Yesterday we noted the misrepresentation of the science, published by the scientist who was misrepresented. However, this was not the only serious problem with the report:
The report claims that hurricanes will get more powerful: "U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA told Climate Depot his reaction to President Obama's new climate report on June 16, 2009. Goldenberg is expressing his personal views on the report, not those of any organization.
Goldenberg:
"I saw the news story on this and looked up the report. I have a pretty good grasp of the hurricane and AGW issues. I have skimmed over the hurricane findings (by the way --- I didn't notice a single recognized hurricane climate expert in the list of authors) and they definitely ignore a large body of the published hurricane research. There are a number of hurricane climate experts (including myself) that would disagree strongly with the hurricane-related conclusions of this report!Another serious issue with the report is that it overstates the actual amount of warming predicted by the IPCC, the source of many of its other conclusions. As explained here, the IPCC assumes a climate sensitivity (the positive feedback postulated to multiply the effect of CO2) of 2.6. The report (which contains no discussion of sensitivity) shows temperature rises based on a sensitivity of 5. The difference is dramatic, and ignores recent research that implies that even the IPCC's estimate of sensitivity is too high.
The report states (among other things) that: The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades. The number of North American mainland landfalling hurricanes does not appear to have increased over the past century. Though it is nice that they admit landfall frequency has not increased (happens to be the most reliable long-term Atlantic hurricane statistic) they state as "fact" flawed results that the power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased. I can only imagine how slanted the other portions of the report might be as well."
I expect this series to continue as more problems with the report surface. I predict that you will note in the comments below that the sources I link to are known skeptical sites. Mostly true--and it's a standard argument used by global warming activists. However, I can only respond by saying that skeptical scientists are shut out of the discussion in the venues appreciated by activists, and scientists wanting to get their opinions in front of the public and policy-makers have little choice in the matter. I'm hoping to offer some improvement on the situation here. As someone who believes that global warming exists and should be addressed, but who also believes that science consists of back and forth between scientists, shutting out one side of the discussion (as the government report completely does) is guaranteed to produce bad science.
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