The Australian newspaper ran with a typical sensationalist headline this morning, titled “Report undercuts Kevin Rudd’s Great Barrier Reef wipeout“. The journalist in question might sound familiar – he is the same same journalist who penned the deliberately misleading “How the reef became blue again” article (see here for our response at Climate Shifts: “Why the Great Barrier Reef isn’t magically blue again“). So continues The Australian’s ongoing war against science, creating contention and deliberately clouding issues to sell newspapers. “Report undercuts Kevin Rudd’s Great Barrier Reef wipeout” – sorry Jamie, there is no undercutting here.

KEVIN Rudd’s insistence that the Great Barrier Reef could be “destroyed beyond recognition” by global warming grates with new science suggesting it will again escape temperature-related coral bleaching.

One of the main issues in the article is that there is no ‘new science’ to be reported. Hugh and his team at the Australian Institute of Marine Science have been surveying these reefs annually since the early 1990’s. The ‘spin’ here is completely misleading, as there is no ‘new science’ or even a report to base the article on! The article continues:

Going head-to-head with Tony Abbott for the first time since he became Opposition Leader, Mr Rudd said the reef would be destroyed if global temperatures increased by 4C.

“I noticed the other day, by the way, that the Leader of the Opposition said that, if the worst-case scenario put out by scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were to come to pass and we were to see global temperature increases of the order of 4 degrees centigrade, it did not represent any big moral challenge for the future,” Mr Rudd said. “Can I say that, if we saw temperature increases like that, as far as the Barrier Reef is concerned, frankly, it would be destroyed beyond recognition.”

Mr Rudd’s warning reflects the findings of the 2007 report of the IPCC that is under intensifying fire for exaggerating the threat to Himalayan glaciers and the Amazon rainforest. The IPCC predicted the reef would be subject to annual bleaching by 2030 if climate change continued unchecked, destroying much of its coral cover.

But after scouring 14 sites at the vulnerable southern end of the GBR last month, the team from Townsville-based AIMS found only a only a handful of “slightly stressed reefs”.

It seems to me that Kevin Rudd has managed to hit the nail squarely on the head, only for The Australian to then get it completely wrong. It appears that the article has managed to mix up the AIMS projections for this summers coral bleaching outlook with the long-term projections of coral bleaching in the region (30-50 year outlook). The ‘handful’ of slightly stressed reefs doesn’t negate the findings of the IPCC or Rudd’s claims that the reef will be destroyed if global temperatures increased by 4C. As Hugh rightly points out,

Dr Sweatman said a deep monsoonal trough, reinforced by tropical cyclones Olga and Neville, had averted “doldrums” conditions associated with coral bleaching on the reef.

Which is exactly what happened in 2006. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the GBR region experienced its eighth warmest year on record in 2009, and the warming trend is unmistakable.

Finally, the article strives to convince the general public that as scientists, we “fear” that mass bleaching events will become more frequent due to global warming, and our ‘fears’ have been substantially allayed. Although it makes for great sensational journalism, this simply isn’t the issue – this isn’t a “fear” but a scientific fact. Next time, let’s stick to fact over fearmongering and keep the science objective.

The consistent attempts by a well organised and well funded denialist movement have recently focused on the sources of information used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Through an transparent set of guidelines to how to deal with literature (the next set of guidelines are about to be published in preparation for AR5), the IPCC has referenced the thousands of scientific papers to gain the latest consensus view on climate and related sciences.  This stands in contrast to the lack of scrutiny, credibility or honesty of the principal champions of denialist viewpoint.  In that case, when one looks at Carter, Bolt, Minchin, Lehr, Joyce, Monckton and Plimer, we see a series of individuals pushing crazy ideas about scientific conspiracy and a Communist world takeover.

Several denialists have focused on a report that came out of a research contract that I undertook for the international conservation group, Greenpeace (click here to download the report).  This relatively short report brought together a number of experts to examine how changes to the health of coral reefs as result of coral bleaching might affect coastal people in 13 Pacific countries. It was written by a series of experts with years of experience, high credibility and tons of peer reviewed publications in the area.  Peer review of the report involved be following appropriate Pacific experts:

·         Dr Mahendra Reddy, Lecturer in Development Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva.
·         Mr Lionel Gibson, Geography Department, University of the South Pacific, Suva.
·         Mr Joeli Veitayaki, Coordinator, Marine Affairs Programme University of the South Pacific, Suva.

Two individuals (one from Greenpeace) read the report for consistency and to ensure we had fulfilled the contract.

Our report was referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in chapter 4 of the Working Group II report for the fourth assessment.  While Greenpeace was the contracting organisation, they had no influence over the analysis or conclusions.  And just like any other organisations that I undertake expert contracts with (which includes partnerships with Rio Tinto, the Australian government, and many others) the analysis and conclusions are those of the research team, and those alone.   Given that the report had been independently peer-reviewed, then it would be appropriate to the IPCC to use it, if it contains useful information.

So, once again it seems we have yet another case of desperation from the denialist movement – cherry picking around the edges and ignoring the hundreds if not thousands lines of evidence that support the notion that our climate is changing and the impacts are likely to be considerable and vast.

