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# Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Se a Ice Increase

by Chip Knappenberger March 8, 2010 Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica. While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise ( sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model proje ctions . As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes , and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.
Some climate scientists have distanced themselves from the IPCC Working Group II’s (WGII’s) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability , prefering instead the stronger hard science in the Working G roup I (WGI) Report— The Physical Science Basis . Some folks have even gone as far as saying that no errors have been found in the WGI Report and the process in creating it was exemplary.
Such folks are in denial. As I document below, WGI did a poor job in regard to Antarctic sea ice trends. Somehow, the IPCC specialists assessed aw ay a plethora of evidence showing that the sea ice around Antarctica has be en significantly increasing—a behavior that runs counter to climate model projections of sea ice declines—and instead docu mented only a slight, statistically in significant rise. How did this happen? The evidence suggests that IPCC authors were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work in lieu of other equally legitimate (and ultimately mor e correct) findings, were being guided by IPCC brass to produce a specific IPCC point

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- view, or both. The handling of Antarctic sea ice is, unfortunately, not an isolat ed incident in the IPCC reports, but is simply one of many examples in which portions of the peer-reviewed scientific literatur e were cast aside, or ignored, so that a particular point of view —the preconceived IPCC point of view

— could be either maintained or forwarded. Background The problems with the IPCC’s handling of the trends in Antarcti c sea ice was first uncovered and presented a week or two ago in an article posted over at the World Climate Report

— another blog with which I have been involved with for a long time. In this MasterResource article, I have dug a bit deeper into what lies behind the IPCC’s “assessment” of the trends in Antarc tic sea ice that is presented in its WGI Fourth Assessment Report . What I’ve uncovered clearly illustrates the difference bet ween a “review” of the literature and an “assessment” of the literature. The former would include as much of the literature on the topic un der consideration as possible, while the latter carefully selects from the literature to make a particular case. As such, the results of a “review” would be pretty constant across different assemblages of folks doing the reviewing, while the results of an “assessment” strongly depend on just who is doing the assessing. Case in point, compare the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report with the equally glossy and thick Assessment Report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Both start with the same body of literature, and yet they arrive at completely different conclusions. Getting into the Detail 

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...This is clearly evident in the section on recent sea ice tre nds in Antarctica. The IPCC dedicates part of one paragraph to the topic

