New book questions role of Edinburgh IPCC scientist

Book argues the 2500
number is not what it seems

In a book published last week analysing the processes and procedures of the IPCC, a leading University of Edinburgh climate scientist comes in for some trenchant criticism.  Gabriele Hegerl is Professor of Climate System Science at the School of GeoSciences based at King's Buildings in Edinburgh.

After relating how Hegerl and the IPCC refused to allow the data underlying her paper to be subjected to external scrutiny,Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise summarises the story:

'Hegerl isn't just anyone.  Rather, she served in seven distinct capacities with regard to the 2007 Climate Bible.  Significantly, she was one of the two most senior people in charge of the attribution chapter - the section that decides the degree to which human influence versus natural causes are at work.

'In other words, the IPCC entrusted the most central question of all to the judgement of a person it was fully aware had declined to share her data with one of its own expert reviewers. 

Laframboise highlights malpractices at the heart of the IPCC process, noting that publication cut off dates for the publication of scientific papers to be relied upon in the 2007 report were in many cases ignored -preventing proper scrutiny:

'The IPCC says that its reports are based on already-published scientific literature'  Yet in this case a group of IPCC authors appears to have favoured a particular conclusion regardless  of what the scientific literature actually said.  The fact that necessary information had not been published posed no impediment.  They simply wrote the IPCC chapter they desired and arranged for the necessary papers to be published after the fact.

'. . . in a particular section of the report, the IPCC was basing its arguments on two research papers that hadn't been published.  In itself, this should ring alarm bells. Since the wider scientific community had been given no opportunity to scrutinise them, it was surely premature to consider them solid pieces of evidence.'

Indeed, she notes, the underlying data for the two reports was refused to an IPCC appointed external reviewer.  Laframboise continues:

'It's worth noting that the author who refused outright to make her data available prior to her paper's final publication was Gabriele Hegerl.

There is much, much, more of interest in the book which can be found at Amazon here.  It is entitled 'The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert.' PDF version can be purchased here.