Nick Barnes at CCC invited me to encourage people to sign a petition to open up the IPCC. The petition describes both motivations and methods to facilitate the process of opening the IPCC to make the process more transparent.
I’m going to run the preface for the letter, the full letter is here
We have a rare opportunity to affect the conduct and perception of climate science. If you believe this is important, please read on, and comment.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces reports which review and summarize the science of climate change. These reports are then used by inter-governmental treaties, bodies, conferences, and national governments, as the basis for international and national policies on climate change. In other words, it is vitally important. The Clear Climate Code project has the goal of “increasing public confidence in climate science resultsâ€, and the perception of IPCC reports directly affects this goal.
There has been a lot of controversy about the accuracy and balance of IPCC reports. In response, in March the UN asked the InterAcademy Council (representing the national science academies of many different countries) to conduct a review of the IPCC processes and procedures. A committee has been established and the review is underway. The committee is now soliciting public comment. This is a rare opportunity to influence the way in which the science of climate change is conducted, reviewed, synthesized, and communicated.
I have written the following comment, and am hereby soliciting signatures. If you agree with this comment and would like to be added as a signatory, please either contact me directly, or post a comment to this blog post [i.e. Nick’s post], giving your name and affiliation, as you wish it to appear in the list of signatories. Please also spread the word about this blog post, and encourage your friends, colleagues, and contacts to sign it.
To read more and sign, visit Nick Barnes’s post at CCC.
Thank you, Lucia.
Nick–
You’re welcome. I think this is something most people should get behind.
It’s got to be a good sign that both Eli and the Bishop are on board.
Nick–
I think pretty much everyone should be on board to the notion the IPCC should really be more transparent. You providing concrete suggestions for implementation is particularly useful as specialists in scientific fields often aren’t cognizant of these things. (Heck, many in the peanut gallery aren’t aware of them. I was dimly aware, but not specifically aware of them.)
i would add some suggestions.
In the writing of the document, if a supporting paper does not have code and data publically accessible then the text of the document should make this clear at the point of the CITATION.
” as xyx ( no publsihed source code or data) establishes..blah blah
So i support the call to get more transparency, but in those cases where the supporting code and data is not available I think that needs to be called out EXPLICITLY in the text proper. Readers can then assess the weight of this fact as they see fit.
One of the major problems faced by the IPCC and a significant reason for lack of trust wrt its reports is a tendency for some of the lead authors to give excessive credence to thier own research and that of close colleagues while simultaneously minimising discussion of and reference to alternative views.
It would be helpful if the choice of lead authors was more open to scrutiny and discussion prior to confirmation.
It would also be helpful for the IPCC to select lead authors who have previously minimised the expression of politicised viewpoints. And it might be useful for the IPCC to appoint coordinating lead authors from fields that are outside of the science/discipline that is under immediate discussion. That should help to foster more openness and less turf protection.
steven–
That’s a good idea. However, because the letter already has accumulated signatures, I don’t think Nick can edit it in good faith. So, right now, it’s either sign this or write your own. You could probably get a letter adding the point about making code available signed too.
Does this mean Eli can be put on the blacklist as a climate denier?
Does this mean Eli can be put on Schneider’s blacklist as a climate skeptic/denier?
MikeN: No. This comment does not fall on that side of any dichotomy. The point of it – as with all CCC work – is to increase public confidence in climate science by increasing transparency. I very much doubt that increased transparency will change the results (it hasn’t so far).
steven: Various people such as Conrad Taylor have suggested changes, some of which I would like to accept, but I can’t change it. As Lucia says, each of us must choose to sign this, as it stands, or not.
Its the wrong damn solution. Its the wrong place to start. We should be asking for the dissolution of the IPCC. We all pay for it one way or another and we don’t want it, don’t need it. It provides an ideal platform for fraud, misrepresentation and political corruption.
GET RID OF IT !!