( IPCC AR4 Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2.2, p. 350-351 ) incorporating one reference (“Comiso (2003)”) which turns out to be a book chapter (i.e. not part of the peer-reviewed literature). The NIPCC on the other hand dedicates two full pages to the subject and incorporates 14 citations from the peer-reviewed literature (NIP CC, Chapter 4, Section 4.2.1, p 152–154). The IPCC concludes, after its brief analysis, that while t here has been an apparent increase in the sea ice extent around A ntarctica from 1979 through 2005, that the increase has been slight and not sta tistically significant. The NIPCC, on the other hand, finds that the trend in Antarctic sea ice has been about 2 to 3 times as great as the IPCC repor ted and, in fact, is quite statistically significant. True, the NIPCC Report was published after the IPCC Assess ment, so it includes a few citations that were published in the literature subsequent to the IPCC inclusion deadline, but still, there were pl enty of publications that were extant at the time of the IPCC preparation that should have better guided the IPCC finding. For some reason, the IPCC opted to ignore the vast majority thos e papers (and associated datasets). Consequently, as we sha ll see, the NIPCC’s assessment turns out to be superior to the IPCC’s. The fact that the IPCC’s assessment was extremely limite d and narrow did not go unnoticed in the IPCC review process (the s et of expert and government reviews for various drafts of the IPCC A R4 can be found here ). One commenter (Ola Johannessen, who himself has published on sea i ce trends) complained about the First Order Draft of the AR4 Chapter 4 that: Section 4.4.2.2 [the section on sea ice trends]: The presentation o f hemispheric, regional and seasonal trends is also incomplete, misleading and biased to NASA work (Comiso). To which the IPCC replied:
Taken into account in the revised text. A look at the final, published version of Section 4.4.2.2 shows that, in fact, there is only one reference to data on s ea ice trends, that to Comiso (2003). The only other reference in the section (Belc hansky et al., 2005) is to explain reasons for interannual variabil ity and the Belchansky et al. reference was already present in the First Order Draft. So it hardly seems like Johannessen’s com ments were “taken into account,” instead it seems like they were i gnored. Johannessen further complains about IPCC’s use of only one sea ic e dataset, commenting “There should be a sentence added before ‘An updated version of the analysis done by Comiso...’ (which, by the way, appears to an update that is not a published or accepted paper)” and then going on to suggest many additional references t hat should be added to this section. The IPCC responds: “Taken into account with the inclusion of Johannessen et al. (2004) wo rk. But AR4 is meant to be the most recent assessment, not a history of prior assessments. Updates of data sets using previously published methodology is acceptable for IPCC.” Interesting. First, in the published version of Chapter 4, the reference to Johannessen et al. (2004) does not appear in the sec tion of the Chapter 4 under discussion—so apparently the IPCC was just bl uffing about including it. Second, the IPCC affirms that being an “assessment” doesn’t mean having to include all relevant liter ature (i.e., it includes only literature that it deems to be relevant). And third, that using updates of previously published datasets is a cceptable in the IPCC process. In this case, points 2 and 3 seem opposed to each other. For the IPCC has deemed one particular dataset, that of Comiso (2003), to be most relevant, despite the fact that several other “recent” da tasets existed. Let’s look into the IPCC’s reliance on Comiso (2003) a bit fur ther (Comiso by the way was a contributing author to IPCC AR4 Chapter 4). The IPCC reference of their sea ice data is to Comiso (2 003) which is the following book chapter (available here ): Comiso, J.C., 2003: Large scale characteristics and variabi lity of the global sea ice cover. In: Sea Ice – An Introduction to its Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Geology [Thomas, D. and G.S. Dieckmann (eds.)]. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK, pp. 112–142. The analyses in this book chapter use a sea ice algorithm develo ped and improved by Dr. Josefino Comiso during the 1980s and 1990s (Comiso’s technique was known as the “Bootstrap” algorithm). A t the same time, there was another algorithm to derive sea ice from satellite observations that had been developed and improved by Dr. Donald Cavalieri and colleagues during the same span (Cavalieri et al.’s technique was known as the “NASA Team” algorithm). Both algorithms produced pretty similar results when deriving sea ice extent in the Arctic, but in the Antarctic r egions, the results—especially the trend results—differed ra ther significantly. This difference was well-recognized in the peer- reviewed scientific literature (e.g. Zwally et al., 2002; Comiso and Steffen, 2001). Comiso’s Bootstrap method produced a much smaller and insignificant increase in Antarctic sea ice while the NASA 

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...Team algorithm produced a larger, statistically significant i ncrease. Another analysis, by Watkins and Simmonds (2000) produced a

trend that agreed better with the NASA Team results than Comi so’s Bootstrap results. All these facts were acknowledged by the researchers involved as evidenced by discussions in Zwally et al. (2002) and Comiso a nd Steffen (2001), with each group more or less showing more reliance on their own methodology. Further, an update to the NASA Team algorithm (known as NASA T eam version 2) was published by Markus and Cavalieri in 2000. This update had the impact of producing an even greater trend in the extent of Antarctic sea ice (over the original NASA Team algorithm) and enlarging the discrepancy with Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm. All of this was extant in the peer-reviewed literature at t he time of the IPCC AR4 production and yet the IPCC “assess ed” things this way: Most analyses of variability and trend in ice extent using the satellite record have focused on the period after 1978 when the satellite sensors have been relatively constant. Different estimates, obtained using different retrieval algorithms, produce very similar results for hemispheric extent , and all show an asymmetry between changes in the Arctic and the Antarctic. As an example, an updated analysis done by Comiso ( 2003) spanning the period November 1987 through December 2005, is shown in Figure 4.8. [emphasis added]
The statement in bold above was well-established at the tim e to be wrong , at least as it applied to the Southern Hemisphere. So obviously, even at this point, it is clear that the IPCC had c onducted an inaccurate “assessment” of the literature. Not surprisingly, of the existing “retrieval algorithms,” the one which showed the smallest (and statistically in significant) trend in the Southern Hemisphere was the one used in “Comiso (2003)” which was se lected as the example used by the IPCC.
How convenient. It is even somewhat debatable whether even the “updated analysis done by Comiso (2003)” showed an insignificant trend. The First Order Draft of Chapter 4 contained the following i llustration of Southern Hemisphere sea ice, along with the capt ion “Sea Ice extent anomalies ... the Southern Hemisphere based on passi ve microwave satellite data... [l]inear trend lines are indi cated for each hemisphere....the small positive trend in the Southern He misphere is not significant. (Updated from Comiso, 2003).”

