Jennifer,

Please have a look at the IPCC TAR Working Group 2 and 3 reports
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/

Lomborg has been clearly shown to be an unreliable source of information.

1 and 2 are easy: yes. All the others are harder.

There are heaps of papers published on the economics of climate change. A few to get you started are.

Barker, T., Köhler, J. and Villena, M., 2002, The Costs of Greenhouse Gas Abatement: A Meta-
Analysis of Post-SRES Mitigation Scenarios. Environmental Economics and Policy Studies
5, 135-166.

Barker, T., Foxon, T. Köhler, J., Anderson, D., Gross, R., Leach, M. and Pearson, P., 2005. University of Cambridge and Imperial College London Submission to the Stern Review (UK). 20pp (available from http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/F72/C6/climatechange_imp_1.pdf)

Keller, K., Hall, M., Kim, S-R., Bradford, D.F., and Oppenheimer M. 2005. Avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Climate Change, 73, 227-238.

Nordhaus, W.D., 2006. Geography and macroeconomics: New data and new findings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.0509842103, 8pp.

Roughgarden, T. and Schneider S.H., 1999. Climate change policy: quantifying uncertainties for damages and optimal carbon taxes, Energy Policy, 27, 415-429.

Simple cite searches using these will turn up plenty more.

I'm sure Ian will have a few more to add.

The IPCC reports also have plenty more.

Lomborg's conclusions on the economics of climate change largely rest on his use of discount rates which (may) be sensible for individual time preferencing but non-sensible when scaled up to societies whose longetivity can reasonably be expected to exceed that of its individual members.

There is a fair bit written about this on various blogs and in the literature with no real concensus on how one should value potentially irreversible future change and societal time preferences (etc).

David

Dear David and others. Thanks for the references.
I am not surprised there is no consensus on how one should treat irreversibilities and intergenerational distribution of benefits.
The standard B/C approach runs into some rather complex philosophical issues which is thankfully of minor concern in most B/C analyses.
Blair

A more up to date treatment on Climate Economics coming from Lomborg's efforts is Global Crises, Global Solutions CUP 2004, which he edited.

Willan R Cline leads off with the Climate section, starting discussions going in Chapter 1.

To those you insist on ad hominem abuse of Lomborg, find my article at Quadrant magazine's website a couple of years back. "A Book the Greens dont want you to read".
http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=538

If we apply the standards used to "label" Bjorn as inaccurate, there are numerous sources that have to shut up, and there would be no environmental debate.

David Tribe

detribe, I don't think anyone here is abusing Lomborg. I for one read his book and agreed with a lot of it. Where I have trouble is in the area of discount rates for long-term issues. The decision to apply no discount, a modest discount or a large discount is a value judgment which has no real sound basis in science (IMHO).

Given that the discount rate determines entirely your answer, this should be stated up front. It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that you can work backwards from your desired answer and come up with a discount rate which suits your argument.

David

Lots of links and references.
But, what about a short summary from David on how the most credible study/studies answer Blair's questions 4 to 10?

David,
First thanks again for another first class contribution.Quite obviously from your posing you are a principled, informed pro in this area and I genuinely respect that.

I actually didn't directly claim he was abusing Lomborg though.

However, he doesn't display much fair conduct by not nominating the specifics of inaccuracy he referring to, so its really a rather sly remark that justifies my ambiguous response. how does he prove that Lomborg is generally an unreliable source of information? That is clearly an attempt an character assasination. What is better is to say is that some Lomborg comment, specifically a b, and see are disputed.

Basically Lomorg says: Lets ASSume IPCC are right? What are the implications for economic welfare of various strategies, in response to IPCC AS A GIVEN?

Thus accuracy about climate physics is beside the point. Lomborg doesn't generally dispute those points. Note also Lomborg's follow upo on climate in the book I mention deals exactly with the points of this thread -Bjorn is well ahead of the game.

Now if we are talking about economic realism, Ian Castles has, I judge, adequately demonstrated that IPCC are fundamentallyy inacurate in their modeling of economics. Sloppy and naive is fair comment on that. Again Lomborg is much better.

For the record, there are parts of Lomborg's thesis that I disagree with. But on a scale of 1 to 10: Lomborg 8, Erhlich 2.Club of Rome 4.

PS see =these!

What ? Erhlich and Club of Rome as experts in 2005 climate change science - give it a rest. What a waste of a comparison.

And I thought the the MER/PPP issue on Quiggin's blog was determined to be of no importance to projections?

What is important is a realistic CO2 growth rate projection and climate sensitivity.

And what's missing are the biospheric feedbacks and may just be kicking in about now.

Looks like we havn't progressed anywhere eh?

>Lots of links and references. But, what about a short summary from David on how the most credible study/studies answer Blair's questions 4 to 10?

Should know by now Jen that I will not provide anything which is policy prescriptive or comes close. I am a physical scientist who uses blogs as light relief and to expand my own knowledge, and try to pick up on "dodgie sales people".

Much better to get a real professional in this area - I'm sure Ian, Ender or Phil might have some names to offer.

David

I'd like to hear Blair have a crack at answering these questions.

So, Blair puts the question and he is immediately expected to also answer it - that's how you wear someone out (though Ian Castles somehow keeps going).
Given Phil, Thinksy, Ender and others argue so hard for the IPCC and for an acceptance of the threat that global warming presents, it would be good if one of them, or someone else from their perpective, could have a go at answering questions 4-10 in a couple of paragraphs.
Lomborg has perhaps already put the altnernative case - that we should spend more on adaptation than mitigation ... though these are my words.

Jen's picking on us guys - I can tell. We're nice friendly people and we get picked on coz we're "different". I'm not paranoid but I know you're all against me.

Jen - so what does the IPCC threaten us with? Which aspects don't you like?

I shall attempt to answer Blair's questions 4-10. But I must say, given all the huff and puff, and endless quoting of references and links, it is amazing how difficult it is to get a little summary out of those who believe people like me don't take 'climate change' seriously enough.

This is a quick summary to generate some discussion:

Warming is likely to mean an averge 10-15 percent increase in rainfall and snowfall, it is likely to mean parts of Russia and Canada become suitable for agriculture, it is likely there will be warmer nights and longer growing seasons in southern Australia, Greenland's glaciers and ice sheets will contract, sealevels will rise slightly and low lying areas become potentially more suseptible to flooding and storm surges. It is likely to mean more intense hurricanes and cyclones.

Quantifying the effects is going to be difficult, because the impact will dependent to a large extent on how we respond to the change.

If governments encourage adaptation, facilitate adoption of new technologies including biotechnology (eg. new crop varieties), better housing design and drainage management we may come out ahead.

If, governments decide they want to 'stop climate change' and put money into models that tells us very little (eg. temp may rise by 1.5 or 4.5C) and make energy more expensive and less reliable then we will end up much worse off.

We can't have peak oil and an endless increase in co2 emmissions, so I am beating there will be a shift away from fossil fuels as a main energy source by 2050.

Any response focused on reducing carbon dioxide levels immediately, must first work out by how much, and if it is to include an emmissions trading system, this must be global.

The IPCC needs to be recognised as a monopology and like the AWB should be done away with, or its powers curtailed.

So what do you suggest we replace the IPCC with then? Straight question. Obviously a peer consensus style review has presumably failed in your estimation either (a) because it's organisationally dequate or (b) some officials are inappropriate/corrupt/shonky/alarmist/whatever or (c) 80% of the scientists involved are ideologues - or some combination of a, b and c.

Remember also at the moment time is given freely and "out of hours".

So to progress the issue instead of endlessly decrying the appalling failings of Club of Rome, Ehrlich, Carson, Mother Teresa, Hansen, Schneider, Trenberth, Gunter Smith and Frederick Nurks you guys need to come up with a new model.

Jen futher on your systems analysis.. ..

On rainfall - some areas will win and some will lose. Will droughts be more frequent. What will happen to El Nino and the variability we have now. Will droughts bemore intense.

Will hurricanes and storms be more common or more intense. Will flooding or extreme events increase.

What will increased CO2 do to plants and communities of plants (e.g. woody/grass mixtures C3/C4).

What will extra heatwaves mean.

And so you'd have to compute all these effects through agriculture, pests and disease, natural systems, built infrastructure, human health, the stock market and compute the upsides and downsides.

