Only 47% Flawed

Washington Post writer, H. Sterling Burnett comments on the much ballyhooed UN IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) 2001 climate report and their now infamous climate "hockey stick" temperature model. For you eco-newbies, this is the report that basically formed the cornerstone of the whole global warming hysteria movement.

Climate panel on the hot seat

In his commentary, Burnett summarizes some of the criticism now surrounding the IPCC's basic scientific techniques that originally led them to conclude such dire consequences for the planet as a result of global warming...

"IPCC reports have predicted average world temperatures will increase dramatically, leading to the spread of tropical diseases, severe drought, the rapid melting of the world's glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels. However, several assessments of the IPCC's work have shown the techniques and methods used to derive its climate predictions are fundamentally flawed."

Flawed? Dissension in the scientific community? Somebody get Al Gore on the phone, I feel a debate coming on.

Specifically regarding the IPCC 2001 climate report, Burnett also notes...

"..several studies cast doubt on the accuracy of the hockey stick, and in 2006 Congress requested an independent analysis of it. A panel of statisticians chaired by Edward J. Wegman, of George Mason University, found significant problems with the methods of statistical analysis used by the researchers and with the IPCC's peer review process. For example, the researchers who created the hockey stick used the wrong time scale to establish the mean temperature to compare with recorded temperatures of the last century. Because the mean temperature was low, the recent temperature rise seemed unusual and dramatic."

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the guys who created the report weren't actually scientists or even worse, not qualified to produce such a report?

Another study analyzing the methods employed by the IPCC 2001 study went even further...

"In a recent NCPA study, Kesten Green and J. Scott Armstrong used these principles to audit the climate forecasts in the Fourth Assessment Report. Messrs. Green and Armstrong found the IPCC clearly violated 60 of the 127 principles relevant in assessing the IPCC predictions. Indeed, it could only be clearly established that the IPCC followed 17 of the more than 127 forecasting principles critical to making sound predictions."

60 out of 127... I'm no statistician, but according to my trusty Radio Shack solar calculator... that's 47% folks.