Figure 1. Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 First Order Draft. Notice two things, 1) the figure depicts monthly ice extent anomalies from November 1978 through October 2004, and 2) t he trend through them seems to be statistically significant (i.e. th e confidence range does not include zero), given in the illustration as 9089.2 +/- 2970.7 km 2

/year or 0.735 +/- 0.240%/dec. Yet, for some reason, the accompanying text claims that the t rend in Figure 4.4.1b is insignificant ( AR4 First Order Draft, page 4-14, lines 9-10 ): The Antarctic results show a slight but insignificant positive trend of 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade. This inconsistency was brought to the IPCC Chapter 4 authors’ att ention by several IPCC commenters. Commentor John Church wrote “I do not understand why this trend is insignificant – it is more than three times the quoted error estimates” and Stefan Rahmstorf wrote “How can a trend of 0.7 +/- 0.2 be ‘insignificant’? Is not 0.2 the confidence interval, so it is significantly positive?” The IPCC responded to both in the same manner “Taken into account in revised text. ” And boy did they ever! The Second Order Draft of Chapter 4 included the following figure (which ultimately was the one included in the final publication): 

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...Figure 2. Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 Second Order D raft (this graphic was Figure 4.8 in the IPCC AR4 published

version of Chapter 4). The caption still read “the small positive trend in the Sout hern Hemisphere is not significant” but now the trend had become “5.6 +/- 11 x 10 3 km 2 per year.” Note two things 1) the monthly sea ice anomalies were replaced b y annual anomalies, and 2) the trend shrunk by 38% and now actually was statistically insignificant.
So how did this come about? First off, the IPCC used a well known statistical trick to lower the significance of the increase—that is, switch from m onthly values to annual values. This trick generally has little impact on the tr end value, but can have a sizeable impact on the statistical c onfidence of the trend. A trend that is supported by a larger amount of individua l data points (in this case, monthly values) has more statist ical confidence than the same trend supported by fewer data point (in thi s case annual data values). So, by using annual data instead of monthly data, the IPCC effectively lowered the perceived confidence of the Southern Hemisphere sea ice trend. Secondly, just how did the trend drop by 38% when adding another 13 months’ wort h of observations? Well, it is not because of the influence of those extra months, as they fell very near the est ablished trend line (in other words, they had little direct infl uence on the trend). And switching from monthly to annual data also wouldn’t do it. So it had to be something else. One possible explanation is that the figure from the First Order Draft was actually (mi stakenly) depicting Comiso’s determination of the area of sea ice, rather than the extent of sea ice. There is a difference in definition between thes e terms. The sea ice extent is taken to mean the area w hich is covered by sea ice with a concentration of at least 15% (i .e. this includes regions that are 85% open water), while sea i ce area is taken to be the actual area of sea ice itself (so the sea ice area is less than the sea ice extent). Under general cir cumstances, the two measurements are highly correlated, and their trends are very similar. However, in the case of the Comiso’s Bootstrap al gorithm, the trends in Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent and sea ice area w ere largely different. This fact raised some flags of conce rn at the time. Zwally et al. (2002) noted that the Bootstrap sea ice extent trends were the odd man out of all datasets. The area trends were similar across retrieval algorithms (all were significant ly positive, including Comiso’s Bootstrap) and the extent trends were similar to the area trends in all algorithms except Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm. Zwally et al. (2002) took this to m ean that something was likely wrong with the Bootstrap determinations of Southern Hemispheric sea ice extent (probably involving how data from two satellites was stitched together). Comiso and Steffen (2001) a lso noted the difference in the trend between sea ice area and extent produced by the Bootstrap algorithm, they attributed most of the differ ence to changes in how tightly the sea ice was packed together (a mechanism dismissed by Zwally et al.) but admitted that i nter-satellite issues may also play a part in the trend diffe rences. Bottom line is that not only did the IPCC Chapter 4 authors have to carefully choose which sea ice retrieval algorithm to use, but they also had to be careful to use sea ice extent rather than sea ice area (somthing they quite possibly forgot that they needed to do in the First Order Draft of Chapter 4). The IPCC justifies these decisions as being the result of thei r “assessment” of the topic and the literature—decisions that just so happen to minimize the apparent increase in Southern Hemispheric sea ice concentr ation. The result of the inclusion of any other then -extant dataset on Southern Hemispheric sea ice would have been to counter the IPCC’s “assessment” that the sea ice increa se there was statistically insignificant. Oh yeah, an “assessment” of a significant rise in Southern H emispheric sea ice would have been quite inconvenient to another IPCC “assessment” that “[s]ea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and the Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.” S o, no doubt the IPCC Chapter 4 Coordinating Lead Authors got a big slap on the back f rom the IPCC brass for avoiding that potentially embarrassing problem. Parenthetically, I bet it would be fun to see the emails assoc iated with the production of AR4 Chapter 4! One last thing. 