We probably have enough coal to put peak oil off for a while till we hit peak coal. SOe could assume no limits to CO2 growth (if you like).

So I think you guys should tell us on some of these issues for a change. Over to you !

You guys have a great economist there in Ian Castles too. We're outclassed as economic nerds who wouldn't know a PPP from an NPV.

We don't need another IPCC or AWB. Get rid of them - don't replace them!

We just want honest reporting of scientific findings, open and honest discussion so best policies can emerge from the best science and best economic analyses.

Don't dumb anything down. Accept it is complex.
There won't be one plan. Rather build strong institutions, encourage a level of competition and diverse analysis, to inform democratically elected governments.

You don't need 'an IPCC' or 'greenhouse office' to ensure good building codes or drainage management plans or to build strong research institutions or to build strong and transparent democracies.

You do need people like Ian Castles - people who scrutinise policies for their logical consistency.

You're are not coming with anything except anarchy. So we will have no "reasonably accepted" global summary of the science. We'll have to get someone to wander around and collect all the "best" bits and compare them.

Jen you've made it your career attacking the "best" science. Who do we believe with all this debate.

Sounds like a good plan for doing absolutely nothing which is what I suspect you guys want. Fair enuff. A big vote for business as usual.

We need people who will actually DO the economic analyses as well as rag them. Which comes back to William Connolley's comment about occasionally arising from a seated position.

And you have made no coherent case against the IPCC in general.

Phil we don't need any of the above or the ipa just some guys to build again after larry then go on to the dykes

Phil,
I reject your conclusion completely.
Strong institutions and democratically-elected governments hardly = anarchy!
I argue for action, but not through one plan that is written by one group under the UN.
There is a role for local government, as much as there is a role for CSIRO and the AP6.
And I believe the case has been made against the IPCC at various threads at this blog.
I trust others will understand what I have written - and not suggest I stand for nothing.
I have worked hard over the last few years in the hope policy is informed by the best science.
But I am not for central planning.

We have done 'tax licences and carbon trading', perhaps someone could write a guest post comparing and contrasting the AWB and the IPCC?

No Jen - you have a made a huge case of criticising a few IPCC personalities, MER vs PPP and the Hockey Stick. I think the TAR is slightly larger than that.

And so you're arguing that we have multiple views and multiple plans, which will magically rationalise themselves into coherent action on a complex global issue.

Obviously the AWB are staffed by volunteers who do it for the goodness of it all, and the IPCC splurge millions of dollars in kickbacks to foreign governments.

Anyway - nuff said.

See I believe in institutions and processes. If you get the process right and have strong institutions so much can evolve.
But at the moment, well science as it relates to environmental issues has gone off the rails - I've documented some of it in 'Myth and the Murray' and my review of Jared Diamond's Chapter on Australia.

Consider this comment, that I received as an email recently:
"I have become very disillusioned with governments and their treatment of scientists. In the "old days" where (say) a report on the economic analysis of a proposed dam might suggest that the economic returns do not support the outlays, there was never any attempt by the Dept to pressure the author(s) into changing the analysis or to quarantine the report in the Cabinet room.
Nowadays either the science is twisted to fit the results wanted or the research simply does not get done."
We need to perhaps fix this problem first. And I think there is a big problem at the level of the science manager.

Dear Thinksy
If I knew the answers I would have not posted the questions.
I don't understand why some contributors, (not including you), have a philosophical objection to government/ public interference in the operations of markets.
Global warming seems to me to be a different kettle of fish to the usual text book examples of the "evil" polluter who needs to be constrained. The impacts are so profound.

On the issue of global warming my friend Dr Barry White explained to me the difference between a sceptic and one who is uninformed. The former can contribute on the basis of knowledge; the latter just prattles whatever is fashionable or somehow supports an underlying ideological belief.
I now support that the view that global warming will indeed impact negatively impact on the welfare of future generations. The references I have come across (thanks to David and others) try to esimate this impact.
But I have yet to see a detailed study on the costs associated with the various means to eliminate or modify this impact, and more importantly will the costs be less than the benefits?

The resources to do this study are considerable but I am sure the results will be worthwhile.
Yes we are dealing with unknowns etc but if the information, however qualified it may be, results in a better informed discussion and outcome then it must surely be a plus.
Blair

And very true at times what your emailer has said about depts. So how can you believe in formal institutions these days. Science has been politicised to the hilt. Well you have to believe and both be sceptical simultaneously. For sometime's it's not what is said but what is not said too. And that's your experience along with Ian M's with salinity, vegetation management, water quality, water resources and fire management.

That's where the IPCC is somewhat different. The scientists escape their institutions briefly. Some of them are probably quite off the hook.

Blair - a lot of economic discussion has indeed concentrated on how many trillion it will cost to do something.

I'm trying to be patient, but I am being provoked.

Last July the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs brought out a major report on 'The Economics of Climate Change', in which they concluded (p. 35) that 'serious questions have been raised about the IPCC emissions scenarios', and 'a reappraisal of the scenarios exercise is urgently needed.' 

Now Phil tells us not to worry because he 'thought the MER/PPP issue on Quiggin's blog was determined to be of no importance to projections?' The Lords Committee just made a big mistake, it seems.

No, Phil, the answers to Blair's questions 4 to 10 depend crucially on having some realistic long-term projections of global and regional GHG emissions, output, income, energy intensity, costs of technological alternatives, changes in land use, etc.

The IPCC commissioned the SRES in order to produce such projections, and the ones we have now don't cut the mustard. All that the exchange on John Quiggin's website was about was whether two of the things that the IPCC got wrong (projections of output and energy intensity) cancelled one another out for the particular purpose of the emissions projections. This has yet to be determined, and the emissions projections are faulty for a number of other reasons as well. Don't get me going.

Which aspects don't I like about the IPCC? On the Ides of March I joined with two of the members of the Lords Committee and six other economists to submit our views on this and related matters to the Stern Review. Jennifer posted the link for me on the earlier thread.

Now for a few comments on the science of climate change. I've done my best to keep away, but I note that Phil's come back again with his notion that biophysical feedbacks 'may just be kicking in about now.' I know that he'll react to any sceptical comments from me on that point with jeers that I'm pressing the denialist button, but I think he's pressing the alarmist button so we're quits.

Last week's news item in the New Scientist told of the latest release of information about CO2 concentrations at Mauna Lau. According to 'The finding [of an increase of 2.6 ppm in CO2 in 2005] has renewed concern that natures ability to absorb the gas may be waning.'

David reproached me for taking this report lightly, and told me that 'This is not spin, this is world class biophysical scientists providing their best interpretation of unprecedented observations.' I dont doubt the accuracy of NOAAs observations or that the scientists are world class, but I remain entirely unconvinced of the interpretation they placed on their observations.

Less than a year ago (31 March 2005, to be precise), NOAA issued a media statement on the 2004 CO2 concentrations results which said that 'A spike in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere between 2001 and 2003 appears to be a temporary phenomenon and apparently does NOT indicate a quickening build-up of the gas in the atmosphere' (EMPHASIS added). Not surprisingly, the New Scientist failed to report this finding.

On the basis of one years figures, NOAA has now revived its concern. I find this remarkable, especially as last years statement explained that 'Most of the variability in the year-to-year CO2 uptake is related to natural processes, including droughts and fires as well as such factors as global temperatures, rainfall amounts and volcanic eruptions.'

The NOAA scientists know much better than I do how all of these variables would have affected the growth in CO2 in 2005. However, David told us that last year was 'globally the hottest (or nearly so) on record and hot years tend to have an excess of CO2 accumulation' (EMPHASIS added). So on at least one of the relevant factors, last years increase could well have been above trend (I accept that we won't know for sure for some years).

Adding the latest years increase of 2.6 ppm to the increases between 2000 and 2004, the average annual increase in CO2 concentrations between 2000 and 2005 comes out at 2.1 ppm. This is well within the IPCCs projected range of an average annual increase of between 1.9 and 2.2 ppm for the decade from 2000 to 2010, which is based on the assumption that terrestrial uptake will correspond 'to the mean of the responses of mid-range models' (see Appendix II, SRES Tables, of the IPCC 2001 Report).

So Phil, if the biophysical feedbacks you think are now cutting in are something over and above what was allowed for in the IPCC's modelling, I've got to ask you: where is your evidence?

