Amazongate

It's always bad news for the IPCC

tlambert — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:54:35 +0000

It's always bad news for the IPCC

Back in 2007 a paper, Amazon Forests Green-Up During 2005 Drought, was published in Science:

Coupled climate-carbon cycle models suggest that Amazon forests are vulnerable to both long- and short-term droughts, but satellite observations showed a large-scale photosynthetic green-up in intact evergreen forests of the Amazon in response to a short, intense drought in 2005. These findings suggest that Amazon forests, although threatened by human-caused deforestation and fire and possibly by more severe long-term droughts, may be more resilient to climate changes than ecosystem models assume.

This finding that the Amazon was more resilient than previously thought was reported in the London Times and the New York Times.

Now a new paper contradicting the previous paper, Amazon forests did not green-up during the 2005 drought has been published:

We find no evidence of large-scale greening of intact Amazon forests during the 2005 drought - approximately 11%-12% of these drought-stricken forests display greening, while, 28%-29% show browning or no-change, and for the rest, the data are not of sufficient quality to characterize any changes. These changes are also not unique - approximately similar changes are observed in non-drought years as well.

So how does this get reported? Here's Terence Corcoran in the National Post:

But this week new research supports the original Amazongate version of the science. The Amazon may not be at risk from climate change. Researchers at Boston University, headed by Ranga B. Myneni, professor of geography and environment, found that satellite readings used by other scientists were based on contaminated data. In a paper published by Geophysical Research Letters, Prof. Myneni and associates say they found no evidence that the Amazon suffers extreme tree mortality, excessive forest greening or other trauma under extreme climate conditions.

The Myneni paper examined the impact on the Amazon of a major 2005 drought. Some scientists have argued that the 2005 drought caused significant rainforest disturbances. But Prof. Myneni says that science is based on satellite data that cannot be reproduced because much of it is "atmosphere corrupted."

Don't you love the way Corcoran describes greening as "significant disturbances" and implies that the earlier study found "extreme tree mortality" rather than geening?

But while Corcoran is being deceitful, you can't blame this all on him.

The Boston University press release also misrepresents the paper:

[Amazon rain forests] may be more tolerant of droughts than previously thought

(Boston) -- A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Simon Lewis comments on the new paper and the press release:

The new Samanta study uses satellites to assess the colour of the rainforest canopy in the dry season of the year 2005, compared to the dry seasons of the years 2003 and 2004. More detected green colour in 2005 may suggest that the forest is being more productive (more green leaves photosynthesising), or more brown colours may suggest leaves dying and less productivity, than the previous years. The results show that 2005 was little different to the previous years, despite the strong drought.

This is important new information, as in 2007, a paper using the satellite-based same method showed a strong 'greening-up' of the Amazon in 2005, suggesting tolerance to drought. The new study shows that those results were not reproducible, but also highlight the extreme caution that should be attached to satellite studies generally in this field, with instruments in space collecting data which is then used to infer subtle changes in the ecology of tropical forests.

In contrast to the 2007 paper, Oliver Phillips, myself and others, published a paper in Science, using ground observations from across the Amazon, that while the 2005 drought did not dramatically change the growth of the trees compared to a normal year, as Samanta also show, but the deaths of trees did increase considerably. The new study of Samanta et al., supports the Phillips et al. study, which itself shows the Amazon is vulnerable to drought. The Phillips paper showed that remaining Amazon forests changed from absorbing nearly 2 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere a year, to being a massive committed source of over 3 billion tonnes, from tree mortality.

The evidence for the possibility of a major die-back of the Amazon rainforest is due to two factors,

That climate change induced decreases in rainfall in the dry season occur, and

The trees cannot tolerate these reductions in rainfall.

The Samanta paper does not directly address the first point, this is addressed using modelling. The second point is only addressed in a limited way. The critical question is how these forests respond to repeated droughts, not merely single-year droughts. The forests are of course able to withstand these single droughts (otherwise there would be no rainforest!) - it is their ability to survive an increased frequency of the most severe droughts that is critical to answer. Drought experiments, where a roof is built under the forest canopy, show that most forest trees survive a single year's intense drought, but can't persist with repeated years of drought. The Samanta study does not address this point at all.

In conclusion the new study lends further weight to the emerging picture of the 2005 drought, that tree growth was relatively unaffected, but tree mortality increased, contributing to temporarily accelerating the rate of climate change, rather than as usual reducing it via additions of carbon to the atmosphere from the dead trees. Furthermore, the climate change model results suggesting decreasing rainfall in the dry season over Amazonia in the coming decades are unaffected by the new study, thus overall the conclusions in the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report are strengthened (because the anomalous result of the Saleska 2007 science paper appear to be at fault), not weakened, by the new study as the press release implies.