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...Less than a year after the IPCC AR4 was published, Comiso repor ted that indeed there was a problem with the Bootstrap algorithm

as it concerned Southern Hemispheric sea ice extent (Comiso and Nishio, 2008). Correcting that problem increased the observed trend in Antarctic sea ice extent from November 1978 to December 2005 to 14,645 km 2 /year—a highly statistically significant value that is 2.6 times higher than reported by the IPCC and virtual ly identical to the trend from the updated NASA Team algorithm, described by Markus and Cavalieri in 2000 but completely ignored by the IPCC. Basically, everyone but Comiso (and the IPCC) was right all along.

Figure 3. Annual Antarctic sea ice anomalies from three da tasets: the one used by the IPCC (Comiso, 2003; red); another exta nt at the time of the IPCC production (Markus and Cavalieri, 2000; blue) ; and the update to the IPCC analysis (Comiso and Nishio, 2008; cyan). The trend in the latter two datsets are more than 2.5 t imes larger than the IPCC trend and both are statistically significant (the IPCC trend is not). Conclusion On the topic of Antarctic sea ice trends, the “consensus of scientists”—as the IPCC likes to call itself—was wrong, l ed astray by the extremely poor “assessment” of the scientific knowledge-base made by a very few people who were directly involved in preparing that section—people who were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work, were being guided by higher-ups to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both. From all I have been able to find out about this so far (including e nlightenment gained from the Climategate emails into how other sections of the AR4 were carefully constructed), I would rate it “extremely unlikely” (in IPCC parlance, less than 5% chance ) that what transpired was dumb luck, born of the IPCC authors’ unfamil iarity with the peer-reviewed literature—the very thing they w ere supposed to be assessing. I am not sure which case is the most embarrassing. References: Comiso, J.C., 2001. Studies of Antarctic sea ice concentrations from satellite data and their applications. Journal of Geophysical Research , 106 , C12, 31361-31385. Comiso, J. C., and F. Nishio, 2008. Trends in the sea ice cove r using enhanced and compatible AMSR-E, SSM/I, and SMMR data. Journal of Geophysical Research , 113 , C02S07, doi:10.1029/2007JC004257. Cavalieri, D. J., P. Gloersen, C. L. Parkinson, J. C. Com iso, and H. J. Zwally, 1997. Observed hemispheric asymmetry in global sea ice changes. Science , 278 , 1104–1106. Cavalieri, D. J., C. L. Parkinson, P. Gloersen, J. C. C omiso, and H. J. Zwally, 1999. Deriving long-term time series of sea ice cover from satellite passive microwave multisensor data sets. Journal of Geophysical Research , 104 , 15803–15814. Markus, T., and D. Cavalieri, 2000. An enhancement of the NASA Team sea ice algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing , 38 , 1387-1398. Watkins, A. B., and I. Simmonds, Current trends in Antarctic s ea ice: The 1990s impact on a short climatology, 2000. Journal of Climate , 13 , 4441–4451. Zwally, H.J., J. C. Comiso, C. L. Parkinson, D. J. Cavali eri, 2002. Variability of Antarctic sea ice 1979-1998. Journal of Geophysical Research , 107 , C5, 3041, doi:10.1029/2000JC000733.
22 comments
1 Guy Fardell { 03.08.10 at 8:04 am } 