The presentation of the CO2 concentrations data appears to be governed by PR considerations rather than a serious effort to provide information. How would policymakers and economic analysts react if the ABS announced that it would henceforth hold back all of the monthly employment survey results for a full calendar year, and would then release them in one fell swoop in mid-March of the following year? And that no seasonally adjusted or trend data would be provided but just the original observations? Is it really true, as appears to be the case from what I've seen so far, that no information on CO2 concentrations later than end-2004 was available publicly until the 2005 numbers came out last week?

I dont know whether the NOAA experts were misreported, or are just sloppy about the most elementary facts. According to the BBC report, 'the chief carbon dioxide analyst for NOAA says the latest data confirms a worrying trend that recent years have, on average, recorded DOUBLE the rate of increase from just 30 years ago' (EMPHASIS added).

However, the CDIAC table shows that in the 5 years to 1977 the average annual growth in CO2 was 0.49%, which was only marginally slower than the growth of 0.57% in the 5 years to 2005. Other spans of years in the 1970s would show slightly slower increases than 0.49%, but no possible comparison can get to anywhere a doubling in the rate of growth between the 1970s and the current decade.

Ive done some crude comparisons between the CDIAC data on CO2 concentrations and the statistics that are also published by the Center on emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and the production of cement (industrial emissions).

The total CO2 in the atmosphere in 1990 is estimated at 750 GtC (Ive forgotten where I picked this up, but is this right David?). Taking that figure and the reported CO2 concentration of 354.2 ppm in the same year as benchmarks, I projected the figures forward and backwards using the Mauna Lau data on concentrations.

On my arithmetic, the increase in the Carbon content of the atmosphere comes out at 16.9 GtC between 1972 and 1977 and 22.4 GtC between 2000 and 2005. Industrial emissions of CO2 amounted to 23.8 GtC over the 5 year period to 1977 and 35.6 GtC in the 5-year period to 2005 (I've needed to guess at the trend in annual emissions since 2002, but this wouldn't greatly affect the result).

Putting the two sets of figures together, the increase in atmospheric Carbon in the 5-year period in the 1970s was equivalent to 71% of industrial emissions, and the increase in the 5 years to 2005 was equivalent to 62% of industrial emissions.

So if industrial emissions were the only factor, natures ability to absorb carbon would be shown to be INCREASING, not waning. I realise that this is over-simple - e.g. that there are other anthropogenic sources of CO2 which may have diminished in relative importance.

But isn't there an onus on those who are saying that nature's absorptive capacity is diminishing to tell us how they reach this conclusion? What are they assuming about the various sources and sinks?

Maybe there's an easy answer to my crude figuring, but my confidence in the NOAA scientists' pronouncements has been dented by their sudden reversal of view on the basis of a single year's figures.

A final point. I'll have no difficulty accepting that biophysical feedbacks are 'kicking in', if that's what the evidence shows. I haven't said that such feedbacks can't occur, and I won't draw any conclusions about the future from the fact (if it is a fact) that there's no evidence of this so far.

I was taken aback by Phil's reference to the 'annual cycle' showing up in the CO2 data, and saying that this was 'precision stuff' or whatever. The precision of the observations isn't in question, but the failure to provide elementary time series analysis is surprising, as is the simplistic way that the data are being interpreted in public commentary.

Dear Phil
The studies I have read so far concentrate on the economic impact of doing nothing.

The issue of global warming requires current generations to seriously examine the impact of doing nothing contrasted with doing something. So people need information.
As David said earlier how do we make the "right" decisons that will largely benefit future generations viz my grandchildren but yet the burden of these decions will impact on me, my wife and my children?

We are in uncharterd territory; global negative externalities have never been an issue in the past.

And for those out there who may question the possible contribution that economics may make. It was a wonderful economist, yes economist, not ecologist, Kenneth Boulding who coined the phrase "spaceship earth".
Blair

David,
Sorry to delay, but i've been on a plane while reading Cline's Chapter in Lomborg 2004.
To adress time discount rates, Cline discusses these well.He uses the Social Rate of Ti,e preference concept, while agreeing that pure time preference is 'ethically indefensible', he uses utiity based discounting. He also points out that discounting needs to extended out three centuries because of time lags with CO2 going into ocean sinks.
All the chapter is on thread and discounting takes up half a page.
Phil Im sre would (does) luv the chapter.

Ian - good post - you're loosening up a bit. Remember it's only a blog, not the House of Lords, so you have to expect a certain lack of decorum - I am giving you considered opinion (most of the time). But the biospheric feedbacks quip is just gingering you up a bit - tongue in cheek and no offence. And I am having private bets with myself on some of this too - so at times all scientists wonder if they're starting to observe a departure. Curiosity.

Yes you can see the squiggly annual cycle in the data. I think a number of journal publications (melting Siberian peat bogs) and the paper on feedbacks at the Greenhouse 2005 suggest that biospheric feedback numbers might be quite significant. That's OK - let's wait and see. Can't expect God to give us the whole answer on a platter. And I'm sure you can get the CO2 data if you ask nicely.

And I'm sorry you didn't like "the priest and vicar" joke on the guys at the Society - but Ian if you're demanding public standards - rip into them for half the rubbish on their site too. Don't just bag the IPCC.

And for all the crud that people throw at RC - have a look at today's post on SSTs and hurricanes. No alarmism. No hysteria. Just a loose discussion and some pondering. Nothing definitive.

The integration of all your list elements on "no Phil" gives you a CO2 growth curve - I don't disagree.

Blair - I apologise that we're not doing you justice. It pains me that we never seem to get anywhere with our discussion on here. What would be good is to see what a quorum of us (cripes sounds like IPCC consensus - quick get another crucifix and garlic)do actually agree with. We could the then logically agree on certain positions and move forward, not going over old ground.

But I reckon you'd have disagreement on whether it's actually warming; and that the origin of that warming is that little old CO2 dipole.

But your more sobering sensible influence is making me ponder it again. I apologise that one's civility and sensibility has been ground down by the pounding of my blog colleagues. But I do love them though - the bastards. It's just that I'm right and they're wrong. :-)

Geez Louise! I wrote "I'd like to hear Blair have a crack at answering these questions" in all sincerity. It followed immediately after David saying "better to get a real professional in this area". I used the words "have a crack" to make implicit the difficulty in answering these questions. It should be clear that I wasn't demanding instant complete answers to all the questions as Dr Marohasy alleges. Tedious. On an earlier thread I said that I thought Blair made an informative post.

It would probably be difficult for any professional to give comprehensive answers to each of these questions, but from among the commenters here, I thought that Blair would have an interesting perspective to offer. I see that Ian is making good progress with his cure for insomnia. David has provided some good sources, I intend to look into them when I can.

Is Dr Marohasy really arguing for a local solution to address a global problem? Isn't one of her side's criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol that its remedy wasn't global, ie excluded countries?

Dr Marohasy is FOR institutions and democracy but against an organisation run by the UN? Dr Marohasy is calling the IPCC a monopoly. Didn't Ian Castles criticise its contributors being govt appointed? Does a multilateral international institution or voluntary agreement on the Kyoto protocol amount to a monopoly? Perhaps the recommended alternative is a global body with each citizen has one vote as a representative model. I doubt anyone is so naive as to suggest that internationally co-ordinated responses to a large-scale threat would just miraculously emerge by itself from good science and economics.

Dr Marohasy needs to think this through a bit more: she says "You don't need 'an IPCC' or 'greenhouse office' to ensure good building codes or drainage management plans or to build strong research institutions..". She's talking about local/national issues. Which part about the 'global' in 'global warming' in't clear?
You need a solution appropriate to the scale of the problem.

One of the problems we face with coping with AGW is that we as a species are short term problem solvers. We are now faced with a possible long term threat and we really do not know how to cope with it. Ian argues about economic models to ensure that we can still make money in the short term and whether we can safely ignore the long term problem until the problem no longer exists - when I am dead.

AGW is really easy to ignore. While the mechanical actions of greenhouse gases are well known and accepted there is enormous uncertainty in what will happen when/if the Earths average temperature increases. It could range from absolutely nothing except a few places getting warmer and plants growing better like Joe asserts to something like the Eocene Thermal Maximum that wiped out 60% or 70% of life on Earth. It could be something in between however nobody really knows. It is really easy to explain away with Urban Heat islands and Hockey sticks and liberal scientists and we do.

