Amid the manufactured spin and excitement of the unofficial release of the IPCC WG1 Second Order Draft, it is worth remembering that this happened last time too:
IPCC draft: No comment
May 4, 2006As everyone has now realised, the second-order draft of the new IPCC report has become very widely available and many of the contributors to this site, commenters and readers will have seen copies. Part of the strength of the IPCC process are the multiple stages of review – the report is already significantly improved (in clarity and scientific basis) from the first round of reviews, and one can anticipate further improvements from the ongoing round as well. Thus no statements from this draft report can be considered ‘official’. While most of the contents of the report will come as no surprise to frequent visitors here, we have decided that we are not going to discuss the report until it is finalised and released (sometime in February 2007). At that time, we’ll go chapter by chapter hopefully pulling out the interesting bits, but until then, we feel it’s more appropriate to respect the ‘Do not cite or quote’ injunctions that can be found on every page. We trust that our commenters will likewise respect the process. Patience, people, patience!
The only change is that AR5 will be released in September 2013.
@Robin Levett #42
Bob – he said “sea ice”, not “land ice”
Yes, he did. I did not think that particularly worthy of a response, so I concentrated on the hopefully implied question about land ice and hydrology. :) You are right, of course: Archimedes’ law tells us that the mass of the sea ice is equal to the mass of the water which it replaces.
There might be an indirect response to the melt of sea ice due to a difference in salinity, I would guess. It would mean the thermohaline circulation might slow down because fresher waters would lessen the downdraft of water in the Northern Atlantic. Relatively more warm water would remain at the equator and in the Southern hemisphere, which might increase the (lagged) temperature response in the Southern hemisphere. Effects of this order are readily visible in gravimetric and altimetric satellite records.
Everything you need to know about James Delingpole can be found in an interview he gave to Paul Nurse (Nobel Laureate, then President of the Royal Society) for a BBC documentary in which he stated that he has never read a scientific paper, and that he didn’t need to understand the science he was criticizing.
Re- Comment by Paul Grimes — 20 Dec 2012 @ 2:04 PM
Delingpole complained after the interview that he felt like he had been “Intellectually raped.” I presume that, like Rush Limbaugh, he justifies his existence as being some kind of niche market entertainer and the entertainment label provides a license to make up one’s own facts if they are entertaining. Anyone who has not seen the interview should watch it and, especially, appreciate the monster rapist Paul Nurse in action. Steve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9J7PFAzrQs
“Delingpole complained after the interview that he felt like he had been “Intellectually raped.””
I’m still struggling to imagine how this metaphor can possibly be orthogonal to anything relevant–and, of course, to suppress cheap-shot snark in questionable taste.
James, I strenuously disagree. Given its political sensitivity, it is IMPERATIVE that the draft be freely distributed. Of course,if they wanted the draft to be kept secret, they should have put a huge financial cost on leaks. A simple offer to allow publication for $1 million might have avoided the INEVITABLE leak with the current system.
Wrong choice backed by a system guaranteeing failure in a way that could be construed as evil or immoral. Amaazing….
I have a short comment to make to half-wit James Delingpole….”Open content, insert foot”.
lucien,
Hmm. “Content”. What an interesting euphemism for one’s posterior.
> it is IMPERATIVE
And who made you Emperor?
“DRAFT” has a meaning: not ready for distribution.
Reviewers agree to work to improve the draft.
Anyone – whatsoever – can become a reviewer.
Want a look at the rough first draft source material?
Read all the relevant journals.
Thanks for the video link. Any objective viewer told to choose which party was “raped” by the interview (a big stretch, real rape victims would disagree) would have chosen Nobelist Nurse who remained polite and said very little (and clearly had made the appointment in advance).
Re- Comment by Susan Anderson — 28 Dec 2012 @ 12:27 PM
You see Susan, that sneaky Nurse makes an appointment, goes in looking like grandpa, and then asks embarrassing questions. It was date rape!
Paul Nurse was and is the current president of the Royal Society, and the fact that Delingpole was so outclassed by him that any comparison is silly is evidenced by the fact that Delingpole agreed to meet with Nurse in front of a camera.
Someone should take a short clip of Delingpole from the video where he is unable to answer a simple question and loop it with some appropriate music. Steve