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On Monday (28th April)

How Robust are the IPCC Reports?

Donna Laframboise, Investigative Journalist

Public Meeting Monday 28^th April 7:30-9pm

City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1YJ

A wide area of public policy in many countries has been influenced by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The Scottish Government in particular has sought to position itself as a leader in the international efforts to prevent dangerous climate change.

But how robust are the IPCC reports?  Do they accurately represent the latest science?   What policy implications can we draw from them?

Donna Laframboise is a Canadian journalist whose investigations of the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report (AR4) revealed that all was not as claimed.   In one example, she found that over 30% of the citations were from non peer-reviewed literature, contrary to assertions by IPCC leaders.

In 2013 the first part of the Fifth IPCC Report (AR5) was published.  Earlier this year the Working Group 2 report on climate change impacts was published and this month sees the publication of the Working Group 3 (WG3) section on mitigation.

Having just returned from the WG3 launch IPCC in Germany, Donna Laframboise will speak in Edinburgh about her research into the IPCC and its procedures.     

This is an open meeting in the City Chambers, High Street

Bias shown in 14 out of 15 Met Office predictions

Again the Met Office predicted higher temperatures for 2013 that actually proved to be the case.  This is the 14th out of the 15 last years where the Met Office over predicted the temperature.

The Met Office forecast  for 2013 was published on 21st December 2012. It's best estimate was for 0.57 C above the 1961-1990 average.

Here are the figures for the last 15 years:

Year Forecast Actual
1999 ...0.38 ...0.26
2000 ...0.41 ...0.24
2001 ...0.47 ...0.40
2002 ...0.47 ...0.46
2003 ...0.55 ...0.46
2004 ...0.50 ...0.43
2005 ...0.51 ...0.47
2006 ...0.45 ...0.43
2007 ...0.54 ...0.40
2008 ...0.37 ...0.31
2009 ...>0.40 . .0.44
2010 ...0.58 ...0.50
2011 ...0.44 ...0.35
2012... 0.48 ...0.45
2013 ... 0.57...0.49
2014 ...0.57 ...?

Here is the Met Office prediction for 2014.

Now here is Vicky Pope from the Met Office:

Vicky Pope: “By 2014 we’re predicting it will be 0.3 degrees warmer than 2004, and just to put that into context the warming over the past century and a half has only been 0.7 degrees, globally, there have been bigger changes locally but globally the warming is 0.7 degrees. So 0.3 degrees over the next ten years is pretty significant. And half the years after 2009 are predicted to be hotter than 1998 which was the previous record. So these are very strong statements about what will happen over the next ten years, so again I think this illustrates we can already see signs of climate change but over the next ten years we are expecting to see quite significant changes occurring.”