New warmist report out today; strong headlines forecast for the weekend

You will recall that the UN/IPCC released in March their latest Summary for Policymakers -- the summary of the science, written under the guidance of bureaucrats and politicians, that was released to headlines everywhere, but without the science behind it being released until May.

It's now May. Today in Wellington the actual scientific report is released to we poor mortals, and tomorrow the forecast is fro frightening headlines for some time to come. Or at least until the election. Dr Vincent Gray appears in the report, but he won't be there at the release; he'll be at home playing his saxophone. He has however provided readers this (lightly edited) summary in advance of the release.

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, by Dr Vincent Gray

The IPCC have, at last, issued all of the Climate Change 2007 (AR4), on their website, and they have, indeed, been generous. Not only are all the three reports (Physical Science Basis, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and Mitigation of Climate Change) available in full, plus supplementary material, but you can also have all three volumes of the previous report Climate Change 2001 in full. There are also several supplementary reports. The only disappointment is the Special Report of Emissions Scenarios which you are supposed to buy from the publishers, but does not get you there when you click.

They are just in time for the meeting in Wellington today when the reports will be launched on an audience which could not possibly have read the reports.

The Physical Science report is most impressive and beautifully crafted. The Technical Summary is, apparently, yet to be "approved in detail", but apart from that, it seems to be final.

I have now seen four previous versions, and I have merely glanced at this final one, but I would like to give some initial impressions.

The original Co-Chair of Working Group I which prepared this report, Yasui Ding, who was an editor of Climate Change 2001, has now been replaced by Qin Dahe, who is actually Ding's boss. This is perhaps a repercussion from my invitation as a Visiting Scholar to the Beijing Climate Center last year where I delivered three lectures. I was given a paper of which Ding was one of the authors that showed that there has been no warming in China attributable to greenhouse gases for the past 100 years. This paper has been suppressed by the IPCC and their "Asia" temperature record reverts to their orthodoxy.

They have included a special additional Chapter, right after the Technical Report consisting of a collection of "Frequently Asked Questions," which were previously only to be found in the various Chapters.

These "Frequently Asked Questions" are by way of an Apostle's Creed of the Climate Change Religion, and their continued inclusion in the appropriate Chapters is a guarantee that there will be no deviation from the official dogma.

In order to quote anything, you are supposed to give a long list of the authors and editors. They actually give an alphabetical list of the 620 authors and 618 reviewers. There is much duplication.

Of the 16 New Zealand Reviewers, 9 work for NIWA.

I only found one other known active climate sceptic besides myself (Richard Courtney)*. Even Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen are absent.

There is actually an index -- something I have been asking for from the beginning. There is a long list of acronyms (LLA)which does not even include the latest form of the SOI (Southrn Oscillation Index), or ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation), which is, apparently SAM (Southern Annular Mode).

I have said what I think of them already in my published paper Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis [pdf]. You might like to have my latest on Temperature Variability [Word Doc] which explains why the actual data do not support the IPCC.

I also cannot resist just one of their diagrams, (see post below) which shows their poor record in their seventeen-year history in predicting even the unreliable surface record.

* * * * *

* Fortuitously, Andrew Bolt publishes a list in Sydney's Herald Sun of climate sceptics that the IPCC could have included, and certainly used to include -- back before they became sceptics. You'll have to scroll down past his delightful description of how ABC 'journalists' are going to feel when their station airs The Great Global Warming Swindle:

THE ABC's staff is in uproar. There's talk of mutiny, over furiously steaming mugs of herbal infusion. The hotter-headed have even occupied the studios (what's new?) and now man hastily-erected barricades built entirely of sandals...

Oh, the humanity!

UPDATE 1: The report is released as parts of the Southern Hemisphere are experiencing record temperatures. Record cold temperatures. Or as Tim Blair puts it, "A Gore-like effect is observed across South Africa."

The weird thing is, known chill-maker Al Gore was nowhere near the place. He was instead visiting, ahem, Chile. Meanwhile, despite annual hysteria over the threat to Australian skiing posed by gloybill wooming ...

"The whole place has gone completely white. It’s fully covered the whole resort,” said Mr Grant, [Perisher Blue Ski Resort’s] marketing manager... The official season kicks off on June 9.

Oh, and further north: for the US Memorial Day weekend, Snow advisories have been issued in Colorado, where they're expecting up to eight inches of snow.

UPDATE 1a: Some of the comments at Tim Blair's post above are hilarious:

• Damn, but the Gorebot’s good!
  He doesn’t even have to be on the same continent to “bless” countries with his “special” effect.
  I’m a believer.... :-D
• Maybe the earth is already becoming saturated with AlGore Effect and is beginning to try to ballance itself by drawing warmth from where he aint so that where he is isn’t so hurtful?
• function GAIA::Temperature(Temp, Normal)
  If Temp < Normal
  Then << “Climate Change”
  Else << “Global Warming”
  End If
  
• From Victor Davis Hanson:
  ...Maybe it was inevitable that the old practice of paid absolution would appeal to elite baby boomers — a class and generation that always seems to want it both ways by compartmentalizing their lives. The only difference is that the new sinners are not so worried about God’s wrath as they are about their reputation among their judgmental liberal gods."
  Full article here.
• Luckily for us the performers at the upcoming Aussie Live Earth concert have decided to come clean on the whole “carbon neutral” bullshit...

UPDATE 2: What does it mean to have a "consensus" from scientists on the subject of global warming? 'Earth and Sky' asked geophysicists, biologists, entomologists, conservationists, meteorologists and some sceptical climate scientists just what "consensus" means in science. The responses are instructive, particularly those from Christy and Lindzen.

UPDATE 3: "Global Warming is nothing but fear-mongering with no concrete evidence," says biologist Josef Reichholf.

UPDATE 4: I've received this clarification below from Dr Gray:

There was a slight error. I misunderstood their signals. Only the full Working Group 1 report has been issued (WGI: Physical Science Basis) . The Summaries for Policymakers of Working Group 2 (WGII:Impacts) and Working Group 3 (WGIII: Mitigation) have been issued, but the full reports of each [on which those summaries are supposed to be based] have yet to come. Also the Synthesis Report which is supposed to summarise all three is currently out for review, but how I can do this adequately when two of the reports have not appeared, I don't know.