hro001

On "crisis management strategy", I really have no idea. I hadn't even heard of Outside Organisation until a few weeks ago, on this blog (reading this has been very educational on all the background details, actually).

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect major institutions in the climate science area to respond to such an important issue, whether under some kind of coordination or not. Clearly it's not coincidence, as there was a single event with sparked all this, but it doesn't mean all the responses were part of a grand master plan. As we all know, correlation is not causation.... :-)

Richard,

I think we also need to consider the other possibility, which is that scientists involved in the Climate Witness Programme may have wanted to get WWF to be more scientifically rigorous - the logic being that if they, the experts, don't try to do this then WWF will go ahead anyway and say what they like, with the excuse that "we asked the scientists if this was right and nobody objected".

What you are suggesting is a level of organisation between 130 scientists to review grey literature prior to submission into the IPCC process, something that you were surprised to hear about earlier.
That surprises me if truth be told. I would be more prone to believe that the organisation was instigated by the WWF.

From your link to the conflicts of interest policy there is nothing that immediately stands out that this would be in breach of, so many of your colleagues could be pursuing the same review practice for AR5 I would presume.

From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.

My Lord,

I am afraid you have me baffled. I simply do not understand what you wish to tell me.

My use of the word ‘wrong’ was hurried shorthand for the CAGW crowd which is itself hurried shorthand for goodness knows what.

I do agree that the topic I thought you brought up yesterday at 5.08pm was tangential, but undaunted, I committed my reaction to the blogosphere. Maybe I misunderstood your meaning, in which case – my apologies.

Through the metaphoric references to religious practice in your 8.19 post, I think I understand, very uncertainly, you urge the benefits of consultation between the opposing sides in the climate war. I cannot, of course, disagree with this but regret I fear it may not happen to any significant degree. Previous attempts I have been told of seem somewhat similar to ships traveling in opposite directions that pass in the night. I also fail to understand how your recommendation to consult and discuss, if I have it right, relates to the plight of those whose lives would change in the very improbable circumstances of a government volta face. And I did not and still do not understand why we should spend time considering the plight of those who would then be adversely affected, particularly as the circumstances they would then find themselves in are becoming distressingly routine in today’s world.

But the take home message should, I fear, be that I am totally baffled.

Brownedoff.

I certainly understand what you wrote although I have not read what went on in Unthreaded! And I am totally horrified. Nothing I write here is meant to put people off. That is the Bishop’s job as, loosely speaking, this blog is his property. And I fear I have come to think that am the only person who contributes here who understands how things must actually work and that efforts to achieve change must be made in a totally different way. If you agree with me, don’t leave, join in and keep me company.

Ecclesiastical Uncle

Don't worry, I think it was me that put Brownedoff off, not you. Not that this was my intention by any means!

Lord Beaverbrook

I'm not suggesting the 130 scientists are organising themselves, I'm just suggesting that individually they (or at least some or many) feel they want to get the science properly represented. I don't think I'm the only one that is concerned that climate "messaging" by NGOs is getting out of hand and needs to be brought back in line with what the scientific evidence is actually saying, rather than what they (the NGOs) want it to say, or think it says having not understood it.

@Richard Betts Sep 28, 2011 at 3:51 PM

On "crisis management strategy", I really have no idea. I hadn't even heard of Outside Organisation until a few weeks ago, on this blog (reading this has been very educational on all the background details, actually).

Oh, dear. Perhaps I should have kept this minor - [and parenthetical] - after-thought to myself :-) FWIW, few of us (if any) had ever heard of Outside Organization until mid-July 2011, I believe. Certainly none were aware of their 2009-2010 engagement by UEA until then.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect major institutions in the climate science area to respond to such an important issue, whether under some kind of coordination or not. Clearly it's not coincidence, as there was a single event with sparked all this, but it doesn't mean all the responses were part of a grand master plan. As we all know, correlation is not causation.... :-)

I don't believe I had suggested that a response was unreasonable, nor that it was part of a "master plan"! And the response from the Met, evidently, was to initiate a "Statement from the UK science community" - not all of whom had expertise in climate science. And not one of whom, apparently, had any qualms about endorsing a "statement" that made absolutely no mention of the responsibility of those whose words and actions had precipitated the need for a response to this particular "important issue".