The press release also states:

The IPCC is under scrutiny for various data inaccuracies, including its claim - based on a flawed World Wildlife Fund study -- that up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically and be replaced by savannas from even a slight reduction in rainfall. ...

"The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct," said Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC.

I contacted Marengo to see if this fairly represented his position, and, no it didn't, having been taken out of context. He wrote:

I did not know that Sangram would pass my comments for a blog.

I have exchanged few emails with him, and I agree with him about
his position on the greening of Amazonia as shown by Saleska et
al (2007). However, I have questioned him few times about his
conclusions on the IPCC 40% value. In his paper he does not show
anything that go against the 40%, and he did not mention IPCC at
all. So this comparison is out of of context considering the
finding of this high quality paper.

What I said is that the 40% was obtained qualitatively from a
map from Nepstad et al (2004), comparing the area burn during the
El Nino 1998 and the mean area. Nepstad considered the El Nino 1998
situation as an analogue of what the future could be, which may
not be entirely realistic. I said that between an eye calculation
to get the 40% reported by the WWF document and the calculations
from Samanta et al (2010), even though they refer to different things,
Samanta et al did more correct and reliable work.

Yes, I believe that the Amazon forests are vulnerable to rainfall
reduction, and high temperatures, and this would lead to what some
studies call the Amazon die back. However, the die back is still
somewhat uncertain, but without reaching a level in which the forest
would replaced by savanna, the forest is highly vulnerable to drought.

And is it any suprise that Jonathan Leake is also pushing this story?

Hat tip: Ben Stewart for sending me the comments from Simon Lewis.

tlambert Sat, 03/13/2010 - 20:54

Tags

global warming

Amazon forests

Amazongate

Simon Lewis

Terence Corcoran

global warming

Yes when I saw it yesterday I admired the press release writer's artistry with the pitching of this story. Great work Tim!

Apparently whenever a journalist provides 'context' for a story on climate change, the 'context' will be the wrong one.

It's probably like, well, analyzing an excerpt from Shakespeare's Hamlet using Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy as the context.

Good work as always, Tim, but I've no doubt this one will already have entered the denialist meme-pool.

Perhaps it's like "it's always good news for the Republicans" in US politics. No matter what happens - or does not happen, or even when the opposite subsequently happens - quite a few "news" outlets will report that it's good news for the Republicans.

>In January, Daily Telegraph writer James Delingpole described how...

Writer???

Ok. He can't say journalist, because Delingpole isn't one.
He doesn't like to use the word blogger, because that has less cachet than journalist.
So he goes for 'writer' instead. Sounds more official.

It's frustrating to see the 'bad news for the IPCC' appearing so frequently - unsurprising, because it seems to be a heavily-laden bandwagon - but frustrating. I'm reminded of an encounter I had with a prominent (if that's the word) Intelligent Design creationist in 2007 who insisted that the Dover Trial, which fairly comprehensively destroyed the case for ID being taught in US schools, was actually a win for ID supporters and made 'Darwinists a laughing stock'.

It was the first time I'd seen firsthand the extent to which people are willing to interpret a finding in their favour. Even when it's completely opposite to their position, it can still be spun around if you aren't concerned about accuracy!

The reporting by Corcoran and Leake should come as no surprise I guess, but what's up with the press release? Why would they misrepresent their own researchers? What do the authors themselves think about it? Which is the blog post that Marengo is referring to? Does the website of Sangram Ganguly have the most annoying method of navigation ever? These are but a few questions I'm asking myself, and you.

How do these things happen?

It's almost as if all these journalists and media employees don't care for the truth or reality of anything they write. It's almost as if they deliberately serve massively powerful and wealthy corporate and political interests by spinning and obfuscating.

Can that be right?

If that were true then everyone who ever took a paycheck from Rupert Murdoch would be implicated.

Yes, but the journalists involved are all doing what they would normally do. What's disturbing about this case is that the press release itself is misleading. If you can't trust the university behind the study...

> ... what's up with the press release? Why would they misrepresent their own researchers?

The university press offices are there to generate publicity and given that the people working in these departments have to deal with research from a very wide spectrum of disciplines, they can't be expected to understand everything. As a result, every once in a while you get someone grabbing the wrong end of the stick and the journalists get fed bum information. But having said all that, the researchers are normally supposed to get the final say on the content of press releases, so it's possible Samanta may have something to answer on this matter.

