## Climate Scientist Quits IPCC, Blasts Politicized 'P reconceived Agendas' IPCC announced warming-hurricane link despite 'no g lobal warming signal' Environment & Climate News > April 2005 Climate Change > Hurricanes Climate Change > IPCC Climate Change > Political Aspects Email a Friend Written By: James M. Taylor Published In: Environment & Climate News > April 20 05 Publication date: 04/01/2005 Publisher: The Heartland Institute Citing a politicized agenda and misrepresentations of climate science, prominent climate scientist Chr is Landsea on January 17 resigned his post as a participant in th e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Landsea's announcement is the second recent major e mbarrassment for global warming alarmists, whose "h ockey stick" representation of world temperatures during the pas t millennium was recently exposed as being based on faulty data and misleading statistical methods. (See "Climate Alarmists Playing Shell Game with Data," page 9.) Landsea is one of the world's leading hurricane res earchers, specializing in seasonal and climatic rel ationships of Atlantic tropical cyclones. He served as chair of the Americ an Meteorological Society's (AMS) Committee on Trop ical Meteorology and Tropical Cyclones for the years 2000-2002. He w as recipient of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Climate and Glob al Change for the period 1995-1996. In his resignation letter, Landsea documented how t he IPCC had sanctioned a "misrepresentation" of hur ricane research and issued "unfounded pronouncements" to the media that "subverted and compromised" the scientific ass essment of the IPCC's hurricane researchers. According to Landsea, statements made by the IPCC to the media demonstra ted "preconceived agendas" that are "scientifically uns ound." The text of Landsea's letter is reproduced below.
An Open Letter to the Community from Chris Landsea Dear Colleagues, After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided t o withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessm ent Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the par t of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my con cerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns. With this open letter to the community, I wish to e xplain the basis for my decision and bring awarenes s to what I view as a problem in the IPCC process. The IPCC is a group of climate researchers from around the world that e very few years summarize how climate is changing and how it may be altered in the future due to manmade global warmin g. I had served both as an author for the Observations chapter and a Reviewer for the 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 an d the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001, primarily on the topic o f tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). My w ork on hurricanes, and tropical cyclones more generally, has been wide ly cited by the IPCC. For the upcoming AR4, I was a sked several weeks ago by the Observations chapter Lead Author D r. Kevin Trenberth to provide the writeup for Atlan tic hurricanes. As About Donate Join Us! Personnel Press Room Publications



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# Page 1 of 3 Climate Scientist Quits IPCC, Blasts Politicized 'Preconce ived Agendas'

- by James M. T

...

7/20/2010 http://www.heartland.org/full/16806/Climate_Scientist_Quits_IPCC_Blast s_Politicized_Pr

...I had in the past, I agreed to assist the IPCC in w hat I thought was to be an important and politicall y neutral determination of what is happening with our climate

. Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observ ations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organi zed by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" along with other med ia interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was wid espread coverage that directly connected the very b usy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic g reenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent tha t Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such stat ements and was not being misrepresented in the medi a. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread p erception that global warming has made recent hurri cane activity much more severe. I found it a bit perplexing that the participants i n the Harvard press conference had come to the conc lusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that pres s conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, no r were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variabili ty has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hur ricane record. Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supporte d by the most recent credible studies that any impa ct in the future from global warming upon hurricanes will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysica l Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate , 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Mic haels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate , 2005, submitted). It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hu rricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth 's role as the IPCC's Lead Author responsible for p reparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to conc ern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed obje ctively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being assoc iated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements fa r outside current scientific understandings that this will ha rm the credibility of climate change science and wi ll in the longer term diminish our role in public policy. My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officia ls responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the me dia event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disa ppointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my conc erns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCC leadership said that Dr. Tre nberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author; I was told that the media was exaggerating or misrepresen ting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story (available on th e Web directly); and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclu sions from the TAR, even though it is quite clear t hat the TAR stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The IPCC leadership saw no thing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronoun cements to the media, despite his supposedly impart ial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4. It is certainly true that "individual scientists ca n do what they wish in their own rights," as one of the folks in the IPCC leadership suggested. Differing conclusions and rob ust debates are certainly crucial to progress in cl imate science. However, this case is not an honest scientific disc ussion conducted at a meeting of climate researcher s. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC who re presented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC [Dr . Trenberth] has used that position to promulgate to the media and g eneral public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hu rricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct op position to research written in the field and is co unter to conclusions in the TAR. This becomes problematic when I am then asked to pr ovide the draft about observed hurricane activity v ariations for the AR4 with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Aut hor for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pr onouncements, the IPCC process on our assessment of these crucial ext reme events in our climate system has been subverte d and compromised, its neutrality lost. While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCC did select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-bi ased, neutral point of view. When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to r eflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr . Trenberth, while eager to share his views on glob al warming and hurricanes with the media, declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in Janua ry where he made 

# Page 2 of 3 Climate Scientist Quits IPCC, Blasts Politicized 'Preconce ived Agendas'

- by James M. T

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7/20/2010 http://www.heartland.org/full/16806/Climate_Scientist_Quits_IPCC_Blast s_Politicized_Pr

...several presentations. Perhaps he was concerned tha t such speculation--though worthy in his mind of pu blic pronouncements--would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists. I personally cannot in good faith continue to contr ibute to a process that I view as both being motiva ted by preconceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IP CC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have d ecided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4. Sincerely, Chris Landsea See more articles by James M. Taylor



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# Page 3 of 3 Climate Scientist Quits IPCC, Blasts Politicized 'Preconce ived Agendas'

- by James M. T

...

7/20/2010 http://www.heartland.org/full/16806/Climate_Scientist_Quits_IPCC_Blast s_Politicized_Pr

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