Certainly there was nothing in this "statement" (or its take-away) that had not been heard repeatedly (if not ad nauseam) since at least Feb. 2007. So, if your reading of the "aim" of the statement - i.e. a concern about collateral damage to the "credibility of the science" - was shared by the other 1699 signatories would it not have been appropriate to at least mention that which had precipitated it?

hro001

Thanks for that. OK, sorry to read too much into what you wrote!

Certainly there was nothing in this "statement" (or its take-away) that had not been heard repeatedly (if not ad nauseam) since at least Feb. 2007. So, if your reading of the "aim" of the statement - i.e. a concern about collateral damage to the "credibility of the science" - was shared by the other 1699 signatories would it not have been appropriate to at least mention that which had precipitated it?

You are right that it basically just repeated statements that had already been accepted by the climate science community for the previous couple of years (that's why it was not really an issue for me to sign - it was basically just putting my name against something I'd already put my name in AR4, and had quoted in various talks, articles and media interviews).

I guess that given the timing it was probably thought fairly obvious why it was being put out!

Ecclesiatical Uncle

Apologies for the metaphor, the message that I was trying to portray in simple terms is that there are many fields that contribute to 'climate science' some in more favour than others with reference to funding and publication due in most part for their usability in a political strategy.
If in a rebalance of political direction those currently receiving benefit from the process are then starved and neglected of funding and publication it will not provide any benefit to society, it may even be to our detriment.

When you refer to the wrong side or CAGW then IMO this is not a scientific matter but a political one. One of my concerns is that the hijacking of the science has permanently damaged the confidence in science which can only slow technological growth in general, which is why I would seek assurance from Richard that AR5, especially within his influence is free of political intervention.

There are a lot of people outside of the bubble now scrutinising every detail which means that in order for science and the scientists involved in the process to survive, it has to be unconditionally pure and seen to be so.

@Richard Betts Sep 28, 2011 at 9:48 PM

I guess that given the timing it was probably thought fairly obvious why it was being put out!

Well, Richard, it seems to me that we've now come full circle on the content and "aims" of this December 9, 2009 "Statement from the UK science community" - without addressing the elephant in the room.

There's a saying that goes, "silence is acquiescence". In this instance, the view from here is that these 1700 signatories were deafeningly silent on the matter of self-inflicted damage to the reputation of the scientists involved, and the extent to which their words and actions had the potential to undermine public trust in the science of others - and in the IPCC.

In fact, assuming that Ben Webster at the Times is to be believed:

John Hirst, the Met Office chief executive, and Julia Slingo, its chief scientist, wrote to 70 colleagues on Sunday asking them to sign “to defend our profession against this unprecedented attack to discredit us and the science of climate change”. They asked them to forward the petition to colleagues to generate support “for a simple statement that we . . . have the utmost confidence in the science base that underpins the evidence for global warming”.
[...]
Professor Slingo said the statement was carefully worded to avoid claiming all climate scientists were beyond reproach.[...] [emphasis added -hro]

Well, having seen the content, I cannot disagree that this statement was "carefully worded". In fact, it was so very "carefully worded" that it studiously avoided claiming that any climate scientist was even deserving of "reproach".

And Hirst and Slingo appear to have filled this (conveniently?!) silent vaccuum by, well, blaming the skeptics rather than the responsible climate scientists.

From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.

My Lord,

Thank you for the clarification.

However, …..

I doubt the politicians in charge of our destiny will be influenced by the science in its present state or by most other relevant logical considerations. The green religion with its great swathes of moral high ground was, and still is, required to replace socialism, communism and the like, which also had vast stretches of such territory but which faded in public approval because of the shear impracticability of getting bureaucracies to actually manage things for the betterment of the people. Notwithstanding best intentions. To be dismissed, the green religion must also demonstrate gross failure of some sort, and probably some as yet unthought of ‘ism’ with copious high vistas promoted in public esteem to replace it. IMHO, the most likely means by which greenery will be brought to be seen as a curse rather than a sensible precaution will be the costs of implementation. I am sorry, I do not think the fate of scientists employed on promoting it will rank at all.

All that might change, of course, if the science were to come up with an understanding of the past and reliable forecasts of the future with negligible confidence limits. However, there is no realistic chance of that happening, at least for millennia.