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...A typo?

(Ola Johannessen, who herself has published on sea ice trends) Ola Johannessen is not a female: http://www.nersc.no/~olam/ Not all names ending with an “a” represents a female! Otherwise a good article! [Corrected, and thanks--Chip]
2 Jean Demesure { 03.08.10 at 11:05 am } Here is a comparison between the AR4’s Arctic sea ice exte nt and values in the University of Illinois Sea Ice database for the period 1979-2005 : AR4: trend = -33 x10^3km2/year (figure 4.8, page 351, AR4) U Illinois: trend = 28 x10^3km2/year ( http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/timeseries.1870-2008 ) Between revisions in the database for the same variable over th e same period, we can see the IPCC has exagerated the trend b y 15% ! Note also the huge versions difference for some years, eg 1988 with a whopping 0,4 Mkm2 downward revision ( http://pichuile.free.fr/images/arctic_extent.jpg ) The problem of casual treatment and revisions of historical data is typical of climate change “science” and is found not only with sea ice but also with temperatures, sea levels and even CO2. Even with modern satellite data, AGWers can’t com e clean with a consistent dataset, imagine the adjustments made to older data! Yet another proof that global warming is manmade... in some clima tologists’ “adjustment” algorithms.
3 Andrew { 03.08.10 at 1:28 pm } It is reassuring to see that even a very pro-AGW scientis t like Stefan was put off by the IPCC’s weird statement th at a trend was insignificant when no trend was well outside their quoted confi dence intervals. This sea ice situation really should have caused more stir though. That scientists knew but most said nothing publicly is not good.
4 IPCC AR4 Commenter: “I do not understand why this trend is insignificant – it is more than three times the quo ted error estimates” « Watts Up With That? { 03.08.10 at 4:49 pm } [...] is insignificant – it is more than three times the q uoted error estimates” 8 03 2010 Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 First Order [...] 5 Alan F { 03.08.10 at 5:53 pm } Never praise a scientist for distancing him/her self from inte ntional “mistakes”. He/she knows all too well when the mania fades and the zealots find another cause to pine and wail over, the i nk on their contributions will still exist.
6 Nur Ritter { 03.08.10 at 6:11 pm } I’m surprised no one has mentioned the research linking the hole in the ozone layer and it’s effect on antarctic precipitation: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16988-why-antarctic-ice-i s-growing-despite-global-warming.html Any comments?
7 Mindbuilder { 03.08.10 at 6:19 pm } I suspect there may be some confusion here about error bars and s tatistical significance. If the sea ice was measured pe rfectly then the error bars of the ice measurement could be zero, but gi ven the up and down fluctuation of the ice from year to year, an increase over a few years still might not be significant, it m ight still just be the random increase and decrease of the ic e. For example, if the ice was increasing on average two out of ever y three years, it wouldn’t be unusual to see two years in a row of ice melting, even though the long term trend was an increase. But skeptics wouldn’t accept a two year streak of ice melting as statistically significant evidence of a long term warming t rend. Likewise a short streak of slight ice growth isn’t n ecessarily a statistically significant increase in ice, even if extre mely precise measurements proved there was actually ice grow th. We would have to look more carefully at the variability of the ice over the long term, to judge if there is a significant long term trend here. Regardless, the rest of this story appears very hurtful to the I PCC’s credibility.
8 peter oneil { 03.08.10 at 6:52 pm } 

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...Absolutely fascinating article which helps to reinforce my opinio n that the IPCC is a corrupt organisation with an agenda.

