nuclear-news

Climate Change Denialists twist and distort message of latest IPCC draft climate report

Professor Sherwood says research has effectively disproved the idea that sunspots are more responsible for global warming than human activity.

IPCC draft climate report leaked by sceptics
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036 A draft of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked on climate sceptic websites.

The 14-chapter draft report was posted on a US-based blog site called
stopgreensuicide and then posted on another site critical of climate
science.

The leaker and other climate sceptics have isolated one section of the
draft to suggest that cosmic rays such as those of the Sun may have a
greater influence on warming than had been claimed.

Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research
Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in
question.

He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role
for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.

“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the
summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that
this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be
negligible,” he told PM.

“What it shows is that we looked at this. We look at everything.”The
IPCC has a very comprehensive process where we try to look at all the
influences on climate and so we looked at this one.”

Professor Sherwood says research has effectively disproved the idea
that sunspots are more responsible for global warming than human
activity.

AUDIO: Mark Colvin speaks to Steve Sherwood and John Cooke (PM)
“There have been a couple of papers suggesting that solar forcing
affects climate through cosmic rays, cloud interactions, but most of
the literature on this shows that doesn’t actually work,” he said.

“Even the sentence doesn’t say what they say and certainly if you look
at the context, we’re really saying the opposite.”

Climate communication fellow for the Global Change Institute at the
University of Queensland John Cooke says, if anything, warming is
worse than predicted in the last IPCC report.

“One of the main differences between the previous IPCC report and this
one is [that] they’re including the role of ice sheets on sea level
rise,” he said.

“Ice sheet loss has accelerated, and so they’re contributing more and
more to sea level rise.

“Back in the fourth assessment report in 2007, I think [the predicted
sea level rise] was around 20 centimetres [by the end of the century].
Now it’s getting up towards one metre.”

December 15, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change