British researchers who have seen drafts of last month鈥檚 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became involved in writing it.
David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April 2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than expected because of 鈥減ositive feedbacks鈥� in the climate system. Most of these references were absent from the final version.
His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists鈥� report and the final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of more than 100 governments. Wasdell told 快猫短视频: 鈥淚 was astounded at the alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific material is overwhelming.鈥�
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He has prepared a critique, 鈥淧olitical Corruption of the IPCC Report?鈥�, which claims: 鈥淧olitical and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.鈥� He plans to publish the document online this week at .
Wasdell is not a climatologist, but his analysis was supported this week by two leading UK climate scientists and policy analysts. Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told 快猫短视频: 鈥淭he public needs to know that the policy-makers鈥� summary, presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.鈥�
鈥淭he public needs to know that the summary has been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents鈥�
Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former ambassador to the UN, says: 鈥淚 think David Wasdell鈥檚 analysis is very useful, and unique of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.鈥�
Wasdell鈥檚 central charge is that 鈥渞eference to possible acceleration of climate change [was] consistently removed鈥� from the final report. This happened both in its treatment of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.
For instance, the scientists鈥� draft report warned that natural systems such as rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas emissions. It said: 鈥淭his positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2 掳C of added warming by 2100.鈥� The final version does not include this figure. It acknowledges that the feedback could exist but says: 鈥淭he magnitude of this feedback is uncertain.鈥�
Similarly, the draft warned that warming will increase atmospheric levels of water vapour, which acts as a greenhouse gas. 鈥淲ater vapour increases lead to a strong positive feedback,鈥� it said. 鈥淣ew evidence estimates a 40 to 50 per cent amplification of global mean warming.鈥� This was absent from the published version, replaced elsewhere with the much milder observation 鈥淲ater vapour changes represent the largest feedback.鈥�
The final edit also removed references to growing fears that global warming is accelerating the discharge of ice from major ice sheets such as the Greenland sheet. This would dramatically speed up rises in sea levels and may already be doing so. The 2006 draft said: 鈥淩ecent observations show rapid changes in ice sheet flows,鈥� and referred to an 鈥渁ccelerating trend鈥� in sea-level rise. Neither detail made the final version, which observed that 鈥渋ce flow from Greenland and Antarctica鈥� could increase or decrease in future鈥�. Wasdell points out recent findings which show that the rate of loss from ice sheets is doubling every six years, making the suggestion of a future decrease 鈥渉ighly unlikely鈥�.
Some of the changes were made at the meeting of government invigilators that finalised the report last month in Paris. But others were made earlier, after the draft report was first distributed to governments in mid-2006.
Senior IPCC scientists contacted by 快猫短视频 have not been willing to discuss how any changes took place but they deny any political interference. However, 鈥渋f it is true, it鈥檚 disappointing鈥�, says Mike Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and a past lead author for the IPCC. 鈥淎llowing governmental delegations to ride into town at the last minute and water down conclusions after they were painstakingly arrived at in an objective scientific assessment does not serve society well.鈥�
