’t easily view illustration and text together.

Outside the brown highlighted text at center, the rest uses highly technical descriptions and terminologies completely unintelligible to non-scientific policymakers; phrases like “scenarios RPC2.6 and RCP8.5“, “CMIP5 multi-model mean” and “likely exceed 1.5°C for RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5“.

That is totally unnecessary. Capable scientists can easily turn complex concepts into understandable easy reading. This document does not.

Inconsistencies

Antarctica Sets All-time high ice extent in 2013 (Source: NSIDC)

The SPM is filled with inconsistencies throughout. For purposes of illustration just one will be discussed… Antarctic ice.

The average rate of ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet has likely increased
– AR5 SPM, page #5

It is very likely that the annual mean Antarctic sea ice extent increased at a rate in the range of 1.2 to 1.8% per decade
– AR5 SPM, page #6

Which is it??

Though not as much as Arctic ice has melted, Antarctica’s ice cap has grown as the Arctic ice shelf has shrank since accurate satellite measurements started around 1978.

Antarctica set a new all-time record high for most ice extent ever measured in 2013. A fact masked by IPCC contradictory statements.

Highly publicized by AGW theorists, Arctic ice extent set an all-time record low in 2012.

Over every continental region except Antarctica, anthropogenic forcings have likely made a substantial contribution to surface temperature increases. For Antarctica, large observational uncertainties result in low confidence that anthropogenic forcings have contributed to the observed warming.
– AR5 SPM, page #13

Translation: Human-caused global warming theory doesn’t work in Antarctica.

The global glacier volume, excluding glaciers on the periphery of Antarctica, is projected to decrease by 15 to 55%
– AR5 SPM, page #18

Huh? Antactica’s glacial growth looks purposely excluded from the IPCC’s calculations to report higher ice loss statistics. Why? Obviously, periphery glaciers aren’t shrinking enough.

Clearly, the IPCC is either confused or minimizing the truth about the Antarctic ice cap.

Conclusions

Yesterday, after years of work and months of back and forth speculation by skeptics and supporters, the IPCC released a slipshod, amateurish SPM report.

The SPM comes across like a shaky thesis written to hid its defects with unnecessary jargon and technical terms.

It is full of inconsistencies. it’s incomplete and poorly put together and confusing for policymakers. Even a high school student wouldn’t get away with it.

Yet the IPCC did. Why?

Perhaps the media likes a good disaster story better than reading or seeking truth. Investigative journalism is a dying art.

But there is a real story out there if anyone cares to look for it. Unmentioned anywhere by anyone is anything about RCPs. They should be part of every major story. They aren’t.

And I haven’t even brought up “the pause”. Much more on all of these things later…