Timmyboy, the IPCC may have been set up initially with the best of intentions but unremarkably it has mutated into a religious faith. It simply operates mechanically with belief in belief alone where it can only always be a fact free zone/playpen. When one sees obviously dodgy assumptions, biased data manipulations, absurdly selective modeling schemes, etc all coupled with an aggressively enforced consensus group mindset with inhouse peer review processes ....... then it deserves the utmost skepticism. For myself, i'd describe it more accurately as top shelf insanity indicating a complete lack of imagination ........... but certainly not a lack of insecurity nor a lack of self-interest.

Your very own comments about Dr Vincent Gray are aimed to demonstrate this unimaginative belief/need for total consensus within the IPCC playpen. If this is the priority then it speaks of insecurity and a need to arrogantly fudge the data/evidence to fit some perceived moral high ground. Whilst this may be observed as a perfectly fitting product on the surface its underbelly is phony. My point is that your "science" is exposed as simply belief in belief for its own sake rather than belief derived from some factual information which is where intelligence evolves. Applying consensus to science means there is no thought of reason, humility, free inquiry, dignity, participatory democracy or the true achievement of human potential, because it is this systematic manipulation free of discovery.

Timmyboy, care to enlighten all how you became so infected and why you cannot progress from the notion that you only do what's right because someone bigger than you will slap you around if you don't?

Don Aitkins: "That they had to do it this way is no credit to the IPCC."

Out of all the criticisms that were levelled at the process the IPCC uses both in the article and here in the comments, this is the only one that holds water.

I hope no one actually thought the 2,5000 reviewers actually read the entire 3000 page document, and I hope no one actually believes a 16% comment rejection rate is bad - it seems remarkably good to me. And It doesn't seem surprising that a few people did the grunge work of writing the summary.

The summary isn't necessarily bad because a few people wrote it, as the article tries to imply. In fact the reverse might be true - fewer cooks and all that. And besides its very easy to check if it how well it has been done without resorting vague proxies for "good". If it doesn't agree with the findings in the body of the report its been done badly, if does then it is a good summary.

But from what Don points out it seems to be the IPCC has actively put hurdles in the way of people doing the same sort of checks on the body of the report. I take it the IPCC refused to release the some of the original submissions and the comments, which makes that task impossible. This doesn't mean the report is flawed as the article implies. But it does mean it can't be seen to "not flawed" either.

To me this is most likely caused by some bureaucratic instinct to keep everything close to their chest. If you are doing your job properly that instinct is almost invariably counterproductive.

rstuart wrote;
I hope no one actually thought the 2,5000 reviewers actually read the
entire 3000 page document,
unquote

Well I hope more than just one or two did read the whole 3000 pages.
I think the 2,5000 = 2,500.
For each trillion dollars that the CO2 program will cost the world then $333,333 per page makes it well worth while.

This is the level of acceptance that worries me.

Don Aitkin: "That the IPCC does not entertain the prospect that such change is of small consequence. You rather missed the point, as someone else has pointed out, but even if I interpret what I wrote your way, its probabilities have no basis in observation, and mean nothing. That those who wrote that passage were 90 per cent certain tells us something about their state of mind, but nothing directly about climate."

Ii seems I did miss the point, but I think that's because subconsciously I had assumed that anyone who has been tracking the almost daily reports on climate research would know that even a few degrees change would be catastrophic for the environment and those (i.e. us) that depend on it. The rest of your statement quoted above appears to indicate a lack of either knowledge of the scientific method, or lack of trust in its results. "That those who wrote that passage were 90 per cent certain tells us something about their state of mind" - it does indeed. - it tells us they are wise enough to say that they might be wrong, which is more than I can say for the shrill little voices in tis forum proclaiming that they know absolutely that the current regime of climate change is not caused by human.

Richard Castles: "Michael Mann could hardly be said to have been cooperative, even trying to claim intellectual property rights, before he was reluctantly compelled by the US govt to make data available . Then there's Phil Jones and his infamous quote: "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it." (Kellow, A. Science & Public Policy, 2007)"

Maybe that's two cases worth looking into - research institutions do go over the top about intellectual property rights - I don't know the details of this .. but in any event we really need a couple of *hundred* cases to even start to support the IPCC "we-make-scary-stuff-up-to-get-money" conspiracy theory. So, got anything else?

Also; Tom Harris spends his time looking up random blogs talking about AGW and trying to convince them of the truth.

Mine is read by all of 10 people (5 of which I know IRL), and he found my post documenting the last OLO stoush and made a couple of statements that weren't even wrong...

I don't know where he gets the time from to do this... or rather, he does get paid to do it...

to Sams: In an earlier part of the paper the IPCC sets out the level of scientific knowledge of components of climate, many of which are said to be low. But when it comes to statements of confidence it nonetheless uses percentages which (elsewhere again) are said to have equivalents in words. I don't have it all in front of me, but I'm sure you can find it. So, 'almost certain' is 90% and so on. The problem with all that is obvious. If the level of scientific knowledge is agreed to be low, how can one be certain, or almost certain? The use of percentages here seems to me disingenuous, because it seems to suggest a precision that cannot be there. Why do that? Because, as I see it, the IPCC is pushing a barrow.

If you Google up Michael Mann and global warming you'll encounter the McKitrick demolition. That's worth reading, and it may cause you to have the same worry that I gained. Why go to these lengths to suggest that there was no little ice age, for which there is abundant historical evidence? Or to suggest that even if it happened in Europe, it didn't happen anywhere else? If the second, what happens to global averages? This is good science? In refereed journals?

To repeat an old point, I accept that the earth seems to be warming. There is not yet good argument and evidence to support the view that human activity is responsible for all or most of it. If you know of some, I'm happy to read it.