This is what passes for peer reviewed science ?

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-
climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-
article.html

UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and 
magazine article 

The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about 
ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's 
dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine. 

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent and Rebecca Lefort 
Published: 9:00PM GMT 30 Jan 2010

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology 
earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming. 

The IPCC's remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific 
evidence on climate change. 

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in 
mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global 
warming, citing two papers as the source of the information. 

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature 
article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on 
anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were 
witnessing on the mountainsides around them. 

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying 
for the equivalent of a master's degree, at the University of Berne in 
Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps. 

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh 
questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, 
which was published in 2007. 

It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to 
retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC's report about the melting of 
Himalayan glaciers. 

Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity 
of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded. 

This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the 
IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, 
the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and 
its conclusions are unaffected. 

But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCC's use of 
unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature. 

Professor Richard Tol, one of the report's authors who is based at the 
Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: "These 
are essentially a collection of anecdotes. 

"Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have 
probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is 
illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts 
within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) 
has been. 

"There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal 
evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense." 

The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by 
government's worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions 
of people. 

The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table 
entitled "Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere 
produced by warming". 

It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the 
loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 
2000. 

The report also states that the section is intended to "assess studies 
that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of 
observed changes and their effects". 

But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources 
for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review 
process that research published in scientific journals must undergo. 

The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and 
author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 
2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers 
and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s. 

Mr Bowen said: "I am surprised that they have cited an article from a 
climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from 
climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time 
in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes." 

The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and 
climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for 
a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 
mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps. 

Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a 
reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice 
falls with their axes and crampons. 

The IPCC has faced growing criticism over the sources it used in its 
last report after it emerged the panel had used unsubstantiated figures 
on glacial melting in the Himalayas that were contained within a World 
Wildlife Fund (WWF) report. 

It can be revealed that the IPCC report made use of 16 non-peer reviewed 
WWF reports. 

One claim, which stated that coral reefs near mangrove forests contained 
up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby, 
quoted a feature article on the WWF website. 

In fact the data contained within the WWF article originated from a 
paper published in 2004 in the respected journal Nature. 

In another example a WWF paper on forest fires was used to illustrate 
the impact of reduced rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data 
was from another Nature paper published in 1999. 

When The Sunday Telegraph contacted the lead scientists behind the two 
papers in Nature, they expressed surprise that their research was not 
cited directly but said the IPCC had accurately represented their work. 

The chair of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri has faced mounting pressure and 
calls for his resignation amid the growing controversy over the error on 
glacier melting and use of unreliable sources of information. 

A survey of 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report showed, 
however, that the majority still support Mr Pachauri and the panel's 
vice chairs. They also insisted the overall findings of the report are 
robust despite the minor errors. 

But many expressed concern at the use of non-peer reviewed information 
in the reports and called for a tightening of the guidelines on how 
information can be used. 

The Met Office, which has seven researchers who contributed to the 
report including Professor Martin Parry who was co-chair of the working 
group responsible for the part of the report that contained the glacier 
errors, said: "The IPCC should continue to ensure that its review 
process is as robust and transparent as possible, that it draws only 
from the peer-reviewed literature, and that uncertainties in the science 
and projections are clearly expressed." 

Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation 
Resources for the Future who also contributed to the IPCC's latest 
report, added: "The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political 
organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy. 

"It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical 
behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative 
studies ignoring more positive alternatives." 

The IPCC failed to respond to questions about the inclusion of 
unreliable sources in its report but it has insisted over the past week 
that despite minor errors, the findings of the report are still robust 
and consistent with the underlying science. 

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999 
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