The other coupled problem is that our entire society got to be as big as it is and make as much money for so many people because of cheap and abundant energy. The unfortunate by-product of this is that this energy is mostly derived from fossil fuels that release a potent greenhouse gas, precitating the warming. At the moment it is impossible to seperate making money with emitting CO2 as no non-emitting power source are without other problems, drastically lower in energy return or too expensive leading to less money making.

Which leads to the main problem again. Our short sited view leads us naturally to feed our families, drive our cars, type on our computers and ignore the long term problem. It is also very easy to explain away human influence on the climate. While we are ABLE to argue about whether it is better to do nothing because we cannot stop making money means the problem has not really manifested and perhaps will never manifest. An example of this was the argument over tsunami warning systems for the Indian Ocean. While there was no threat the arguments could continue until the boxing day tsunami happened which silenced the arguments and the system was funded and built.

Now the global warming crisis may never happen. This will mean than without a crisis nothing will be done and we will make lots of money. If AGW is going cause climate change and be a problem it will be far too late to take any action so we will be stuck with the results of this grand experiment we are conducting on the only planet we have to live on.

A wiser species able to cope with long term threats would possibly accept a little less money making and more action just in case AGW was a problem. I don't think that this is going to happen. Look at the derision heaped on the Kyoto protocol as an example of a long term plan scuttled by short term greed.

I have no idea what is going to happen to the climate however I am going to hedge my bets. Accepting that there will be no action to combat Global Warming means that you can prepare in some small way for whatever happens like Jason Bradford in Willets (http://www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/)
You can also listen to his ideas here:
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/434
This does not mean turning feral before rog leaps in with tree-hugging hippie stuff. It just means trying to return a bit of local manufacturing and self sufficiency that we have lost - just in case.

>The IPCC needs to be recognised as a monopology and like the AWB should be done away with, or its powers curtailed.

Jen the IPCC is hardly a monopoly. We have 10,000s of scientists, 1000s of various government agencies, 100s of indepdent science organisations (NASs, Royal Societies etc.) 1000s of think tanks, and (probably millions) of prattling ideologues who are free to express there views and review climate change. It just so happens that most governments of this world (and scientists) think it useful to have a UN body to periodically review climate change science.

It they don't like the review, they can get their own agencies/scientists to scrutinise it or come up with something entirely different. The IPCC has no powers, and prescribes no course of action, etc etc.

Just because you don't (for whatever reason) appreciate the extraordinary outputs of the IPCC process hardly gives you the mandate to call for its reformation or dissolution. To tell the truth, the call smack more of censorship that any attempt to further the scientific understanding of climate change.

David

>Last July the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs brought out a major report on 'The Economics of Climate Change', in which they concluded (p. 35) that 'serious questions have been raised about the IPCC emissions scenarios', and 'a reappraisal of the scenarios exercise is
urgently needed.'�
>Now Phil tells us not to worry because he 'thought the MER/PPP issue on Quiggin's blog was determined to be of no importance to projections?' The Lords Committee just made a big mistake, it seems.

Ian, you have been asked on numerous occasions to summarise what effect PPP verus MER has on emissions.

eg. (from Phil)

"Ian couple of issues:

What's the practical upshot of PPP versus MER issue. What effect does it have on emissions."

I don't recall seeing such a summary. Prehaps now is the time for one?

Papers such as "PPP CORRECTION OF THE IPCC EMISSION SCENARIOS – DOES IT MATTER? BJART J. HOLTSMARK1 and KNUT H. ALFSEN, Climatic Change, 68, 11-19, 2005" suggest it makes no difference.

Even if it did, the IPCC has 3 working groups? Are you advocating that because the economics is not up to scratch the climate science must be flawed?

David

Thinsky,
Re local solutions

The way I see it is, that a local solution, applicably everywhere, but different everywhere according to local special conditions, is better than a global NON-solution.

One of the points W Cline 2004 makes about Kyoto is that it is not very effective, as the major CO2 emitters India and China are not really involved.

David, I have indeed been asked this question often, so I would like to give a considered reply. I also want to offer some views on your other question about the relationship between the climate science and the economics. Unfortunately I'm about to leave for an all-day meeting, so this will have to wait until tomorrow.

David, Thinksy,

I suspect 'Public Choice Theory' is relevant in the context of understanding my problems with the IPCC.

The following link, gives an introduction to the subject: http://www.econlib.org/library/enc/PublicChoiceTheory.html

It would be good if someone did a guest post for me - applying the concept to climate change politics and science.

Of all the issues debated on this blog, none generates a greater magnitude of busy-work than climate change, but to what end?

Australia's NSESD fulfils the obligation it entered into in Rio de Janeiro to implement Agenda 21, but protection of the atmosphere is only one of forty chapters. The other 39 are of equitable importance in steering the human impact towards sustainability in the long term.

It would appear that climate change is of particular importance as a veritable mine of political pay-dirt derived from scary scenarios of a hurting, dying planet that frightens children, angers youth and persuades adults to submit to rigid behavioural constraints. Inevitably, though, there are those who challenge its ideology.

In consideration of stakeholders … those who perceive themselves as having a relatively smaller "stake" in the old system would expect to gain advantage by supporting the establishment of a new system and particularly one purporting to address inequality. It is also likely that like-minded professional leaders in politics, public administration, media, business, church and education may be persuaded to promote the transformation within their sphere of influence.

Ultimately, the implementation of change can only succeed if non-compliance is not tolerated. Australia’s Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment 1992 is an appendix to its NSESD which sets out principles that require solutions that are appropriate to the magnitude of the environmental problem in ways that tend to international competitiveness and local community well-being. The past fourteen years have revealed short-comings in our national approach in terms of compliance. Perhaps the anti-AGW lobby should throw their support behind a national legislative reform agenda to overcome this shortfall.

detribe yr basically saying think global, act local, but random or loosely organised local activities won't address a problem that emerges globally and manifests globally or regionally. What's your proposal to co-ordinate local solutions for a meaningful outcome? Like an Agenda 21 programme? Or like the increasing number of councils, local and state govts, businesses and individuals who are voluntarily observing the Kyoto Protocol?

LDCs and NICs would be more likely to get involved in observing the Kyoto Protocol (or similar) if MDCs set the lead (and then put the pressure on). There have been other opportunities for such co-ordination, eg many countries supported, in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, a framework for environmental agreements, with equitable representation of all countries that could shape the WTO to encourage more sustainable trade (ie consistent basis to international trade) but of course the US and Aust objected and missed a good leadership opportunity. The lack of involvement by all key countries in GHG is linked to the lack of leadership by the US and its closest allies. The US, I needn't say, is resistent to multilateral agreements and Bush wants to stick it to the 'chocolate making' countries.

Dropping the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that some key countries weren't involved does not provide an argument for local activities. ie, if an internationally co-ordinated programme falls short of the required level of involvement, then fragmented local actions fall even shorter. What's the incentive? How to measure the impact on what is a broad-scale problem?

Ender quotes Willits as an example of an alternative sustainable and renewable economic localisation project whatever then Willits calls for

1) donations of cash

2) donation of computer

Aha! self sufficiency defined.

Jennifer how do you justify wanting to disband the IPCC on a basis of methods of analysing the choices made by individuals in areas of collective decision making? What's your connection? Using public choice theory you can consider decision making and the relationships between the various economic and political agents.

The IPCC is not a monopoly, it doesn't restrict competition. The reverse, it promotes co-operation.

"PPP versus MER issue. What effect does it have on emissions"?
Increased likelihood of a category 3 cyclone in a teacup.

Neil, I dont see it as a "debate" I see it more as various "experts" partake in a self-perpetuating and circular discussion of little value as the responsibility for correct decision making is always "someone else's"

And Rog - that's the fault of both sides and an unstructured discussion.

If you guys are serious we'd get into each issue sequentially and "sign off" - but you guys will argue about utterly everything - would we even get a consensus on is the Earth warming or not? or even is the warming from CO2?

If you don't get to this point you're not even at square one. Frozen on the starting blocks.

Would need a side-blog as would interfere with Jen's need to have the blog contemporary and news worthy.

See? - always someone else's fault

Rog - one day you'll want to be constructive. I offer the start of a path and all I get is a quip. Sigh !