Concern for the conduct of scientific endeavour, the IPCC and the like, is entertaining but, I fear, only tinkering with side issues. Maybe exposure of malfeasance by the high priests and PBI of greenery will come to contribute to its downfall, but in the final analysis, it will be taxation of the public that brings the edifice down. However, stack up and deploy the munitions by all means, after all, doing so certainly does no harm.

So soldier on in the way you have come to love. Do not follow Browedoff into disillusioned retirement (if that’s what he does). My pontifications should not be taken seriously by those who do not see merit in them.

Enough.

Sep 29, 2011 at 3:47 AM | Ecclesiastical Uncle

Do not follow Brownedoff into disillusioned retirement (if that’s what he does). My pontifications should not be taken seriously by those who do not see merit in them.

Let me be absolutely clear, I am neither disillusioned nor retired. I shall return to BH sometime in the future, but not on this particular thread.

Ecclesiastical Uncle, I see much merit in ALL your contributions here at BH. As he suggested above, it is RB (and his vile tactics and loosely worded "pontifications") not your contributions, that persuaded me to leave the field.

As I mentioned somewhere, there was a point when I thought progress was being made when RB said on Sep 26, 2011 at 12:22 AM :

Brownedoff Thanks for your detailed response - you've certainly made me think!

Perhaps someone who currently holds a professorial position in a seat of learning can inform me as to whether "you've certainly made me think!" (note the exclamation mark) is, in the academic world, an elegant form of put down but just a shade more subtle than "thank you for sharing your opinions"?

I no longer live in the UK and HMRC has graciously agreed not to double tax my meagre pensions, so I hereby apologise to all the taxpayers in the UK for starting something off which will probably cost you a load of money, but not me.

It looks to me that a small task force has been set up in the MET Office to service RB contributions here, viz. the very late in the day deployment of the IPCC statement on conflict of interest. It is clear that RB was not aware of that document earlier in the exchanges, otherwise Sep 26, 2011 at 12:22 AM would have been a perfect time to post a link. It was actually revealed two working days later, at the afternoon tea break, on Sep 28, 2011 at 3:44 PM.

I see that the draconian policy of dealing with "off topic" stuff has been totally abandoned and yet there is still no discussion of "Writing and reviewing IPCC AR5".

Perhaps consideration should be given to changing the title of this thread to:

"The Met Office Statement and its ramifications two years later".

In this way, there would no need to agonise over a contribution being "off topic".

@ Richard Betts Sep 28, 2011 at 3:35 PM

I think we also need to consider the other possibility, which is that scientists involved in the Climate Witness Programme may have wanted to get WWF to be more scientifically rigorous - the logic being that if they, the experts, don't try to do this then WWF will go ahead anyway and say what they like, with the excuse that "we asked the scientists if this was right and nobody objected".

The WWF Climate Witness Programme is - by definition - purely anecdotal. Those scientists who agreed to serve on the programme's Scientific Advisory Panel knew this to be the case when they agreed to serve.

This strongly suggests to me that they are pre-disposed to accepting the validity of anecdotal reports - otherwise why would they agree to give their scientific seal of concurrence with any such report? In effect, for each anecdote that passed muster, what's to stop WWF from claiming (as, in effect, they are!) "we asked the scientists if this was right and not only did they not object, they also said, 'yes, this is right'"?

I must confess, Richard, that I'm having some difficulty squaring this with your "suggestion" that we need to consider that those expert scientists involved "may have wanted to get WWF to be more scientifically rigorous".

Assuming that each member conducted his/her own due diligence prior to signing on the virtual dotted line - and examined all the relevant material - I have to ask:

What is "scientifically rigorous" about the WWF's claim that "It is nearly impossible to overstate the threat of climate change."?

What is "scientifically rigorous" about the WWF's goal of "build[ing] a strong case for the need for urgent action from governments, industries, and individuals to act now to stop dangerous climate change" on the strength of anecdotal reports?

What is "scientifically rigorous" about the WWF's claim that "Climate change threatens lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles"?

However, this is only a suggestion - what we really need is to see what advice the scientists actually gave, and then what WWF did with it.

Quite so. We do know that there are some witness anecdotes that seem to have passed this "scientific peer review". What I suspect we may never know is how many (if any) of these anecdotal reports were "rejected" - even before they made it to the "peer review" stage, let alone after (and if so why). But I'd be interested in your thoughts as to how one might obtain such data.

So I'm not convinced by Donna's argument that all these scientists are under WWF's influence. They were just being asked for their opinion.