Have some never heard of the "The Press Release is a mess" problem? It is not limited to any one subject at all.

Leake is also in the frame for exaggerating the story over a judgement on climate change ads: http://anarchist606.blogspot.com/2010/03/asa-judgement-for-climate-ads-…

Quick Correction (typo)

At the bottom, last quote, second to last paragraph, last sentence. "raliable" should be "reliable".

Incidentally, I hadn't thought of the fact that rainforests would be more vulnerable due to increased frequency of droughts -- and that this would have a bearing on the interpretation of this particular study. That helps.

Another thing worth keeping in mind is that drought dieback will be more pronounced at the edges of a forest -- for a number of reasons. What little greening this study showed occurred at places distant from the edges. Not as important as consecutive years of drought, though. Currently having a little difficulty finding the images, but it would be interesting to overlay the 10% "greening" that occurred with a map of the Amazon river -- given Liebig's law of the minimum.

Given the coverage issues, perhaps you should be concerned that this post will be distributed as "Tim Lambert says it's always bad news for the IPCC" with no further elaboration by someone misusing it while launching into other reports attempting to discredit the IPCC.

CSIRO chief defends climate science

About bloody time! In all the debate I am continuously confused as to why leaders of the Worlds major scientific institutions do not speak up in defence of science and scientists. I hope that this is the first step in a decision by the CSIRO to cease being a doormat for denialists.

If only the rest of the Worlds major scientific institutions would start effectively responding robustly to lies and slander. They don't need to get on TV and debate trolls. They need to start issuing specific targeted media releases so the public knows where they stand on this.

Andrew Montford's book 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' is getting five star rating on Amazon.

El Gordo said:

'The Hockey Stick Illusion' is getting five star rating on Amazon.

Hardly surprising. If you are the kind of person who would be interested enough in this kind of tripe you are probably going to rate it highly.

All this shows is that it is popular with morons and misanthropic sociopaths and those with the desire to subvert good public policy for whatever reason.

Andrew Montford's book 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' is getting five star rating on Amazon.

I guess this is the denialists' verson of "peer review."

*I guess this is the denialists' verson of "peer review."*

Of course it is. Denialist literature getting reviewed by other deniers is, I suppose, technically peer-review.

Phila, wins the internetz!

;)

Lord Rees says on this BBC interview that CO2 in the atmosphere hasn't been this high in 500,000 years.

Does anyone have a graph to support his comment?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8559000/8559209.stm

Re #21: Try 15 my, chubbo [per Tripati et al. (2009)]. If you're quoting Rees accurately, he'd be referring to the ice cores, and even those now go back about 800 ky. For a graph, you know how to find Wikipedia. Tell me, is the fat entirely between your ears?

el gordo, take [this chart](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/fig_tab/nature06949_F2…) and add another 110 ppm CO2.

Then look back [15 million years](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008152242.htm) for last time CO2 was 390ppm.

That's about 14.7 million years before modern human's evolved; 14.95 MY before human's left Africa; 14.99 MY before agriculture; 14.9997 MY before internal combustion engines.

el lazo:

Lord Rees says on this BBC interview that CO2 in the atmosphere hasn't been this high in 500,000 years.
Does anyone have a graph to support his comment?

Find it yourself you lazy sod.

Thanks, Janet. I will be gone a little while... to find some peer review and fight truth decay.

23 jakerman: "That's about 14.7 million years before modern human's evolved; 14.95 MY before human's left Africa; 14.99 MY before agriculture; 14.9997 MY before internal combustion engines."

Don't forget C4 grasses themselves. Read from page 26 of this PDF:
www.systbot.uzh.ch/static/niche/talks/Salamin_2009.pdf

"Ecological rise of C4 grasses (ca. 6-7 Mya) much younger than evolutionary origin (ca. 30 Mya)"

Then read about Stanford's open-top chamber experiment, the Jasper Ridge Global Change Project.
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/02/jasperplots124.html
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/JRGCE/chamber.html

Lord Rees is being conservative: 2.1 million years ago, 15 million years BP, take your pick.

This must be where the 'precautionary principle' comes in.

Corocoran also claims that Myeni said the IPC were being 'alarmist'.

"Prof. Myneni supports the basic IPCC climate science theory. But he said in an interview yesterday that the IPCC was being âalarmistâ when it took the WWF research and produced a report that projected that 40% of the Amazon could be devastated and reformed by even a slight reduction in rainfall."

I am going to contact Myeni to see if that is indeed what he said.