OK. I am going to give Phil and others an opportunity to continue one long discussion on global warming... I'm getting a wiki installed at this site.
The address will be www.jennifermarohasy.com/wiki . Lachlan might even get it done this afternoon for me. I think you will need to register to contribution and I will need someone to be the moderator.
Is Blair volunteering - given he is responsible for this thread - in my opinion - at least his name is at the top?
I suggest we start with Blair's 10 questions and build around each?

Jen - wow ! he says picking himself off the floor.

Would you go at all Blair's 10 points at once or stepwise from point 1?

Consenus or just list the arguments and let the lurkers decide for themselves?

I just has a day-mare with Joe as the moderator. You said that. No I didn't. Yes you did. I certainly did not - oh yes you did?

For those who don't remember

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/argument.htm

Phil
I suggest start with more than one of the climate change questions and whoever is prepared to fill in the gaps/write the summaries gets the jump.
I don't think there will necessarily need to be a consensus, wikipedia puts the alternative views. But if contributors really know their stuff, and are prepared to consider all the evidence, then I think a single view could well emerge with the various conditions and exceptions also explained.
We could perhaps also start with topics on forests and whales.
Who would be prepared to moderate for forests and perhaps someone again for whales?

The beauty of a wiki is that it's collaborative & it's living (like the issues). It wouldn't be useful to try and reach a consensus or a 'conclusion' - it would defeat the purpose of the ongoing nature of the exchange wouldn't it? Do you guys have a life commitment to these issues or not!!??!

There's already too much of a WINLOSE sentiment here. You don't want to run a wiki as though winning a(n unbalanced) debate is the same as being right on the science.

Further, the representation is unbalanced. If yuo tried to draw a conclusion you'd have a never-ending circle of debate on that, eg Ian castles debating the etymology of the words used in yuor concluding remarks and denying that he ever said anything. What desperate soul would accept that thankless futile task? The beauty of a wiki is that it can breathe - not compatible with stifling debating styles.

One way would be to have 2 (or more) entries on each issue, collaborative fors & againsts essays, but do all issues divide so evenly? Comes back to how yuo describe the issue & would there be an eternal debate of fire and brimstone over that?

For the wiki idea to really fly you shoudl make it independent of anyone's blog and involve a larger community.

In the past I witnessed parts of the production of some IPCC special reports and from my point of view it was one of the most democratic processes I have ever witnessed. However, I suspect biases can still emerge. Early carbon inventory guidelines seemed very biased towards northern hemisphere forests mainly because the writers, editors and reviewers volunteering for the jobs largely came from the northern hemisphere and most had probably never seen a savanna or a woodland in their life.

If there are problems with the IPCC climate assessment reports then is possibe only because individuals and sometimes whole groups (e.g. southern hemisphere ecologists in the early days) are not adequately involving themselves in the process. Is the IPCC missing the input form a whole group of economists with different views?

I was over ambitious about the wiki going up this afternoon - just to let you know it will be a bit longer.

Dear Jennifer and others,
Pardon my ignorance but the only Wiki I know something about is Reuben.
A quick reference please about how this "thing" operates.
Blair

http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

and for the a classic example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

and for a classic example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thanks Phil.
But I have some questions. Firstly how would Jennifer's Wiki differ from (say) Wikipedia? For example I notice in the Wikipedia, extensive articles on emissions trading, carbon taxes,AGW etc. So what is the likely payoff from Jennifer's Wiki?
So perhaps I'll have to just "suck it and see".
Bloody new technology.
Blair

Blair - well that's up to Jen to set the brief I guess. But you have 10 questions. The blog has a long history of climate shoot-outs in the climate archives if you look. I think this move allows bloggers to say : "look we've been through this issue before 100 times - read the wiki first". Otherwise we sustain Rog's complaint about circular arguments (which some may enjoy of course). An example of dissent might be that Warwick Hughes would post that he thinks a majority of terrestrial stations are in error and document that. It may list the arguments more formally in one spot.

But let others comment. Yes there is some risk - like with everything. It is a jump into the blue ! Jen's Wiki would probably be more "blog local". Just MHO.

Blair, Phil

I would see the Wiki as an opportunity to resolve some of the issues that bother readers of this blog - and me.

There seem to be a few people who visit here with particular expertise on climate change and related issues including David, Ian C, Warwick Huges, Cathy.

I get sent pieces of information like this letter that was published in The Australia newspaper some time ago.

"15 February 2006

THERE is an excellent argument for curbing the public statements of scientists like those from CSIRO, a former employer of mine. Scientists, like the public, cover a spectrum of beliefs, some of which are based on emotion rather than science. There are greenie scientists in CSIRO and there are honest ones. Human nature being what it is, there are private agendas pushed by CSIRO people that would make your jaw drop. An example is the selection of Australian weather recording sites used to construct the temperature measurements of the continent, which play a big part in southern hemisphere weather models. From the beginning, most sites that showed little or no temperature rise or a fall from, say, the 1880s to now were rejected. The few sites selected to represent Australia were mainly from capital cities and under suspicion for "heat island" effects. I could give example after example as it was one of my employment functions to distill the best results from the bogus on many matters related to energy/greenhouse/nuclear etc. I found few truly objective submissions among those masquerading as science.

Geoffrey Sherrington
Balwyn North, Vic"

Why doesn't the BOM always use the same sites? I can't work out what they do - but I can't believe they are deliberately choosing the hottest sites each year?

Perhaps we could, at the wiki, list all the sites that BOM now uses and used to use. Get some in put from Warwick and David and resolve this issue?

Everyone seems to agree that the Tasmanian forestry story is not being told/understood.

The Wiki could focus on contentious Australian environmental issues from the persepective of what interests readers of this blog. I suspect the information may then be of interest to others - including the few journalists who read this site.

Jen - I have to say that Mr Sherrington's comment indicates he has not spent more than 30 seconds looking or thinking. The Bureau have gone to great pains to get a reference network and we have blogged on this already. Groan, groan.

A 20 second Google gives you :

*********************

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/reference.shtml

The Australian Reference Climate Station (RCS) network has been established for high quality, long-term climate monitoring, particularly with regard to climate change analysis. The establishment of the network followed a request by the World Meteorological Organization to all of its member nations in 1990.

Around 100 RCSs have been selected from the existing Australian observation network. Preference was given to stations with

high quality and long climate records,
a location in an area away from large urban centres, and
a reasonable likelihood of continued, long-term operation.

And then you could "phone a friend" at the Bureau I'm sure get some more inside info the mind-numbing details of it all.

*****************

So we've forgotten - which is maybe a reason for a Wiki.

And maybe some CSIRO staff are satanists in their spare time - I don't care if their formal published science in journals and reports is first rate and stands up to review.

So Jen when did the IPA stop devil worship and why. Now don't deny it. (See - if I keep pressing I can imply a controversy of the "when did you stop beating your wife" kind.)

Anyway on a more positive note - it could possiblt help me on something like the Tasmanian forest issue where I need to brought up to speed with the state of the art thinking and arguments from both sides. My response from the "browns" was a bit of "groan -we've been over this before!"). Well I haven't !!! Unfortunately we have not seen much true green involvement on the blog - probably only "green sympathetic" and "argumentative ornery bastards". Motty normally ups them in the first salvo and they wilt.

Phil,
On the issue of the letter.
Despite receiving lots of copies of the letter and more, I didn't post it at the blog. But I did ask the BOM for more information and it was pretty much along the lines of what you have written which reads like 'trust me'. The issue won't go away until the BOM does more than it has already done. I for one would like to see the list of 100 sites - just like i like to see the water quality data. Could we get every locality for each year for the last 10 years. That's how you build confidence. Let Warwick pick over the localities - don't just tell us they were the best.
We could do this with a wiki?

Like this list here! Took me 10 seconds.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/listing.shtml

Sorry to interrupt, but I promised I’d give David a reply to the questions he raised yesterday. I apologise for its length.

He asked ‘What's the practical upshot of PPP versus MER issue’; and ‘What effect does it have on emissions.’ The first point to note is that these are distinct questions. If the PPP vs MER issue has an effect on emissions (see below), that’s a practical upshot. If it doesn’t, there are still important and serious implications arising from the misstatement of current and prospective output and income, and on energy and emissions intensities. I’ll discuss these implications first.

