Lots of  ink about the flaws in the IPCC-reports in the German language media. In a paragraph of the report, the IPCC wrote, that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 – a statement, that was not based on peer reviewed science.

“From “Emailgate” to “Glaciergate” ?” asks Stefan Schmitt for Zeit.online, and tries to answer three key question: How did the mistake happen? How did it find its way into the IPCC report? Why did the mistake stay in the report?

Schmitt summarizes what is known so far and he finds a way to describe systemic errors without raising the notion, that the whole IPCC report might be wrong. E.g. he makes clear, that the IPCC is part of the United Nations, which means, that not only scientific rules (peer review process) but also political considerations influenced the report. Less developed countries with less access to high ranking peer reviewed journals used political influence to allow the inclusion of reports, which were not peer reviewed – like the report from WWF-India, where the wrong 2035 date came from (originally published by the popular science journal NewScientist). Schmitt quotes the journal Nature, that the IPCC won’t change this procedure to prepare the 2014 report! Regarding the public reactions and the shade, that such mistakes leave one an (hopefully?) overall correct report, the IPCC should think about this twice – there is no alternative to scientific rules in science.

Spiegel Online (Christoph Seidler) quotes Austrian glaciologists Georg Kaser, who told the IPCC about the mistake in 2007, already!

“Voodoo instead of Science“, headlines the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulf von Rauchhaupt). The article explains, that the mistake did not came from the climate researchers (atmospheric physicists, oceanographer from workgroup I), but from scientists from the workgroup II, who try to predict the outcome of climate change for ecological and socioeconomic systems. Obviously this workgroup accepted unaudited “data”. “Voodoo Science” – that’s how the head of the IPCC Rajendra Kumar Pachauri should call this part of the IPCC report now, because these were the words he used in November 2009, when he tried to discredit a study from the Geological Survey of India. The study came to a different result than the IPCC regarding the Himalayan glaciers but wasn’t peer reviewed, too. Interestingly, Rauchhaupt writes, that the flaw should have personal consequences, because the mistake had been reported to the IPCC a long time ago, but it seems, that someone chose to keep it from the public.

Süddeutsche Zeitung, with an article from Christopher Schrader (who follows a scientist from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who struggles to deal with the “Glaciergate”).

Der Standard writes, that the IPCC is looking for more mistakes in the report, heavily quoting (but not linking) the “Sunday Times”.

More ink: Tagesspiegel, Financial Times Deutschland, Rheinische Post online, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (with an interesting additional commentary, that discusses the system of the IPCC), Basler Zeitung, Kölner Stadtanzeiger (Interview), Wiener Zeitung…

- Sascha Karberg

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories, German Language Media, Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.