Also, research in the boreal forest of Canada is similar to that of findings made by Lewis. Specifically, during an extreme drought year the NDVI values over the forest were lower, but the real impact oft he drought was observed over subsequent one or two growing seasons when high mortality rates were observed. See work by Dr. Hogg.

Impacts of a regional drought on the productivity, dieback, and biomass of western Canadian aspen forests. 2008. Hogg, E.H.; Brandt, J.P.; Michaelian, M. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38(6): 1373-1384.

So if the recent paper only limited the scope of study to 2005 (year of drought), then they could have missed significant response of the forest tot he 2005 drought in subsequent growing seasons. Also, what about the impact on the canopy of multi-year droughts?

Corcoran is disseminating misinformation and misrepresenting the science, again. And it will be interesting to see what Dr. Myeni says about how he was quoted.

I also encourage people to email Corcoran and the editor to let them know of what you think about Corcoran frequently misrepresenting the science and scientists.

TCorcoran at nationalpost dot com
kmcparland at nationalpost dot com

Interestingly, it seems that Samanta himself has waded into the debate over at Realclimate and is defending the tone of the press release. However, he really doesn't do himself any favours because the two reasons he gives as justification were already quite effectively debunked in the article he is commenting on, and he offers no further discussion.

[J Bowers](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/its_always_bad_news_for_the_ip…),

>*"Ecological rise of C4 grasses (ca. 6-7 Mya) much younger than evolutionary origin (ca. 30 Mya)"*

That is stunning, C4 grasses were held in check and didn't spread for 24 MY, until CO2 dropped below 390 ppm. It's quite an experiment we are conducting.

But C4 grasses are [not important](http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/field/pastures-and-rangelands/nat…) are they? They only include 50% of all grasses (including Maize, sugar cane, sorghum). Not much risk really.

gss ths s th dnlsts' vrsn f "pr rvw." whr "dnlst" s dfnd s: nyn wh ds nt fllt Hrr Fhrr Hnsn n cmmnd.

[*DNFTT -- TL*]

That old Godwin's Law will just sneak up and bite you every time won't it, GWIAS?

Tht ld Gdwn's Lw wll jst snk p nd bt y vr tm wn't t, GWS? Ys, spcll whn y s th trm "dnlst" wth th spcfc ntnt f nvkng th spctr f Hlcst dnl.

[*DNFTT -- TL*]

Yes, especially when you use the term "denialist" with the specific intent of invoking the spectre of Holocaust denial.

Actually, we don't. Think of it more along the lines of denying that cigarettes cause cancer, or denying that HIV leads to AIDS.

ctll, w dn't. Bllsht. f t ws tr, wld y dmt t? Thnk f t mr lng th lns f dnyng tht cgrtts cs cncr, r dnyng tht HV lds t DS. r dnyng tht th plnt s nl yrs ld. Glbl wrmng s rlgn, ftr ll.

[*DNFTT -- TL*]

GWIAS said

Yes, especially when you use the term "denialist" with the specific intent of invoking the spectre of Holocaust denial

This tired old horse should be put out to pasture. People just laugh when they see it, and assume you are having a day when people see you for what you are -- liars in the service of the filth merchants or unhinged moronic dupes.

Something tells me "Global Warming Is A Scam" isn't the intellectual genius I originally took him for.

wwww, pr Frnn. Dd ffnd yr dlct lttl rlgs snsblts?

[*DNFTT -- TL*]

38 "Did I offend your delicate little religious sensibilities?"

** Stop press *** Village idiot strings sentence together **

* Stp prss ** Vllg dt strngs sntnc tgthr ** Prjctng gn, r w J? Hw typcl fr rlgs fndmntlst sch s yrslf. Ttll nsrprsng, hwvr. Hlp s vlbl fr yr sss.

[* DNFTT -- TL*]

GWIAS wittered:

Frannie. Did I offend your delicate little religious sensibilities?

Lame and formulaic. I have none to offend.
You do affirm the general tendency for deniers to simply recycle insults in the hope one works.

Again, you are the purveyors of the scam here.

I'm overwhelmed by the evidence, articulation, and strength of Scamy's argument.

You are a fine ambassador for your faith Scamy.

;)

GWIAS could only manage:

I know you are, but what am I?

Affirming that like the denier group in general, developmentally, he never made it out of the infants' department playground.

Were it not for his ability to copy and paste, he would struggle to reproduce the term "skeptic".

Scamy writes:

>*I know you are, but what am I?*

Scamy, I thought this fitted aptly with your earlier assertion of projection. You have such a way with argument.

What an awesome spectacle to see Scamy in full flight!

;)

But don't let the nitwits divert from the subject.

