Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Jim Prall has compiled a list of the authors of the IPCC Working Group 1 report for AR4. There are 618 WG1 authors, which is more than the 604 names on Inhofe's list. There are just three names on both lists, which is no surprise given the shortage of climate scientists on Inhofe's list.
First Erich Roeckner. He's not a sceptic at all. Brad Plumer explains how Inhofe quote mined Roekner:
I see Inhofe's "Gang of 650" also includes Erich Roeckner, a renowned climate modeler at Germany's Max Planck Institute, who's quoted as saying there are still kinks in current climate models. But that's not controversial; all climatologists recognize that their models can't account for every last physical process. Inhofe's report then cites Roeckner telling Nature in 2006, "It is possible that all of them are wrong"--implying that he's casting doubt on the link between human activity and climate change. But he's not! Roeckner was referring to the IPCC's emissions scenarios, which involve assumptions about the rate of growth of greenhouse-gas emissions. (Scroll down here for the full quote.) We already know that emissions are growing faster than the IPCC's worst-case scenario, and that's bad news, not good.
Anwyay, Roeckner's as far as you get from a "dissenter": See this 2004 paper, which yet again establishes the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and temperature increases. Or see this link, where Roeckner is qutoed in multiple news stories sounding downright alarmist about the consequences of man-made warming. "Humans have had a large one-of-a-kind influence on the climate... Weather situations in which extreme floods occur will increase," he informed Deutsche Welle in 2004. "Our research pointed to rapid global warming and the shifting of climate zones," he told ABC News in 2005. Quite the heretic, that one.
Second, Oliver Frauenfeld. Inhofe quotes him from his chapter in Shattered Consensus:
"Without question, much more progress is necessary regarding our current understanding of climate and our abilities to model it. Before we can accurately understand the midlatitudes' response to tropical forcing, the tropical forcings themselves must be identified and understood ... Only after we identify these factors and determine how they affect one another, can we begin to produce accurate models. And only then should we rely on those models to shape policy. Until that time, climate variability will remain controversial and uncertain."
Frauenfeld is talking about the modelling of ENSO events by General Circulation Models. He doesn't think they as good at this as the IPCC does, but he is not saying that GCMs can't successfully model the rest of the climate system.
Finally, John Christy. He really does belong on Inhofe's list.
So, Inhofe was only able to find one (out of 618) IPCC WG1 AR4 author who is a skeptic.
Politics
Comments
Not surprising, though, since the IPCC is run by communist lesbians.
Posted by: saurabh | December 16, 2008 1:00 PM
Inhofe is insane. Imagine a 9/11 conspiracy theorist sitting as chair of Homeland Security. There would be outrage and rightly so. Why is it acceptable, then, for the Republicans to have had Inhofe as their chair of Environment & Public Works? As long as the Republicans have an anti-science conspiracy theorist as their point man on climate change, they cannot possibly be taken seriously.
Posted by: jrshipley | December 16, 2008 1:00 PM
Please use the scare quotes. True skeptics will change their minds when there is enough evidence. The climate "skeptics" will not.
Posted by: Lassi Hippeläinen | December 16, 2008 1:12 PM
jrshipley - I would point you to what Dan Gilbert said about global warming and why it isn't easy to get behind as a concept:
http://umlud.blogspot.com/2008/08/dan-gilbert-global-warming-is-happening.html
Posted by: Umlud | December 16, 2008 1:20 PM
Since you brought up the University of Oklahoma yesterday for its two members on the dual deniers list, it is only fair to mention that David Karoly was at the University of Oklahoma while he was on Working Group 1.
Posted by: dhough | December 16, 2008 1:45 PM
there's another one according to inhofe's 650-lis : Dr. Philip Lloyd who'd be "a UN IPCC cocoordinating lead author on the Technical Report on Carbon Capture & Storage"
the link on the inhofe 650 is dead, so it's hard to know what he really said. Anybody knows ?
Posted by: jules | December 16, 2008 3:53 PM
jules: Are you talking about the links at http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9#page=10
If so, they're not that interesting. You can use archive.org to bring up the now-dead links. To wit: http://web.archive.org/web/20041107225812/http://www.erc.uct.ac.za/phillip.htm
What you get is a bio, rather than a source for the quote. Probably your best bet on the quote is to ask him where the alleged statement is from and whether it is an accurate quote.
Posted by: silence | December 16, 2008 6:50 PM
I'm not sure that this is the same Philip Lloyd, or if it is that he wrote the column in question, but he appears to have had an inactivist column published under his name by a consulting firm in South Africa several years ago.
See http://www.stratek.co.za/montharchive.html
This article seems to be in a rather different spirit from materials of well-known provenance.
I wonder if this Stratek firm published something under the name Philip Lloyd, and that's what Senator Inhofe is quoting...
Posted by: silence | December 16, 2008 8:08 PM
Well, duh, his job was to sell both off to the highest bidder, eh?
Posted by: Hank Roberts | December 17, 2008 12:36 AM
@ silence, thanks, an interesting link which has , for those too lazy to follow it : an the article with the title 'Kyoto to the Hague and Then Where?': the first line reads : Prof Philp Lloyd is an Industrial & Petrochemial Consultant who is resident in Cape Town.
:)
key quote :
For the past century the atmosphere has been getting richer in carbon dioxide. It is possible that our activities may have caused the increase - but the evidence is equivocal. It is also possible that more CO2 may change the climate - but again, it is possible it will not.
Into this brace of possibilities the eco-politicians surged. "Give us the power," they cried, "And we will save you from a fate worse than death!"
i think Lloyd probabaly was quoted correctly.
Posted by: jules | December 17, 2008 3:57 AM
Lassi, define "enough evidence." Is it a 1. ratio , or is there 2. a quantity, or 3. other?
Posted by: BenW | December 17, 2008 11:26 AM
BenW, a better approach is to think in terms of the probability that whatever theory one's talking about is true, and of course what this means in terms of action.
The question is, is anthropogenic global warming a real and serious problem that requires us to take mitigation steps? So what we want is the probability -- given what we know -- that AGW is a problem. Given the potential catastrophic nature of the results, even a 50% probability of correctness should be enough incentive to take action!
Global warming 'skeptics' such as James Inhofe will never be satisfied with any amount of evidence. If the actual evidence doesn't suit them, they just make up their own.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | December 17, 2008 11:52 AM
It sounds like Prof Philp Lloyd is another offering expert advice outside his area of expertise.
If he was writing on CCS he would have been in WGIII not WGI. WGIII is the purview of engineers and economists. Nothing wrong with people in these fields as long as they stay there :-)
Doug
Posted by: Doug Clover | December 17, 2008 2:57 PM