"Under WWF's influence" strikes me as being a mischaracterization of Donna's concerns and argument. I believe the phrase Donna uses is "WWF affiliation" which - particularly in this context - carries a connotation that is more akin to shared vision and values. Describing their SAP role as "just being asked for their opinion" strikes me as extending an - IMHO, unwarranted - benign fog over the expert scientific seal of concurrence they agreed to confer on (or withhold from) anecdotal reports.

Moreover, Donna's article is on AR4 not AR5. How many of the Climate Witness scientists are AR5 authors? She makes a big deal about AR4 WG2 chapter 4 (ecosystems) - I am on the equivalent chapter in AR5 and the author list has completely changed.

I am quite confident that the answer to your AR5 question will be forthcoming, in the fullness of time! But in the meantime ...

Perhaps the non-disclosure of WWF affiliation of 2 CLAs, 3 LAs and 3 CAs in one chapter is not a "big deal" in your books. In my books - and I suspect those of many "outsiders" (although I could be wrong about this) - it is indisputably (if not unequivocally) worthy of mention.

Unless, of course, you are suggesting that one should no longer be at all concerned with that which might have compromised the objectivity, integrity and validity of the science of AR4. However, unless the rather extensive practice of citing chapter and verse from previous IPCC reports has been discontinued, my view - which I fully acknowledge may well be different from that of the powers that be at the IPCC - is that the more we know, the better :-)

Btw, I just did a quick comparison of names for the members of your chapter team with those on the WWF SAP list; the CLAs and LAs appear to have a "clean" bill of health;-) But one of the REs (a CLA for AR4 WG2 Ch 4) is also a member of the WWF SAP. And I guess we won't know about the CAs and/or expert reviewers until publication, will we?

Personally I think that where there were allegations and some evidence of scienctists corrupting the scientific process in itself, ie gatekeeping at journals' attempting to supress papaers, FOI avoidance,all the issues. I find it impossible not to consider that the SCIENCE (at least a small but important part of it) IS underquestion and has it's credibility dented not just the credibility of the scientists.

As those 1700, will not most likely have had the time or inclination to actually have looked into these allegations for themselve, some or many of those who signed were acting out of faith on behalf of those that produced the statemnt (with a subtle peer pressure of the other senior signaturies to do the same)

so many signed it blind (maybe they should have looked at the Tom Wigley to Mike Hulme climategate email, severely criticising attempts to put togther a consensus statement of scientists - with the invitation to influence Kyoto statement)

Whether a small or large dent in it the science is debatable of course, but as there were no caveats made, it was a political blanket of suppurt of the science and all those at CRU.. because of damaging allegations.

At least that is how I percieve it... as I'm sure do many others.

Right or wrong on this, do you understand my perceptions?

A political statement (academic) and response brought out just before the Copenhagen Conference to reasure the politicians.. The science was not under attack by anybody, if nothing in them, no atttack possible. We definely now know of issue with IPCC proceeses and FOI and gatekeeping by senior IPCC authors.

Richard..

I would love to see the minutes of a meeting, or the emails between the people who decided to produce this statement and the names of those that sponsored it (thought of it)
Or at the very least the wording of letter or email that went out with the statement, asking people to sign it.

Would it be possible for you to publish that letter/email here?

I would hope that the emails about the statement and the letter itself would be FOI'able (but it would save time and be in the spirit of transparency for the Met Office to publish one or both of these, in the new spirit of transparency..

Sorry if I sound a bit grumpy, I seem to be diasgreeing with everyone today(mainly my own 'side')

Sep 29, 2011 at 12:16 AM | hro001

OK, I said I was going, but this I could not resist.

Thank you for the link; at the bottom of the Times article, there is this:

Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims man-made climate change has been exaggerated, said the petition showed that the Met Office was rattled.

Can anybody else hear the ghostly clanking and whirring just starting up again.

Ha!

Also I would like to second the request by Barry Woods at 1:29 PM today for the minutes of a meeting, or the emails between the people who decided to produce this statement and the names of those that sponsored it (thought of it)

The Times:
One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming,” he said.

Professor Slingo denied that the Met Office had put anyone under pressure. “The response has been absolutely spontaneous. As a scientist you sign things you agree with, not because you are worried about what the Met Office might think of you,” she said.