How did a three-month dry spell get confused with a climate regime change -- was the confusion only in the university press office's press release and author's Realclimate post, or was the actual paper confusing weather and climate?

Dear Timothy Lamebrain:

Please go bugger yourself.

Sincerely,

Global Warming Is A Scam

@ 46 Tut,tut, poor sod. So vacuous and lame that s/he has to resort to vitriol and invective. That is all they have now.

Oh and @46, unless you are bouncing your IP, Tim can track you down if need be (e.g., if you start making threats), so best settle down, and as difficult as it is, try and bring something more substantive to the table that the nonsense you have been spouting above.

In the meantime, the planet warms:

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

Courtesy of your contrarian ally, Spencer.

And, Eli Rabett has an intriguing update on this story for those who are interested.

The temperatures continue to rise, along with CO2, yet the Arctic is refuses to melt. This is no spoof.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/03/arctic-has-still-not-received…

>*The temperatures continue to rise, along with CO2, yet the Arctic is refuses to melt. This is no spoof.*

Thus el gordo, you reveal yourself incompetent to read this data. The warming anomaly is occurring mostly in the winter just as the enhanced greenhouse effect predicts.

This rubbish you push should be in an open thread. Take it [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/open_thread_44.php#comment-2361…). Stop trying to lauder your comments away from scrutiny.

30 jakerman: "But C4 grasses are not important are they? They only include 50% of all grasses (including Maize, sugar cane, sorghum). Not much risk really."

C3 grasses need lower temperatures, no? That includes wheatgrass. China saw a marked dropoff in harvest during recent temperature highs, IIRC.

I've [repeatd the chart](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/normalise/plot/rss/normalise/trend…) produced by hockeyschtick.blogspot, but with two changes, I've use all data from when RSS commenced rather than cherry pick 1998. And I've detreded CO2 by a factor of 0.5 I think that means temperature is rising half the rate of CO2.

The warming anomaly is occurring mostly in the winter...

...and IIRC that means that ice mass is not being replenished at anywhere near the same rate it used to (IIRC as is happening with many glaciers too). If that keeps going for long enough it will be bad news.

'Stop trying to launder your comments away from scrutiny'.

So you direct me to the archives, to sit around in a dusty warehouse babbling to myself. Do us all a favor and encourage Tim to resume the real debate - climate change.

Leakegate: the case for fraud

tlambert — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:37:01 +0000

Leakegate: the case for fraud

They have been some explosive new revelations in the Leakegate scandal. Remember how Leake deliberately concealed the fact that Dan Nepstad, the author of the 1999 Nature paper cited as evidence for the IPCC statement about the vulnerability of the Amazon had replied to Leake's query and informed him the claim was correct? Leake didn't report what Nepstad told him. Instead he claimed that the IPCC statement was "bogus", even though he knew it wasn't.

Deltoid can now reveal that Leake's reporting was far more dishonest than originally believed. This is how Leake quoted Simon Lewis:

Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at Leeds University who specialises in tropical forest ecology, described the section of Rowell and Moore's report predicting the potential destruction of large swathes of rainforest as "a mess".

"The Nature paper is about the interactions of logging damage, fire and periodic droughts, all extremely important in understanding the vulnerability of Amazon forest to drought, but is not related to the vulnerability of these forests to reductions in rainfall," he said.

But Lewis, like Nepstad, told Leake that the IPCC was correct. When asked whether Leake had represented his views accurately he replied:

Absolutely not. Please see the BBC piece online, by Roger Harrabin. I sent them the same email with my comments. The scientific statement in the IPCC WG2 report is essentially correct, but has a referencing error. IPCC WG1 get it right. An outrageous piece of journalism.

Even the Sunday Times is backing away from Leake's dishonest reporting by printing two letters refuting Leake's claims. Andrew Rowell:

I am the co-author of the WWF report that you alleged included the bogus figure that "up to 40%" of the Amazon was sensitive to reduced rainfall.

Not only did you fail to contact me, but you ignored credible evidence that the figure was correct. You also ignored evidence that the figure had been backed up by peer-reviewed research both before and after our publication.

You spoke to Dr Dan Nepstad, one of the world's leading authorities on fire in the Amazon. You ignored the fact he told you he had published an even higher figure in Nature in 1994 and that subsequent research validated our figure. What you published was demonstrably false and has seriously misled the debate on climate change.

David Nussbaum:

WWF cannot speak for other institutions that have used our report, but we, and indeed leading scientists in the field, firmly stand by its conclusion that "up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall". The primary source for this statement is Fire in the Amazon, a 1999 overview by the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute that states: "Probably 30-40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall."