The Terms of Reference of the SRES make clear that ‘the scenarios were intended to have broader uses than simply a set of emissions trajectories to drive climate models’ (SRES, p. 324), and this is spelled out in s.1.3 ‘Purposes and Uses of SRES Emissions Scenarios’ (see http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/026.htm ). The intended uses of the scenarios are summarised in the first two sets of bullet points.

According to the SRES authors themselves, the WGII and WGIII analysts need to know the socio-economic changes associated with specific emission scenarios and the socio-economic settings against which policy options are to be evaluated. And the authors agree that ‘Impact modelers .. need spatially explicit estimates of .. the economic variables that reflect the expected adaptability or vulnerability of different populations and regional economies to different regional and climate change.’ So it is surely a serious ‘practical upshot’ of the use of flawed measures of output and income in the SRES and in the WGII and WGIII reports that analysts and policy-makers don’t have this information.

But it’s worse than that. The IPCC assures analysts and policymakers that ‘the SRES scenarios provide a credible and sound set of projections, appropriate for use in the AR4’. During the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Milan in December 2003, the Panel issued a press release (the only such statement in a period of more than 2 years) which was specifically and exclusively devoted to brushing aside the Castles & Henderson critique of the SRES scenarios. We were accused of ‘spreading disinformation’ and, puzzlingly, of being ‘so called ‘two independent commentators’’. And the IPCC proclaimed that ‘the economy does not change by using a different metrics (PPP or MEX), in the same way that the temperature does not change if you switch from degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit’ (‘IPCC press information on AR4 and emissions scenarios’, 8 December 2003, available at http://www.ipcc.ch/press/pr08122003.htm ).

The analogy is a false one, as The Economist (London) pointed out some months later:

‘IPCC claims that measuring at PPP or market exchange rates does not affect the economy any more than a switch from degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit alters the temperature. But the analogy is wrong. PPP and market exchange rates, unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit, are measuring different things. That should not be too hard an idea for scientists to grasp’ (‘Garbage in, garbage out’, 27 May 2004).

But the lead authors of the SRES continued to insist on the ‘methodological soundness of the use of MER for developing long-term emissions scenarios’ (Grubler and 17 others, 2004, ‘Emissions scenarios: A final response’, Energy & Environment, 15 (1): 11-24).

In January 2005, Professor William Nordhaus of Yale gave the invited keynote address at the IPCC Expert Meeting on Emissions Scenarios in Washington, DC in January 2005, on the subject ‘Alternative Measures of Output in Global Economic-Environmental Models: Purchasing Power Parity or Market Exchange Rates’. In the presence of 8 of the 15 SRES lead authors who had written two years earlier that ‘Mr Castles and Mr Henderson have focused (at tedious length) on constructing a ‘problem’ that does not exist’, Professor Nordhaus explained that:

‘.. Estimates of output or income at MER are simply wrong – they are constructed on an economically incorrect basis.’

‘It should be emphasised that the use of MER is not a fine technical detail. Incomes estimated at MER are fundamentally wrong ..’

‘.. The errors using MER in today’s world are large – underestimating incomes in low-income countries by a factor of at least three relative to high-income countries. Different techniques for measuring real incomes and outputs using PPP valuations give different estimates, but they all indicate that MER valuations are highly misleading. While we might be reluctant to employ PPP estimates, in this area it is better to be imprecisely right than precisely wrong.’

If Professor Nordhaus is right (and the vast majority of economists and, to the best of my knowledge, ALL national accounts statisticians agree with him) the SRES scenarios are entirely unsuitable for two of the three main purposes for which they were commissioned.

Since his presentation at the IPCC Expert Meeting in Washington, Professor Nordhaus has written to me as follows:

‘I am personally and professionally extremely grateful for your role in raising the issue of proper measurement of output in the context of global economic modeling and global warming. It is clear to me that your intervention will be seen as playing a pivotal role in changing the way modeling is done in this area. I have always used MER accounts in my own modeling. I was aware of the controversy over the last few years, and my inclination was that MER accounts were theoretically preferable because energy and carbon are tradable goods. It was only when I made a careful study of your papers and the broader literature, particularly the index-number theory in this area, that I realized that my earlier thinking was wrong. I am cautiously confident that, over time, models will migrate to appropriate PPP accounts, perhaps something like superlative PPP accounts, but definitely away from MER accounts. The credit for the initial insight is yours. Bravo!’

Bill Nordhaus takes a rather different view of the Castles & Henderson work on the emissions scenarios to Australia’s John Quiggin, who earlier this year described our critique as a ‘complete beat-up’. Professor Quiggin subsequently posted on his blog a paper entitled ‘The choice of exchange rate in MODELLING the impact of climate change: A response to the Castles-Henderson critique of the IPCC’, in which he argued that the Castles & Henderson claims are ‘unfounded’, and that the ‘effects on MODEL OUTPUTS of the choice of exchange rate conversion procedure are likely to be small’ (EMPHASES added). Note that Professor Nordhaus is critical of MER-based modelling work, both in his paper for the IPCC Expert Meeting and in his letter to me.

In his paper for the IPCC Expert Meeting, Nordhaus acknowledged his indebtedness to Erwin Diewert, Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia, who introduced the term ‘superlative’ in his seminal paper ‘Exact and Superlative Index Numbers’ (‘Journal of Econometrics’, May 1976, pps. 115-145). Professor Diewert’s standing in this field was recognised in his being awarded the prestigious Killam Prize in Social Sciences by the Canada Council for the Arts in 2003. I reproduce here an extract from the citation:

‘[Diewert] has also made fundamental contributions to the economic theory of index numbers. Dr. Diewert’s influence has been monumental, not just on economic research but also on the computation of official government economic statistics in Canada, the United States, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Australia and France. He has made profound and far-reaching contributions to Canada through his research and his sound advice.’

Some time after John Quiggin posted his response to what he described as ‘the Castles-Henderson critique of the IPCC (which in fact addressed only one aspect of one of our grounds of criticism), I was surprised to notice that he had submitted the same paper (described as ‘This version: Aug 2, 2005’) to the UK Stern Review of The Economics of Climate Change. As the paper was directed specifically to the Castles & Henderson critique, I thought that Professor Quiggin might have sought my comments before sending in his response. I was also surprised at a number of statements in his paper which raised issues of index number theory, and which seemed to me to be technically wrong – the most notable example of which was the key statement on p. 8 that ‘the fact that the choice between MER and PPP measures arises only as an artefact of aggregation suggests that the impact of this choice is likely to be small.’

Accordingly, I wrote to Professor Diewert, sending him a link to the paper on the Quiggin blog (I didn’t know at the time that he’d submitted it to the Stern Review) and seeking Diewert’s comments and advice on the sentence I have just quoted. His reply was as follows:

‘I think that you are right and John is wrong. Regards, Erwin Diewert’

David cited a paper by Bjart Holtsmark and Knut Alfsen which in his view suggested that the MER vs PPP question ‘makes no difference.’ As Dr. Alfsen was one of the 89 expert reviewers of the SRES, it would not have been surprising if he and his co-author had taken such a view. But they haven’t: here are a few extracts from their paper ‘The use of PPP or MER in the construction of emission scenarios is more than a question of ‘metrics’ (‘Climate Policy’, vol. 4, 2004: 205-216):

‘The use of purchasing power correction is definitely essential in relation to long term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios.’

‘This mode of reporting [using MER-based projections of GDP] can be quite misleading.. This concerns all the scenarios in the SRES, which therefore provide a highly misleading picture and is worthy of criticism.’

‘Our conclusion is that we agree with Castles & Henderson when they argue that PPP correction should be included in the type of scenario work carried out in SRES. Because relative income and emission intensity levels play crucial roles in the scenario design these levels have to be correctly pictured. That can only be done by the use of PPP-corrected measures. The choice between PPP and MER is far more than a question of metrics, as claimed by the IPCC.’

David notes that the IPCC has 3 working groups, and asked whether I’m advocating that because the economics is not up to scratch the climate science must be flawed. No, I haven’t said that, although I have recently said, with eight other economists who made a submissions to the Stern Review on the OXONIA documents, that:

‘An issue which is likewise not touched on, in either the lecture or the discussion paper, is whether governments should continue to treat the IPCC as their sole permanent and virtually unchallenged source of information, evidence, analysis, interpretation and advice on the whole range of issues relating to climate change. Even if the IPCC process were less open to question professionally, there are grounds for concern about placing such heavy reliance, in matters of extraordinary complexity where huge uncertainties prevail, on a single source of analysis and advice and a single process of inquiry. Viewed in this light, the very notion of setting consensus as an aim appears as questionable if not ill-judged.’

