Re: [asa] Subglacial Water System Moving Faster Than Previously Thought

@ :)

IPCC’S PHONY ARITHMETIC

Because the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers (SPM)
is like Holy Scripture, and the researchers now
have 3 months to make the full report consistent,
it is clear that they will have to change some
rules of mathematics. Open the
<http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_PlenaryApproved.pdf>SPM,
go to the page 5 of 21 and you will find Table
SPM-0 there. The fifth line claims to be the sum
of the previous four contributions to the sea
level rise. However, for example in the 1993-2003
column, it would require 0.16+0.077+0.21+0.21 to
be equal to 0.28 instead of 0.657. Note that with
the value 0.657, the predicted value would differ
from the observed value by more than five observed sigmas.

Also, the sum of four terms seems to be 5-10
times more accurate than the error of the
Antarctic contribution. What a miraculous way of
adding things. An average climate scientist
would fix these problems simply by adding some
random zeros to the Greenland or Antarctic
contribution (see below) to obtain agreement.
However, you can't mess up with the summary, a
Holy Scripture. So what must happen according to
their rules is that the full report will prove
that 0.16+0.077+0.21+0.21 = 0.28. I am sure that
they will find some climate scientists if not
mathematicians who will defend the consensus that
this sum is different than your calculator would
expect. I hope that many people will be looking
forward to this new breakthrough in mathematics
proving that the climate change is more
catastrophic and the underlying science is more
solid than anyone has ever anticipated.

Error first documented by Sean Davis (sum) and
Stuart Staniford (error margin), readers of
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourth-assessment-summary-for-policy-makers/>RealClimate,
but detected independently also by others. These
erroneous sums cannot be passed off as a
transcribing error. The same numbers were in the
draft distributed to governments in 2006. The
error is a failure of the 2500 IPCC reviewers to
notice that four numbers do not add up correctly.

Correct answer? Simply divide both Greenland and
Antarctic numbers by 10 and the sums come out as
shown in the Table. Of course, this is not the
whole story. One suspects that these numbers –
all of them estimates – have been “cooked” to get
agreement with observed values. For example,
in past IPCC reports the Antarctic values were
negative, leading to a lowering of sea
level. The error bars are so large that anything is still possible.

~ Janice

At 01:43 PM 2/18/2007, PvM wrote:
> From SPM AR4
>
><quote>
>In general, uncertainty ranges for results given in this Summary for
>Policymakers are 90% uncertainty intervals unless stated otherwise,
>i.e., there is an estimated 5% likelihood that the value could be
>above the range given in square brackets and 5% likelihood that the
>value could be below that range. Best estimates are given where
>available. Assessed uncertainty intervals are not always symmetric
>about the corresponding best estimate. Note that a number of
>uncertainty ranges in the Working Group I TAR corresponded to 2-sigma
>(95%), often using expert judgement. </quote>
>
>So no, these are not 1-sigma error bands but 90% error bands. Hope
>this clarifies.
>
>On 2/16/07, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I can't wait until the full IPCC report comes out because I am trying to
>>figure out what they are talking about with the 1.6 W/m² radiative forcing
>>(with 1-sigma ranges apparently from 0.6 W/m² to 2.4 W/m²). It appears to me
>>that their 2-sigma values would overlap 0 W/m² which is probably from where
>>the 90% probability that they listed comes from (with 10% less than 0 W/m²).
>>If this is the case then they are dramatically overstating the importance of
>>the calculated radiative forcing in the same way that stating that the
>>gravitational acceleration was 9.8 m/s² (with 1 sigma values from 4.0 m/s²
>>to 16.0 m/s²) would be too imprecise a measurement of g to be of great use."
>>~ 4 posted on 02/15/2007 8:21:39 PM EST by burzum

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Received on Sun Feb 18 14:07:35 2007