WWF acknowledges that a reference to Fire in the Amazon as the source of the 40% claim was omitted during the editing of the Global Review of Forest Fires. However, WWF informed your reporter of the source several hours before you went to press.

Your article rightly concludes that "scientists fear the controversies will be used by climate change sceptics to sway public opinion to ignore global warming -- even though the fundamental science, that greenhouse gases can heat the world, remains strong". However, it is also the case that misleading coverage in respected media outlets can serve to undermine public confidence in the credibility of climate science.

If you are keeping count, that's three separate sources who told Leake that the IPCC report was correct. And Leake dis not mention any of this, instead he simply lied and wrote that it was "bogus".

I contacted Leake for comment, and while he replied, he demanded that it be kept confidential. I wonder if the reason was that he thinks everybody else operates like him, and I would have quote mined his response?

tlambert Sun, 02/14/2010 - 13:37

Leakegate

tlambert — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:14:16 +0000

Leakegate

Jonathan Leake recently wrote a story alleging that the statement in the IPCC AR4 WG2 that up to 40% of the Amazon forest could vanish due to climate change was "bogus". Deltoid can now reveal that Leake deliberately concealed the fact that Dan Nepstad, the author of the 1999 Nature paper cited as evidence for the claim about the vulnerability of the Amazon had replied to Leake's query and informed him the claim was basically correct:

At the time of the IPCC [report], there was ample evidence that a large portion of the Amazon forest is very close to the lower limit of rainfall that is necessary to sustain dense forest. We published an article in 1994 in Nature in which we estimated that approximately half of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon were periodically exposed to severe drought and soil moisture depletion, especially during El Nino events.

Nepstad told me the same thing in response to my query after Leake's story was published. He included copies of his relevant papers which confirmed what he told me. Nepstad goes into more detail here:

The IPCC statement on the Amazon is correct, but the citations listed in the Rowell and Moore report were incomplete. (The authors of this report interviewed several researchers, including the author of this note, and had originally cited the IPAM website where the statement was made that 30 to 40% of the forests of the Amazon were susceptible to small changes in rainfall). Our 1999 article (Nepstad et al. 1999) estimated that 630,000 km2 of forests were severely drought stressed in 1998, as Rowell and Moore correctly state, but this forest area is only 15% of the total area of forest in the Brazilian Amazon. In another article published in Nature, in 1994, we used less conservative assumptions to estimate that approximately half of the forests of the Amazon depleted large portions of their available soil moisture during seasonal or episodic drought (Nepstad et al. 1994). After the Rowell and Moore report was released in 2000, and prior to the publication of the IPCC AR4, new evidence of the full extent of severe drought in the Amazon was available. In 2004, we estimated that half of the forest area of the Amazon Basin had either fallen below, or was very close to, the critical level of soil moisture below which trees begin to die in 1998. This estimate incorporated new rainfall data and results from an experimental reduction of rainfall in an Amazon forest that we had conducted with funding from the US National Science Foundation (Nepstad et al. 2004). Field evidence of the soil moisture critical threshold is presented in Nepstad et al. 2007.

Leake deliberately concealed the fact that error in the IPCC was a missing cite, rather than a factual error. Furthermore, despite criticizing the IPCC for allegedly relying on "green campaigners who had little scientific expertise" Leake based his story on "Research by Richard North". Richard North is part of a right wing think tank which describes his background like this:

After a brief career in the Royal Air Force, Richard North became a local government officer and then ran his own consultancy business for two decades. He then moved into trade politics and thence to the European Parliament as research director for the group of European Democracies and Diversities. Through this professional work, Richard obtained first hand experience of the damaging effects of Brussels directives and their interpretation by UK officials on British businesses, and has gained an unrivalled insight into the workings of the European Union.

So, to Leake, lack of scientific expertise doesn't matter if someone is telling you what you want to hear.

Leakegate is merely the latest scandal about the reporting on climate science in British newspapers and follows on the heels of Rosegate, the scandal about David Rose's repeated misquoting of scientists.

Update: Mongabay.com comments

But Leake's apparent dismissal of Nepstad's data isn't what may get him into trouble. Instead it's his breach of the Editors' Code of Practice which requires editors to allow "a fair opportunity for reply." Andrew Rowell, the lead author of the WWF report who was criticized by Leake, was never contacted by the Sunday Times.

tlambert Wed, 02/03/2010 - 18:14

Tags

in sceptic circles, people have decided to discuss the end of the IPCC.

they talk of "massive errors" and constantly repeat, that the claims about glaciers melting and amazon forests vanishing are false.

i fear that this will not change, even when we provide the facts...