You have my sincere thanks for the obvious effort that you must have m ade in the production of this first class piece.
9 Global Warming, Global Cooling or Global Taxing? - Page 182 - PPRuNe Forums { 03.08.10 at 7:00 pm } [...] thickening data by IPCC in WGI of the AR4, the so call ed " scientific " art of the AR4 Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase — MasterResource So every part of the AR4, whether scientific or policy, has bee n tampered with fraudulently with [...]
10 Dave, UK { 03.08.10 at 7:10 pm } @ Nur Ritter: yes I have a comment. It doesn’t matter how much CO2 rises now or in the future. It is incapable of having a significant influence on world temps. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-car bon-dioxide/
11 Daniel Alfino { 03.08.10 at 7:20 pm } I would love to see John Beatty explain this away. Yet another ins tance of lies in the IPCC 4th assessment. These frauds are coming out every week, it seems. I don’t think starting a carbon tr ading company is going to be a good career move. Dad
12 Eric (skeptic) { 03.08.10 at 8:13 pm } Regarding ozone hole = more wind = more ice: In general more wind means less ice. Maybe there are peculiar geographic conditions that would result in more ice with more wind, but those don’t seem to be in the paper. Just a vague reference to a model result , pretty useless without more detail.
13 MarkB { 03.08.10 at 8:23 pm }
Nur Ritter No one mentioned the research you link to because it has nothing to do with this topic. Resist the urge to post unrelated links – they just kludge up threads.
14 ian hilliar { 03.09.10 at 1:22 am } Nur Ritter-Thanks for the link. read the article. Why do Turner et al believe the ozone hole will heal? According to “Forty Years of Ozone at Oxford- A History”, published in Annals of Optics, 1968,by Gordon Dobson the “relative ozone lack” stood out in the data from Halley Bay in Antarctica in the spring of 1957 and again in 1958. It lasts approximately 3 months and heals every year, as more ozone is produced by the summer sun.. It has of course increased in size, so Dobson was no doubt correct in attributing its anual appearance to 1/ lack of winter sun=no ozone production, 2/antarctic vortex, and 3/extreme cold. not a lot of CFCs in 1950s. 15 Paul M { 03.09.10 at 1:48 am } This certainly looks like bad behavior by the IPCC. But AGW propone nts will point to research that ice mass has been lost in Antarctica: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06085_arctic_ice.html Any response to that line of argument or research? [Still a lot of work to be done in quantifying ice mass variability and trends on Antarctica. The climate models, as they are now, project that ice mass should grow on Antarctica as a warmer at mosphere leads to more (frozen) precipitation there--and snow/ice accumulation. But also, there could be glacial loss from the margins. So, there are a lot of processes still to be worked out and observations to be understood--both in terms of their acc uracy as well as their long-term implications. -Chip]
16 PaulM { 03.09.10 at 7:18 am } The false claims of the IPCC regarding Antarctic sea ic e have been noted on my website for nearly two years, and probably at other sites. I noted there that the IPCC relied on a single book c hapter and ignored several peer-reviewed papers that showed a much larger rate of increase. So Chip is not correct to say it was first uncovered a couple of weeks ago. [Thanks for pointing this out, PaulM. I probably should have qualified my statement a bit. You have put together quite a list of IPCC shortcomings! -Chip] It is interesting that the papers Chip found (that the IPCC ign ored) are different from the ones I found. 

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...The point about the first draft and the comments is very interesti ng, I had not noticed that. This makes the IPCC manipulation

