The UN’s IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has released their fifth Assessment Report (AR5). This release will be getting coverage from the mainstream media. But, one of the points they will not mention is the mandate of the IPCC. Its sole purpose is to study the affect of human activity on climate. Sounds good, but people fail to understand or have explained to them that it does not include study of other possible causes of climate change. The billions of dollars poured into the IPCC only go to those willing to study man-made affects on climate.
The IPCC AR5 report is being released in 4 parts from September 2013 to November 2014. They say this will be the most comprehensive assessment of scientific knowledge on climate change since 2007, when AR4 was released. If one is aware of the IPCC mandate, they know this is the most comprehensive report on science related to only man-made effects on climate.
See: IPCC Activities
For those of us interested in the science of climate change there is the NIPCC or Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. This group was established to analyze all peer reviewed research on climate change and report the findings as objectively as possible. It is not limited to only man-made effects. It evaluates natural and human causes of climate change.
The NIPCC releases its reports in a format as close as possible to the IPCC’s to make comparison between the two reports as easy as possible. So, to compare man-made CO2 look at the IP CC’s section on CO2 and then look at the NIPCC’s same section to find the rest of the science on CO2.
See: Climate Change Reconsidered – NIPCC.
The currently released IPCC, released Friday September 27, 2013 is incomplete. This is the part of the report for politicians, the summary for policy makers. But, missing from this part of the report is the subject of climate sensitivity to CO2. Does an increase from 3 to 4 parts per 10,000 make a difference in climate? This CO2 thing is the issue in the entire political debate on climate… and they don’t even talk about it and they certainly don’t provide any quantification.
The report also makes some statements that fly in the face of common sense. For the last 17± years there has been no warming (per IPCC data) as the atmospheric CO2 climbed to 400 ppm, while the IPCC computer models predicted there would be significant and measurable upward temperature change. So, the computer models and scientists are not predicting what is happening, their predictions are wrong. But, they have more confidence the predictive models are right…
Another problem is the effort the IPCC is putting into avoiding FOI (Freedom of Information) requests. They do not want people examining the basis for their claims in AR5.
If you are into the science of global climate change, AR5 is highly disappointing.
There are people on both sides of this debate lying about these reports. To know who is telling the truth people will have to dig into the references provided in both reports and examine them with a high degree of skepticism. The truth is out there, but you can’t trust anyone.
A more complete discussion of the IPCC and NIPCC can be found in: Science & Environmental Policy Project (Direct link to the document). It has a huge collection of links for researching the issues.