----------------------------

Some felt under pressure ( a subtle peer one)some perhaps had no idea what they were signing, the BBC hade made no mention if FOI failings or asking for deletions to email, just the 'trick' at this point..

So my feeling isthat most on the list just signed it blind.
(I know one personally, had not read any emails months later)

I imagine, the emails/meetings that generated this are behind closed doors, and FOI would be required..

But hopefully someone could publish, the email/letter (without needing FOI) that accompanied the statement, requesting people to sign it..Ie Paul Deniss (UEA) felt unable to sign it, I would like to see what it said.

As he became a 'suspect' in who leaked the emails, I imagine that the 'subtle' pressure to sign it was quite high..

Again my perceptions.. It would be nice to see the letter, and the correspondence behind the scenes.
Transparency is needed now, as trust in the politics (that generated the Met office statement) is lost

A subtle peer pressure indeed.
send it to all your senior science contacts, and then ask them to forward it to their underlings

The Times:
John Hirst, the Met Office chief executive, and Julia Slingo, its chief scientist, wrote to 70 colleagues on Sunday asking them to sign “to defend our profession against this unprecedented attack to discredit us and the science of climate change”. They asked them to forward the petition to colleagues to generate support “for a simple statement that we . . . have the utmost confidence in the science base that underpins the evidence for global warming”.

Dear Dr Betts,

You should know about this.

Fearnside and Nobre are both signed up on the WWF 'SAP'. There were both lead author level scientists on the last IPCC South America assessment. The WWF was actively involved in producing literature about Amazonian catastrophes, from the mid 90s onward. The very WWF's report was cited in the IPCC report.

Why would you not see, that a raising of the WWF's profile in the eyes of the scientists, would result in them overlooking the citation of grey literature reports from such organizations being cited in the IPCC report?

Lending your name to an activist organization can result in *no* good.

Hi all,

Thanks for your contributions. A few quick responses...

Brownedoff:

Glad you are back, although I'd be grateful if you could avoid using terms such as "vile tactics". Although I am part of 2 large beurocratic organisations which a lot of people don't like (the Met Office and IPCC) please remember I am a person too! I really, honestly, am just here to engage constructively with you and others and have no hidden agenda.

hro001:

Thanks for checking out my AR4 chapter and confirming we have a clean bill of health - I'll be on my guard for the possibility of WWF influence from the RE.

You may be right about the WWF thing, I'm not trying to defend it, just put an alternative perspective. I really have no idea of the motivations of the participants.

Barry:

I wasn't party to the drafting of the statement. I just checked back through my inbox and it only goes back as far as March 2010 so I don't have a copy of any email about it myself, although I think it must have been done by email (I don't specifically remember) in which case I expect it's probably been archived so is probably FOIable.

If you do it though "What Do They Know" everyone can see how you get on. That's what David Holland uses.

Sep 29, 2011 at 5:33 PM | Richard Betts

Brownedoff:

Glad you are back, although I'd be grateful if you could avoid using terms such as "vile tactics". Although I am part of 2 large bureaucratic organisations which a lot of people don't like (the Met Office and IPCC) please remember I am a person too! I really, honestly, am just here to engage constructively with you and others and have no hidden agenda.

Richard:

Glad you simply cherry-picked another snippet from one of my messages in the furtherance of your mission to get me to shut up, although I'd be grateful if you could provide me an alternative description of the actions you took on Unthreaded; you do not like "vile", which I thought it was particularly apt, (another contributor said that he was "totally horrified" at your actions) but please, how would you characterise those Unthreaded actions, in one word only please?

Although I am part of no organisations at all now, I was, in the olden days for more than 25 years, part of one engineering organisation in the private sector which a lot of people did like (such as foreign governments who required our assistance in facilitating the construction of massive power stations, indeed, some of them even gave us repeat commissions, they liked us so much) please remember I am a person too! I really, honestly, am just here to engage constructively with you and have no hidden agenda.

It is interesting that the (presumably "official") U.K. gov't word on this is as follows:

A statement supporting the validity of climate science has been signed by 1,700 UK scientists. The scientists contacted the Met Office within four days so as to register support while the UN climate talks in Copenhagen are still ongoing.

Interestingly, the link from this page to "Who signed the statement?" is broken. But there is an archived copy of the page.

Here's something that jumped out at me:

Somewhat conspicuous by their absence on the UEA portion of this "rollcall" are any of the names that have become so familiar to us all since Nov. 19, 2009.