much more blatant and transparent. I’ll add a comment to my p age. 17 Marlo Lewis { 03.09.10 at 11:21 am } Outstanding, Chip! Great sleuthing and thanks for breaking it all dow n in terms even a layman can understand.
18 NASA data worse than UEA « TWAWKI { 03.11.10 at 3:58 pm } [...] Germany not warming, Floats show ocean cooling, Taking up arm s on climate alarmism, Natural climate variation, Another in the long list of UN IPCC blunders, [...]
19 Guard { 03.16.10 at 4:08 am } Thank you. I greatly appreciate those who have committed their t ime, perhaps risked their reputations, to investigate these matters and make them known. You do a great service in my opinion.
20 chip knappenberger on climate change { 03.16.10 at 2:10 pm } [...] gents, I give you this attack on the credibility of the IPC C climate change bureau. This entry was posted in uncategorized. [...]
21 IPCC’s Odd Approach to “Assessing” the Literature | Aust rian Economics Blog { 03.17.10 at 12:03 am } [...] Knappenberger has a fantastic post in which he goes through the paper trail to document just how poorly the Intergovernmental Panel on [...]
22 Bienvenidos al Frío! « ::: Prometeus Team ::: { 04.25.10 at 12:58 am } [...] http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/yet-another-incorrect-ipcc-a ssessment-antarctic-sea-ice-increa.. . [...]
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Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Sea Ice I ncrease

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# Publications

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Capitalism at Work , by Robert Bradley, Jr.

Crop Circles in the Desert: The Strange Controversy Over Sa udi Oil Production , by Michael C. Lynch 

## Page 11 of 16 Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Sea Ice I ncrease

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...Energy: The Master Resource , by Robert Bradley, Jr.

Climate Alarmism Reconsidered , by Robert Bradley, Jr. 

# Blogroll • American Energy Alliance ◦ American Energy Freedom Center ◦ American Enterprise Institute ◦ Cato Institute ◦ Competitive Enterprise Institute ◦ Energy Tribune ◦ Institute for Energy Research ◦ Knowledge Problem ◦ POWER Blog ◦ 

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# Categories • 1970s Oil Price and Allocation Regulation ◦ About MasterResource ◦ Baker Institute (Rice University) ◦ Biofuels ◦ Book Reviews ◦ Encyclopedia of Energy (Cleveland) ■ Power Hungry (Bryce) ■ Bush (George W.) Energy Policy ◦ CAFE standards, auto bailout ◦ Capitalism at Work (book) ◦ Capitalism vs. Collectivism ◦ Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) ◦ Carbon Tax ◦ Carter, Jimmy ◦ Civil Liberties and Energy ◦ Climate Change ◦ 

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...Adaptation ■ Business politics ■ Climate debate issues ■ Climate economics ■ Climate exaggeration ■ Climate Models ■ Climate policy ■ Climate politics/setbacks ■ Climate science ■ Climategate ■ Developing countries ■ Economic freedom (see Civil Liberties) ■ Endangerment Finding (EPA) ■ Forecasting ■ Global cooling ■ IPCC errors ■ Left Civil War ■ Lindzen, Richard ■ North, Gerald (Texas A&M) ■ Ocean acidification ■ Ultra-skepticism ■ Conservationism ◦ Demand-Side Management ■ Corporate Governance ◦ "Bootleggers and Baptists" ■ Business strategy and messaging ■ Free-market capitalism ■ Political capitalism ■ Postmodernist philosophy ■ Resource ownership ■ Department of Energy/Secretary Chu ◦ Developing Countries ◦ Earth Day ◦ Edison Electric Institute ◦ Ehrlich, Paul ◦ Electric Vehicles ◦ Electricity (General) ◦ Electricity Transmission ◦ Electricity: 'Smart Grid' ◦ Real-time pricing/'smart' meters ■ Energy Companies ◦ BP ■ Chevron ■ Exxon Mobil ■ GE ■ Questar ■ Shell ■ Southern Company (Nuclear) ■ Energy Consumerism ◦ Energy Consumption ◦ Energy Density/Power Density ◦ Energy Forecasts ◦ Energy Myths vs. Reality ◦ Energy Policy ◦ Democrats ■ Promises versus reality ■ Republicans ■ States ■ Energy Poverty ◦ Energy R&D (Manhattan Project) ◦ Energy Security ◦ Energy Sources ◦ Coal ■ Coal-derived coke ■ Ethanol and biofuels ■ Geothermal ■ 