From my perspective, it’s the ‘scientific community’ that seems to want to surround the entire work of the IPCC with an aura of infallibility. This is from a statement submitted by the Royal Society to the Lords Committee:

‘The work of the IPCC is backed up by the worldwide scientific community. A joint statement of support was issued in May 2001 by the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. It stated ‘We recognise the IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving consensus.’

On the question of the effect of the IPCC’s MER assumption on emissions, much has been made of Professor Nordhaus’s statement that ‘the jury is out.’ This seems to be the only part of his paper that the IPCC stalwarts want to notice. Is it not a serious criticism of the SRES that, five years after its publication, the jury IS still out on this point? The SRES was meant to ‘transparent with input assumptions, modeling approaches and results open to external review’; ‘reproducible – input data and methodology are documented adequately enough to allow other researchers to reproduce the scenarios’; and ‘internally consistent – the various input assumptions and data of the scenarios are internally consistent to the extent possible’ (SRES, s. 1.3). If these specifications had been achieved, the question of the effect of the MER assumption on emissions could have been deduced years ago.

However, it’s a separate matter whether the emissions projections are reasonable. On an earlier thread, David said that he ‘had no reason to disagree with the baseline provide by ABARE’, but he also said that he had ‘little confidence in the ability of economists to predict short term trends let alone long term ones.’ So far as the long-run is concerned, I don’t have much confidence in the ability of economists to predict these things either (or of scientists). But wouldn’t we be helped by some illustrations of what the ABARE baseline (= roughly the SRES A1FI scenario) means in practice? Under A1FI, the generation of electricity per head for the entire world is projected to reach 5 times the level that the rich countries of the OECD achieved in 1990. The implied use of electricity would be still greater because, for example, electricity losses in transmission in India were, on the latest figures, 27% of the power generated compared with 7% in Australia. And the efficiency of use of electricity will presumably have greatly increased as well. Yet most of the energy in 2100 is still assumed to be produced by burning fossil fuels. Is this really likely? Or even possible? Shouldn’t the world’s governments be asking for some illustrations of what such an A1FI world would look like in practical terms: how big will the average house in India be? How many cars per household in Nigeria and Indonesia? How many fossil-fuel burning power plants in Japan, Malaysia, Belgium, Sri Lanka, Korea?

I don’t know how anyone can know whether the IPCC’s modellers were led into making these projections as a result of using MER-based initial GDP numbers or for some other reason. But I’m amazed that scientists can just take them on trust as real-world forecasts of emissions.

thankd for that Ian. Ill read it again a few times.
My point is rather small. Davids question about whether you might imply that the science of IPCC is suspect because the economics is in error leads me to to point that the science of scenarios rests on the economics. The worlds economies are part of the system being modelled. So if the economics is in error the science also is in error.
The major weakness of IPCC seems to be to gloss over the economics.

Jen - I think you've got your first Wiki submission !

detribe, in my opinion your point is absolutely right and it's not a small point: it's a very big one. CSIRO's climate projections for Australia are built upon the SRES. They've relied upon the SRES projections BECAUSE they were produced by the IPCC: they've never done an independent investigation. A recent publication by the Climate Group says that the SRES scenarios were deliberately designed to be equally probable, which reveals a total misunderstanding of the meaning of this suite of projections. I wrote to Kevin Hennessy about this last week. Someone on my mailing list must have passed on my letter to Fred Singer, and a long extract appears in the latest issue of 'The Week that Was': see item 3 in www.sepp.org/weekwas/2006/Mar%2018.htm . Items 1 and 2 in the newsletter may also be of interest: they are by my economist mates Lord Nigel Lawson and David Henderson.

Phil will remember my previous reference to BOM quality control where they said that they were working on improving the accuracy of their data collection and in the last 2 years had made significant improvements.

In many instances BOM have switched from manual to automatic weather stations, among the benefits BOM claim "AWS are more consistent in their measurement" but "are less flexible than human observers"

"Variations in instrument type over the years have introduced inconsistencies in climate data records resulting in non-climatic 'jumps' and artificial trends. Other changes such as construction of nearby buildings or growth of vegetation cause similar affects."

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/quality.shtml

"Full quality control is completed some weeks after the end of the most recent month when

*extreme values are confirmed by written reports, and

*data is compared with nearby stations so that values and date of occurrence are similar."

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/headers/qc.shtml

This then raises the question, just how accurate are previous records?

I remember Phil becoming quite emotional on the subject, claiming that I was being overly critical of an army of overworked underpaid public servants.

When BOM make a statement eg "hottest on record" they dont say "records may contain a degree of error"

>Despite receiving lots of copies of the letter and more, I didn't post it at the blog. But I did ask the BOM for more information and it was pretty much along the lines of what you have written which reads like 'trust me'. The issue won't go away until the BOM does more than it has already done. I for one would like to see the list of 100 sites - just like i like to see the water quality data. Could we get every locality for each year for the last 10 years.

The localities are show at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/reference.shtml
The base data is avaliable at ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/change/HQannualT
A detailed discussion of these is avaliable at
ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/change/HQannualT/HQannualT_info.pdf
The used station are the non-urban sites shown in green in the map figure.

The data are all described in the scientific literature by
Torok, S.J. and Nicholls, N. 1996. A historical annual temperature dataset for Australia. Aust. Met. Mag., 45, 251-260.

These data have been avaliable for a number of years, and made avaliable to anyone who has asked.

I would be suprised if anyone on this site would have seriously believed Sherrington's letter.

David

Rog - WRONG again. A high proportion of the observation is done by volunteers too - hence my emotion. Hope you've maintained your rain gauge down there faithfully every day for the last 30 years making your vital contribution to the network by someone passionate about his climate. Collecting meteorological data is the great Aussie tradition.

In terms of accuracy BoM are seeking all the time to improve things. But your 1959 Holden still got you places. It isn't that the manual systems are by definition "inaccurate". They're seeking to improve accuracy with better systems. Have you phoned or emailed BoM and actually asked about what they do. Bet not.

And there is nothing wrong with running quality control. You'd hope they'd be doing it. One day you might read between the lines about who actually does this function in the Bureau.

I assume you've acquainted yourself with Torok and Nicholls paper before talking crap.

Sherrington's letter does not pass the giggle test (time to conduct - 2 minutes).

Phil, David,
1.I didn't republish the letter because I didn't believe it either. But I am 'interested' that The Australian published it and I am amazed at how many people don't trust the BOM on this issue.
2.When I click on the map it shows sites spread across Australia. But my understanding is that you change the sites you use each year? This is the point that I may not have understood. Does the BOM use the same or different 100 sites each year when it puts the temperature data together?

>2.When I click on the map it shows sites spread across Australia. But my understanding is that you change the sites you use each year? This is the point that I may not have understood. Does the BOM use the same or different 100 sites each year when it puts the temperature data together?

For all practical purposes the same sites are used every year (except when a site closes). Typically there might be one or two station changes in a year.

It wouldn't actually matter if the sites changed (as suggested by Sherrington), because everything is done in anomalies from the 1961-90 average period anyway.

David

Yes but newspapers run hot and cold - pun intended - on weather/climate issues all the time. AGW will get us one day - no it's all rubbish the next day.

It's very easy to indulge in conspiracy theories and if you're disposed that way - well let your mind rip. I would have almost thought a reasonable person would think the opposite - that to get anywhere, the Bureau would be most anxious to acquire very good base data, and they employ a lot of physicist and mathematician types who presumably aren't totally stupid. What's the probability that in looking for climate detection that the Bureau would say "whoops - drat - we never thought about heat islands - you got us there".

The point on the reference stations is to provide stability through time and not change things around. It's worth reading David's links. I'm amazed how many people don't make a phone call or send off an email and indulge their worst thoughts. Or even say - well I'll have a squiz at their climate web stuff and see if they're doing anything.

David, and others,

A couple more questions, because I would perhaps like to post this as an example of, 'the skeptics' and The Australian, very wrongly accusing the BOM.