You've become quite the impressive sleuth Tim.

Keep up the good work.

>*in sceptic circles, people have decided to discuss the end of the IPCC.*

The weakness of the denialist case is evidenced by the fact that Leake et al need to misrepresent the the situation to build their case.

Correct the WG2's glacial melt botch, and you still have [retreating glaciers](http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/img/5-9.jpg). Correct the Leake misrepresentaion and you have still got half of the forest area of the Amazon falling below, or very close to, the critical level of soil moisture below which trees begin to die in 1998.

How utterly unsurprising. Well done, Tim.

Leake concocted a "quote" from background information on data availability on the UEA CRU web site and attributed it as an "admission" by UEA scientists made after and in response to the email theft. The sentence he turned into an "admission" is months older than the event it's supposed to refer to.

Check it yourself. Read the first six paras of his Timesonline article "Climate Change Data Dumped" 29/11/09. The sentence in quotation marks in the sixth paragraph is introduced as a "statement on its [CRUs] website" with the clear implication that it is an admission made after the hack. That sentence is the fourth sentence of the fifth paragraph of the data availability page.

He's a piece of work,our Jonathan.

A bit more info here: http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0204-amazongate.html

"But Leake's apparent dismissal of Nepstad's data isn't what may get him into trouble. Instead it's his breach of the Editors' Code of Practice which requires editors to allow "a fair opportunity for reply." Andrew Rowell, the lead author of the WWF report who was criticized by Leake, was never contacted by the Sunday Times. "

And it just gets better and better!

I have pointed a few pseudosceptics towards links to the horrifying display of journalistic contempt for the truth we are seeing recently (like Guldberg's response to the article on the Great Barrier Reef in the Australian), and the silence has been deafening.

It certainly brings blog comments to a grinding halt, or a quick change of topic!

Journalists could easily save themselves from this trauma by some simple cross-checking, but many seem to want to leap on the denialist gravy-train at the moment.

Loving the continued parody sensationalism, but have a care - if the wind changes, you'll stay that way.

Thanks cbp. I added an update.

The weakness of the denialist case is evidenced by the fact that Leake et al need to misrepresent the the situation to build their case.

A statement that can be generalised to the whole AGW denying enterprise. It is actually one of the most damning facts against them (besides the whole scientific evidence thing, of course).

"In sceptic circles, people have decided to discuss the end of the IPCC."

They just don't get it with their 'shoot the messenger' logic. You could take away the IPCC tomorrow but it wouldn't make the colossal amount of published material that it's based on magically disappear. Policymakers the world over would still need someone to come up with an objective assessment of the state of the science and it would reach exactly the same conclusions.

Meanwhile, nominations are currently being taken for authors and editors of the upcoming fifth assessment report. The open invitation is hardly what you'd expect from the cliquey, agenda-driven think tank that the deniers like to make it out to be, but doubtless they have plenty of conspiracy theories ready to roll regarding the selection process.

Its the same pattern all over again: as soon as the "sceptics" get some attention (hacked CRU mails, Himalayan glacier error), they make as much noise as possible about as many things as possible ("hide the decline", "travesty" etc; "Amazon", "climber's magazine" etc).

Thanks for clearing this up Tim!

A statement that can be generalised to the whole AGW denying enterprise. It is actually one of the most damning facts against them (besides the whole scientific evidence thing, of course).

Well, yes. Look at it this way. For 1% of the cost of "clean coal" power station ($2-billion x 1% = $20-million) the fossil fuel industry could fund a conclusive study that spiked the whole AGW theory if it were truly bogus. There would be some credibility issues with such a study given the funding source but if it was genuine good science, it would stand up.

So why do they not do that, and instead fund crackpots and lobbyists?

Because they've done it already. Not exactly in this form perhaps but big fossil fuel has a massive R&D spend with top-rate scientists in their internal labs and, given the threat to their survival, of course they would have had their research labs look into climate science â just as tobacco companies had their labs look into the threat to their industry. It would be absolutely crazy if they didn't do this.

So, not a huge stretch to assume big fossil fuel already knows the science is basically sound. That they are [following the tobacco strategy](http://opinion-nation.blogspot.com/2008/06/sound-science-and-climate-ch…) of traducing the mainstream absolutely fits.

Slightly off topic here (though tangentially related): has anyone published (hopefully for the non-scientist (I am a public labour and industrial historian who was brought up in a science literate home)) a study looking at the tactics and strategies used by the various denialist communities including, but not limited to, evolution, global warming, peak oil, tobacco, and vaccines? Especially the commonalities of both method and funding? If it exists, can someone point me to it? If it does not exist, this would be a great opportunity for a science history writer.