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...Hydroelectricity ■ LNG ■ Natural gas ■ Nuclear power ■ Oil ■ Solar power ■ Wind (also see Windpower: History and Issues) ■ Energy Storage ◦ Energy Sustainability ◦ Energy Teaching ◦ Enron Corp. ◦ Enron/Ken Lay ◦ Environmental Controls ◦ Environmental Elitism ◦ Environmental Policy ◦ Environmental Pressure Groups ◦ Sierra Club ■ Worldwatch Institute ■ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ◦ Environmentalism ◦ EPA Endangerment Finding ◦ Ethanol and biofuels ◦ EU cap-and-trade ◦ European Union (EU) Cap-and-Trade ◦ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ◦ Free Market Energy Overview ◦ Friedman, Thomas (New York Times) ◦ Gore, Al ◦ Government vs Markets ◦ Grass Roots ◦ Hansen, James ◦ Holdren, John ◦ Houston Chronicle ◦ Hubris/Conceit ◦ Insull, Samuel ◦ International ◦ China ■ Costa Rica ■ Denmark ■ European Union (EU) ■ India ■ Italy ■ Latin America/South America ■ New Zealand ■ Spain ■ United Kingdom ■ Venezuela ■ Jevons, W. S. ◦ Krugman, Paul ◦ Krugman, Paul ◦ Kyoto Protocol ◦ Lovins, Amory ◦ Malthusianism/neo-Malthusianism ◦ Master Resource ◦ Natural Gas Politics ◦ Natural Gas Vehicles ◦ New York Times ◦ Nuclear Plant Licensing ◦ Nuclear Regulatory Commission ◦ Oil Exports ◦ Oil Refining ◦ Oil Spill (BP-Horizon) ◦ Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ◦ Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ◦ Palin, Sarah ◦ Peak oil (fixity/depletion) ◦ 

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...Pew Center on Global Climate Change ◦ Philosophy/Methodology ◦ Pickens, T. Boone ◦ Policy Issues ◦ Acid Rain (SO2) ■ Coal-to-gas powerplant conversion ■ Emissions trading ■ Energy efficiency ■ Green jobs ■ Kerry-Boxer climate bill ■ National Security ■ New Source Review (NSR) ■ Obama energy policy ■ Offshore drilling ■ Privatization ■ Protectionism ■ Public utility regulation ■ Renewable Portfolio Standard/Renewable Electricity Standard ■ Senate cap-and-trade (Kerry-Lieberman) ■ Smart Grid ■ Speculation ■ Subsidies ■ Transportation ■ Waxman-Markey Climate Bill ■ Price Cycles (boom-bust) ◦ Primary Energy ◦ Principled Entrepreneurship TM ◦ Reagan, Ronald ◦ RealClimate (blog) ◦ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) ◦ Regulation, Unintended Consequences ◦ Renewable energy ◦ Renewable Portfolio Standard/Renewable Electricity Standard ◦ Resources for the Future (RFF) ◦ Resourceship ◦ Romm versus Bradley (Enron) ◦ Romm, Joseph (Climate Progress) ◦ Simon, Julian ◦ Smart Growth ◦ Spent Nuclear Fuel ◦ State Energy Issues ◦ Alaska ■ California ■ Florida ■ Texas ■ Virginia ■ State Energy Regulation ◦ Sustainable Development ◦ Taxation ◦ Taxes ◦ Gasoline ■ Oil and gas production ■ Technological Advances ◦ Transportation Policy ◦ Tributes (various) ◦ U.S. Chamber of Commerce ◦ U.S. Department of Energy ◦ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ◦ Ultimate Resource (ingenuity) ◦ Uncategorized ◦ Wall Street Journal ◦ Windpower: History and Issues ◦ Cape Wind project ■ Emissions reduction (wind) ■ Enron legacy ■ False claims, windpower ■ 

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...Foreign beneficiaries ■ General problems of windpower ■ Grassroots opposition, windpower ■ Greenwashing windpower ■ Integration/Firming windpower ■ International wind projects ■ Long history of windpower ■ Offshore windpower ■ Property values and windpower ■ Rare earths (minerals) ■ Subsidies/cost of windpower ■ Worldwatch Institute (Christopher Flavin) ◦ Yergin, Daniel (CERA) ◦ Zimmermann, Erich ◦ 

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