1. Who is Sherrington? Did he ever work for the BOM? Does someone have a phone number or email for him?

2. Can I conclude that over the last 10 or so years*, a site has only been changed when a site has closed?

3. When a new site is used, it is compared back to what it measured during the 1961-90 period? I assume some people would assume you compare the aggregate average back to then, rather than the measurement for each site back to the average for that site?

*It would be good to replace the '10 years' with the period ago at which you started locking in sites?

>1. Who is Sherrington? Did he ever work for the BOM? Does someone have a phone number or email for him?

He has never worked for the BoM (or in climate)

>2. Can I conclude that over the last 10 or so years*, a site has only been changed when a site has closed?

Yes. The process is generally one of a station gets dropped from the list if it closes. Then, periodically (prehaps every 10 years) a concerted efforts is made to augment the network to improve coverage (if possible) in areas where the network has deteriorated. Any substantial changes are rigorously document in the literature.

>3. When a new site is used, it is compared back to what it measured during the 1961-90 period? I assume some people would assume you compare the aggregate average back to then, rather than the measurement for each site back to the average for that site?

See above. If a new station were to be used it would be compared back to its own average (though I don't believe any new stations have been added since the initial work of Torok and Nicholls). This process generates a time series of values at stations which can be mapped for a given year such as is done in figure 2 in http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20060104.shtml
The final Australian average value is simply a spatial average of this value. This is a statistical average of the annual mean temperature across Australia (which relates to the average thermal energy at thermometer level).

You can be quite sure that the process is:
1) documented in the literature,
2) all data are avaliable on the web,

Sceptics trying to make a story out of this process are wasting our collective time. The annual average is insensitive to analysis methodology as described by (and dozens of other papers)

Jones DA and Trewin BC 2000. On the description of monthly temperature anomalies over Australia. Aust. Meteor. Mag., 49, 261-276.

P.D. Jones. 1994: Hemispheric Surface Air Temperature Variations: A Reanalysis and an Update to 1993. Journal of Climate: Vol. 7, No. 11, pp. 1794–1802.

David

Jen - so in a couple of blog posts we have a huge amount of information which speaks volumes I think.

People seem unable to make a phone, send an email, or do the most elementary web searching. But we can pen a rant to the Australian and nobody checks it for at least 5 minutes. What was the thing taught in journalism school about checking sources.

And yes I know this is only a blog (as I keep telling Ian C) - we're allowed to speculate and have opinions. That's fine - but here we're simply saying black is white for no reason on a basic issue of data and process.

I am trying to phone Sherrington. His number has been engaged.

I just phoned Geoffrey Sherrington and invited him to comment at this blog site - to give some context to his letter in The Australian of 15th February. He said he was not interested.
He said he stands by everything he wrote in the letter, that it is "fact" and that it has been "published by a think tank".
When I asked which think tank he refused to tell me and when I asked for the reference to the publication he said he could not remember.
When I suggested this was hard to believe he said it related to work he did 20 years ago.
When I asked who had been selective in the choice of sites, and insisted that I needed this information he said that perhaps it was the University of Bath, in the UK, that had been selective .

I plan to write a letter to The Australian and write a blog post on this... I will plan to have it done for Monday.

Anyone with additional information can post it here - or send me an email.

Phil, with regards to quality control BOM does not refer to volunteer rainfall readers (some 5,500).

The reference is to the 59 staffed field offices, 60 weather watch radars and 542 automatic weather stations that form the basis of BOM data collection.

So which is the bit I got wrong?

Reading BOM pr for the next qtr and came across this headline;

50:50 CHANCES FOR A WARMER THAN AVERAGE JUNE QUARTER

The reason given for this is "The current seasonal temperature odds do not strongly favour either warmer or cooler than average conditions."

Given that then the following is also true 50:50 CHANCES FOR A COLDER THAN AVERAGE JUNE QUARTER

Is the BOM being a bit cheeky?

http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/ahead/20060323T.shtml

Rog - you're setting up a straw man rhetorical question.

if that's what you quality comment is referring to, you still have no justification for assuming rampant inaccuracy and not fit for purpose. One can always do better but don't play on creating a feeling of "inaccuracy and therefore unsuitability" without doing your homework. There are accuracy assessments in David's listed papers. If you ask he may be able to provide you with copies.

I am not assuming "rampant inaccuracy" therefore you have no justification for assuming so.

If BOM publish statements that the quality of their data is improving then it seems obvious to me that their older recordings may have been prone to some inaccuracy.

So what are you saying then. Therefore what point Rog?

50:50 chance rog will respond intelligently

Dont you know you dont answer a question with a question?

Nah ducked it.

Ian on a more "positive" note RC has just done a revisit on climate sensivity with a new paper. Be interested in your take sometime.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=274

As author, I respond to the chattering classes about this letter in "The Australian".
15 February 2006

"THERE is an excellent argument for curbing the public statements of scientists like those from CSIRO, a former employer of mine. Scientists, like the public, cover a spectrum of beliefs, some of which are based on emotion rather than science. There are greenie scientists in CSIRO and there are honest ones. Human nature being what it is, there are private agendas pushed by CSIRO people that would make your jaw drop. An example is the selection of Australian weather recording sites used to construct the temperature measurements of the continent, which play a big part in southern hemisphere weather models. From the beginning, most sites that showed little or no temperature rise or a fall from, say, the 1880s to now were rejected. The few sites selected to represent Australia were mainly from capital cities and under suspicion for "heat island" effects. I could give example after example as it was one of my employment functions to distill the best results from the bogus on many matters related to energy/greenhouse/nuclear etc. I found few truly objective submissions among those masquerading as science."

1. Nowhere did I mention BoM.
2. Nowhere did I criticise BoM.
3. Nowhere did I say I had worked for BOM.
4. I was critical of some statements made by people in CSIRO, but not about the selection of weather sites for early greenhouse models. What alarms me more is the stupified silence of senior scientists when they see bogus data. That is my real criticism.
4. Since writing that letter I have recognised it was the University of East Anglia, not Bath, which used the climate data from Australia.
5. I have since asked Phil Jones from East Anglia for a copy of his selection of the original Australian data. He says "We no longer have the Australian station date we were using in the early 1980s. At that time we had a limited network."
6. In the MID-1980s (which was my time choice) there were abundant stations which were not used by Jones at all. Here is a list for which data were then available, but not used by Jones - not a full list, just a sample: Geraldton, Narrabri, Hay, Albany, Rottnest Island Lighthouse, Walgett, Deniliquin, Bourke, Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, Coonabarabran, Echuca, Cooma, Moruya Heads Pilot Station, Omeo, Dubbo, Alice Springs, Gabo Island Lighthouse, Bathurst, Strathalbyn, Mt. Gambier, Yamba, Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse, Newcastle Signal Station, Cape Otway Lighthouse.
7. These stations, when averaged from the 1880s to the mid 1980s, showed a temperature decline until about 1951. This decline was not used in Jones's paper, which some would say ignited the greenhouse debate with its alarmist conclusions.
8. These and many other Australian stations, averaged from 1951 to 1985 or so, showed a slight increase in temperature. Jones's modelling was essentially post-1950.
9. Point is proven.
10. I continue to find the poorest quality of science in greenie publications. The most common error is to manipulate the raw data to fit the desired theory. Some is quite stupid, like from the nuclear industry, "Radwaste has to be managed for 250,000 years". How many nuclear scients who know this to be nonsense, whether from the CSIRO or not, have stood up and said so?
11. The Think Tank for which I helped formulate direction was the Tasman Institute. The person who brought this climate data to my attention was Warwick Hughes, a geologist (I am a Geochemist) used to dealing with hard data.
12. The statistical manipulations being used for climate data, that I have read, would commonly fail the stringency tests required of geologists when interpolating values of economic ores in deposits from drill hole data. If high standards of maths are needed to avoid wrong estimates of orebody worth, then they are equally needed for political-scientific issues like climate modelling.
13. I have suggested to Phil Jones that he use a certain type of mathematical statistic to get better results.
14. So, how many of you bloggers will now admit to wrong interpretation of, and confusion about, my letter to the Australian? I can prove all that I said and have proved some of it above.
15. I am currently moving home, so my telephone, email etc address will change in the next few days and I do not yet know what they will be. So don't bother to try to argue with me, contemplate your navels instead.