Science does not depend upon numbers or consensus. That’s the stuff of politics and marketing. But even so the IPCC numbers are grossly overstated. Tom Harris and John McLean, point out that the whole IPCC report depends upon Working Group I which only has some 600 Lead and Contributing Authors. In WGI three chapters are critical –Observations, Palaeoclimate and Attribution and each must be separatly right or the whole report is suspect. These chapters had respectively 12, 16 and 9 Lead Authors who actually wrote the text. Who knows what the Contributing Authors contributed? And the Review Editors did not do much if you go by their reports.

It is not just that it is only a handful of scientists that write the key chapters, they are largely drawn from the same clique dominated by the UK Met Office UCAR CRU and a few others. Moreover the process is also run by institutions like UCAR and the Met Office that make their living out of the climate business. Half the UK’s expert reviewers work for the Met Office. The IPCC participants are the investigators, judge and jury – and there is nether independent audit of procedures or any appeal process. Despite the claim to be open and transparent, the IPCC is not. In ongoing FOIA matters, one Chapter 6 Review Editor is claiming that his working papers are his personal property and one Lead Author claims his email correspondence is ‘confidential’. The IPCC themselves do not reply to request for information.

Jennifer: "I thought the article was clear in its intent ... to question the often repeated claim that 2,500 scientists have endorsed the IPCC reports and findings."

Possibly, but if so they are asking the wrong questions. The IPCC is meant to report on the state of climate science. That is the job it was tasked to do, and the only metric that really matters is how well its reports do reflect the state of the science.

The article claims the process the IPCC uses is poor. Maybe that is so, although TimLambert's comments here cast a rather different light on it, but even if true it doesn't really tell us if the IPCC has done its job well.

If you are going to measure climate science, how about asking some of climate scientists if the report reflects the state of play as they see it? Or how about pointing to the writings of a sizable group of disgruntled climate scientists? They didn't, presumably because as the previous as comments you imply are off topic said - they don't exist.

For the record, yes they did quote three people. Of those Gray is a coal chemist, and McKitrick is an economist. This leaves Timothy Ball, who has indeed worked in climate science for most of his life. He does definitely count as one dissenting voice, but given there are thousands of climate scientists 1 isn't enough.

Also for the record, this is part of Wikipedia's entry on Ball:

In September, 2006, Ball filed suit against Johnson and four editors at the Calgary Herald newspaper for $325,000 for, among other things, "damages to his income earning capacity as a sought after speaker with respect to global warming".[18]. In its response (point 50(d), p12), the Calgary Herald stated that "The Plaintiff (Dr. Ball) is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist." In June 2007, Ball abandoned the suit.

This article is timely as the Queensland Government’s Office of Climate Change -Environmental Protection Agency has just released their report: Climate change in Queensland: What the science is telling us.

This report is built on the key findings of the IPCC, Fourth Assessment report:
• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
• Most of the warming in the past 50 years is ‘very likely’ due to increase in greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities.
• It is ‘very likely’ that changes in the global climate system will continue well into the future, and that they will be larger than those seen in the recent past.

The Queensland Government, giving these findings authority, states: “The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is a consensus document produced by 450 lead authors, 800 contributing authors, and 2500 scientific expert reviewers representing 130 countries.”

On this basis the Government is to spend $430 million of taxpayers’ funds to tackle climate change through the Queensland Climate Change Fund. Perhaps we need to re- look at the numbers before spending this huge amount that is likely to be spent many times over by other Australian Governments.

From the article: "Consensus never proves the truth of a scientific claim"

These are weasel words. Scientific theories are never "proved" in the first place. Case in point: the IPCC only determined a high probability that climate change is cause by humans, not absolute truth. Scientific consensus is essential for policy makers to operate. Otherwise, for example, we would have accepted the original Fleischmann and Pons cold fusion "discovery" as gospel and never questioned it. The general community, and even other branches of science, require a consensus amongst the domain experts when they themselves don't understand the science. The exact nature of the consensus process depends on the community. Can the authors show that their analysis of comments indicates that the IPCC made the "wrong" determination, or that the claims about the number of reviewers or level of scrutiny is overestimated? Perhaps reviewers have worked in teams and submitted comments through the team lead. Perhaps many didn't feel the need to comment. Is the consensus process for the IPCC documented or referred to by the authors? No, so no case to answer.

Bazz wrote: "Prove their figures wrong regarding the numbers of scientists that say that it is caused by anthropogenic carbon."

Prove to me that there aren't one inch high pink elephants on Uranus. If someone comes up with unlikely claims, the onus is on them to provide a sufficient body of evidence to warrant investigation. Announcing hard to verify claims and demanding that they be "proven" by an oppenent is a classic delaying tactic.

Paul L. wrote: "I don’t think we need to suggest that the supporters of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) are corrupt or incompetent for them to be wrong."

Yet I didn't say that, I said: "you need some very strong and solid evidence (eg. that they are all corrupt or incompetent) to discount them". "Discount" is not the same as saying they are "wrong. The IPCC themselves allow for the possibility that they are wrong in their report - just its a very low probability. So I stand by my statement.

Well here we are again,

I agree with the skeptics and those who think the IPCC is a farce.

It would be a farce, if its implications were not so serious.

Krudd & Co are working toward carbon emissions tax.

Forget the spin about compensatory tax reductions and offsetting oil duty etc.

When the socialists get an opportunity to rape your discretionary spending they will.

Forget the truth

Climate change is the excuse for

Carbon Emmissions taxes

and

Carbon Emmissions tax is

Socialism by Stealth.

My view may be politically incorrect, maybe but I do not give a rats.

The chain of cause and effect is a very short one. The end game will be:

From your current gross income, more will be curtailed into government funds in the name of climate change and less left for you to spend on what makes you happy.

Now if you think that is fair ask yourself this

Melburnians are about to face a 15% hike in water charges.

One of the most significant costs faced by Melbourne water users is the $100,000,000 a year which the Socialist State government skims off the Melbourne water companies as "Special Dividend" and which goes into general funds for the socialist big-spenders to feather bed their political hobbies.

It does not matter what sort of emmissions tax is invented, you, the individual will pay and pay and pay.

Remember Howard & Co resisted the prattle of Kyoto and the slippery slope into emmissions trading. Especially remember that in a few years time, when you get to vote in a federal election again.

It seems that there is more heat than light and suggestions of political
skulduggery than you can poke a stick at.

Again,the crux of the argument is not whether the world is warming up,
it has done that numerous times.

Q1 Is the CO2 released by human activity increasing temperature above
what would otherwise happen to a degree that is dangerous ?
Q2 If Australia reduces the output of CO2 will it make a noticeable
difference to world temperatures if China, India and others do not
make similar savings ?
Q3 Should an entirely separate body be commissioned to review all the
work done by those associated with the IPCC studies and if in doubt
restart from scratch ?

If the answer to Q1 is yes to spend the amount of money involved will
need a very high degree of probability.

If the answer to Q2 is no, what the hell are we arguing about !
The answer to Q3 is only relevant if both Q1 & Q2 are yes.

With disputed data are we going to gamble the whole world economy ?
After all we may survive quite well with a 3 or 4 degree rise.
Which is the biggest gamble ?

For those who saw Bob Brown on TV the other night he was wrong to
blame the volcano. He diverted the question by giving the answer to
another question that was not asked.
The volcano event effected only one year at the end of the several hundred year long Maunder Minimum.