Good work, Tim. I admire your insight, research, and (most of all) your ability to deal with this day in and day out without going postal.

Jonathon Leake recently wrote a story

The link doesn't work (404 error), so I can't check if his parents were really ignorant enough to call him "Jonathon"â¦

â¦also, I don't have a blog. Vox.com merely forces me to pretend, and I need it to be able to comment at Pharyngulaâ¦

Ok, fine, I fixed the spelling of his name.

The link doesn't work (404 error), so I can't check if his parents were really ignorant enough to call him "Jonathon"

Why would that be ignorant? Plenty of people are called Jonathon; it's a perfectly valid spelling.

Note that North works with Christopher Booker, one of the most shameless liars of them all.

2 cbp,

I disagree. "Become"? Tim's always been good at this. (Got to smarm up to the blog owner every so often. ;) )

Very interesting read, thank you.

"We published an article in 1994 in Nature in which we estimated that approximately half of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon were periodically exposed to severe drought and soil moisture depletion, especially during El Nino events."

Just like with the Himalayan glaciers, I most of all wonder: How is it going in the Amazon at the moment, what with the current El NiÃ±o and so many years having gone by?

Starting point for (((Billy))):

this search, as an example (hunt for key words and search using them)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=actics++"public+health"+tobacco

First hit from that:
http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0042-96862000000700007&script=s…

Below the hit articles click the "cited by" number shown to see citing articles, e.g. for that one

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6590350152228365514&hl=en&as_sd…

Good question, and you'll find plenty written on this. I hope you write up a summary/paper/article and post it.

Billy,

A couple of books for you:

"Doubt is Their Product"

"Climate Cover-up" written by PR guy James Hoggan

How many people here posted a comment on the Times Online site and are still waiting for it to be approved?

Hank and T_P_Hamilton: Thanks. This is an area which is not within my normal study realm so I wasn't too sure where to start. Looks good.

Hello, great post. Just to fill in all the dots, how do you know that the Richard North Leake cites is the same North at The Bruges group?

It doesn't matter two jots what Nepstad told you, Tim. The paper was not peer reviewed and thus should not have been relied upon by the IPCC. It's not a matter of allowing either the WWF or Nepstad a 'right of reply' - their paper is simply a typical example of the lies and obfuscation that environmental activist groups undertake - because the issue is with the IPCC and not the WWF.

>*their paper is simply a typical example of the lies and obfuscation that environmental activist groups undertake*

What lies Jack? That half of the forest area of the Amazon was falling below, or very close to, the critical level of soil moisture below which trees begin to die in 1998? Didn't they (WWF et al) get that correct?

Isn't the lie by Leake, when he deliberately concealed the fact that error in the IPCC was actually a missing cite?

On 27, at the risk of feeding a troll: the idea that all scientific work has to be peer-reviewed in order to be relied upon is another of these recent obsessions that are being thrown around with increasing desperation by the pseudo-sceptics.

The fact is that there are plenty of non-peer-reviewed sources of scientific data & analysis (e.g. government reports, work by independant contractors, etc.) that simply need a good critical review before being legitimately incorporated into any further work--something which was done by the researcher discussed in this article.

See: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/the-guardian-disa…

From the justification I must assume that el nino is caused by climate change!

>*From the justification I must assume that el nino is caused by climate change!*

??? Mmm, ???. WT?

Can anyone enlighten me what this comment is refering to or what it means?

jakerman, I believe grunt's logical reasoning goes something like this:

Glaciers are receding, especially during summer.

From the above I must assume that climate change causes summer!

first line of article gives statement for reference purpose.
"up to 40% of the Amazon forest could vanish due to climate change was "bogus"."
Next sentence counters that claim
"and informed him the claim was basically correct:"
Justification given in inserted reference.
"half of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon were periodically exposed to severe drought and soil moisture depletion, especially during El Nino events."
From this justification, I conclude the El Nino is caused by climate change.

The Guardian has reported that Simon Lewis another of the forest researcher has not reported Jonathan Leake to the PCC over the Amazongate story.

[Simon Lewis complains to the PCC about Leake](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/24/sunday-times-ipcc-ama…).

Kevin

@Oxford Kevin #35

Think you meant to type "has now reported Jonathon" - no matter as the link you provide makes it clear. Good news and I hope other scientists follow his lead and complain about [David Rose](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/global_warming/rosegate_1/), [Jonathan Petre](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Asto…), etc. etc.