Hmmm ... I wonder if this was (an OO generated?) "strategic" decision at the time the Statement was circulated!

It is worth noting the disclaimer at the bottom of the page:

This statement constitutes the personal views of the signatories only

So for the purposes of the "historical" record, it would seem that 1,700 individuals hold the "personal view" - as opposed to a scientifically informed view (resulting from any individual due diligence - for which there would have been no time) contained in the Statement.

And let us not forget that a number of students appear to have been elevated to the status of "scientist" for the purposes of ... oh, I dunno ... increasing headcount, perhaps?! And I'm sure there was No Pressure involved.

It certainly would be interesting to see the E-mail that was circulated. Thinking back to the subject line of the Hulme/Alcamo chain-E-mail of Nov. 11/97, i.e. "ATTENTION: Invitation to influence Kyoto", I wonder what the subject line of this E-mail might have been?! "ATTENTION: Invitation to save the planet at Copenhagen", perhaps?!

Sep 29, 2011 at 6:16 PM | Brownedoff

how would you characterise those Unthreaded actions, in one word only please?

Demarcational

Sep 29, 2011 at 10:17 PM | Richard Betts

I had not heard of that word before, and my 1992 Oxford dictionary made out of dead trees was no help, so I resorted to the world of the pixel (which, I understand, is forecast to start disappearing at midnight on 31 December 2015 when LCPD takes hold).

Google had a problem with "demarcational" but the first page of the list gave a link to Stanford University:

http://tinyurl.com/awlrqx

but it turned out to be a philosophical paper about "Science and Pseudo-Science". Ha!

So, I visited the Oxford Dictionaries site (Oxford University Press, 2011) and got this:

From the World English Version:

No exact results found for "demarcational" in the dictionary.

From the US English Version:

No exact results found for "demarcational" in the dictionary.

Hmm.

I rather think that Julia sent you down to the basement to try to muffle the rattling sounds but you must have turned the wrong way and finished up in the word torturing room by mistake. Again.

I still think that "vile" is the best choice.

Perhaps we could have an "answers on a postcard" competition for the readers here in order to get a short list for the best word to be used for your particular tactic.

I think someone has already nominated "horrific" in advance.

Richard,

From the IAC recommendations for AR5, would it be possible for you to explain in layman’s terms how the following statements define the interpretation of the science and how that has changed from AR4 ?

Recommendation: Each Working Group should use
the qualitative level-of-understanding scale in its
Summary for Policymakers and Technical Summary,
as suggested in IPCC’s uncertainty guidance for the
Fourth Assessment Report. This scale may be
supplemented by a quantitative probability scale, if
appropriate.

Recommendation: Quantitative probabilities (as in
the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the
probability of well-defined outcomes only when
there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate
the basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or
event (e.g., based on measurement, expert judgment,
and/or model runs).

Hi Lord Beaverbrook

Good question - thanks.

In my AR4 chapter we quantified "level of scientific understanding" (LOSU) based on 2 metrics: evidence and consensus. "High" LOSU requires a large body of evidence which has strong consensus - if the body of evidence is small, or is large but with disagreements, then LOSU is lower. This is what we used to make statements on the LOSU for the radiative forcing bar chart in Figure SPM2 - for the details behind this see Table 2.11 in the Radiative Forcing chapter.

However that was not widely adopted across AR4, particularly not in WG2. There is now a guidance note for AR5 authors which recommends this method be used - see Figure 1 in the note.

On the quantitative probabilities, again there were widely differing approaches across AR4. WG1 tended to do this fairly systematically based more on tangible, quantifiable evidence (although of course this often includes models, so for these purposes it is necessary to assume that models are useful in this regard - a key point here is that the climate models often given wildly differing results for future projections, especially for regional rainfall). While WG2 did this to some extent in some cases, it was generally far more reliant on "expert judegment", and often without a full range of possibilities . Again the guidance note covers this.

So, in theory at least, AR5 should be much more consistent and systematic in its treatment of LOSU and likelihood statements.

I spend quite a lot of time reminding people to be careful with the use of "likely" in a climate change context, since this has become associated with a specific quantitative definition in IPCC-speak, but very often people use it much more loosely.

Allow me to be the first to offer Brownedoff my most sincere contrafibularities! I am anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused him such pericombobulation.

(With apologies to Edmund Blackadder III)