It is very flattering that Andrew Bolt takes a special interest in my scientific research.  In his latest posting, his whipped his fan club into a frenzy over some graphics from my 1999 paper.  I gave a copy of this paper to him when I met him last year hoping that he would understand it.

But, surprise surprise, my good friend Andrew Bolt has stuffed up again.  I guess he stuffs up when it comes to political predictions, his understanding of complex issues like the stolen generation, as well as his ability to understand science.  Whilst I don’t hold the above against him (pedalling disinformation seems to be quite profitable for him!), but I do think we need to clarify the details:

Andrew has made a meal out of the fact that we have not seen bleaching every second year, as might be predicted from this figure.  The predictions were made by taking the known thresholds to coral bleaching (which are hard and fast, and are the basis for very successful satellite tools that can predict coral bleaching) and combining it with the best climate modelling available at the time.  The net conclusion is that mass coral bleaching will increase over the next few decades until it becomes a yearly event (well, as long as coral lasts!). This is a logical conclusion of the two data sets.

The details of exactly when and where this occurs, is associated by a huge amount of variability which is otherwise known as the weather.  In response to him on his Blog, I wrote to him (I don’t think he is going to post it because it runs counter to the opinions of his sycophantic fan club!):

“At this point in the research, we know that coral bleaching will occur at a particular temperature within a particular region.  We also have the predictions of how the sea temperature will change, and hence the only at this point is that, round about 2015 or so (give or take 5-10 years), we will start to see the risk of coral bleaching increase until every second year as a bleaching event and so on.

I suspect because of the variability that an unambiguous resolution of this will not occur until you and I are celebrating our 61st birthdays on September 26, 2020.  I personally do not look forward to that day because all of the evidence suggests that the scientific community is correct in this assessment and conclusion.  At that point, we will be mourning the significant features of the Great Barrier Reef.”

A few days ago a journalist from one of the major British newspapers contacted me for my opinion on the IPCC review process, and I thought that i’d post my response here for a bit of clarity:

1.      Do you have concerns about science, data or claims presented in the final draft of the IPCC AR4 report? If so, please detail.

I do not have any major concerns except to point out that the IPCC AR4 is probably a little behind the latest science due to its careful review process and it requires the consensus of the wide array of experts involved.   The other major reason for saying this lies in the fact that the assessment reports of the IPCC are only published every 5 years or so.  The science of climate change is continuously and rapidly changing, hence reports get out of date very quickly.

Perhaps the best example of the fact that the IPCC is conservative in its predictions with the fact that AR4 failed to predict the sudden and precipitous drop of the Arctic summer sea ice.  This was not the fault of the highly qualified scientists involved, but a consequence of the fact that predictions like this are often highly controversial and, despite being true, require greater scientific investigation before all members of the IPCC expert teams involved are willing to sign on to them.  Hence, the IPCC process is an inherently conservative one, which has enormous significance to our understanding of the risk of a rapidly changing climate.

2.      Clearly the recent revelations and apology have dented public confidence in the IPCC’s process, what can the IPCC do to restore confidence in its findings for future reports?

Whereas the recent cherry-picking by a well supported denialist movement may have dented the public’s confidence in the IPCC process, the scientific community still stands behind the IPCC process.   I think that it would be very useful for journalists such as yourself to outline the process of coming to a conclusion on both sides of the debate.  On one side, you have well supported consensus science while on the other, you have non-peer-reviewed conclusions, bias and conjecture. Personally, if the public did actually see this, I don’t think they would be so much confusion.

One of the last points that make in response to your question, is that the IPCC is continuously reviewing the way that it goes about its processes.  This is a good strategy, whether you are making aircraft, manufacturing kitchen equipment or reviewing the latest science from the IPCC.  In the next few months, there are a number of documents that will be released from the IPCC (the result of review committees since AR4) that will recommend improvements to the IPCC process as we move towards AR5.  Clearly an organisation that is serious about quality and excellence undergoes such adaptive self improving reviews and procedures on a regular basis – the result being consistent with the IPCC’s mission statement of transparency, objectivity and honesty in reporting the latest science.

3.      Do you still have confidence in the chair and vice-chairs of the IPCC or should they stand down from their positions? Please also give a short explanation for your answer?

Personally, I have the utmost confidence in Dr Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC vice chairs.  The sustained attack by the denialist movement have done nothing to demonstrate that Dr. Pachauri or the vice chairs have not fulfilled their IPCC duties to a high level of excellence. Attempts to undermine a couple of statements within the AR4 of the IPCC do not constitute reasons for not taking the other 99.99% of the carefully reviewed and supported science extremely seriously.

Perhaps it is useful to look at the standards on the other side of the ‘debate’.  The recent book by the denialist Ian Plimer from the University of Adelaide (“Heaven and Earth) had so many errors and falsely supported references that one university professor commented that the book would fail outright if it had been submitted as a Ph.D. thesis.

4.       Should the AR4 be reviewed in detail to check for other errors, particularly given that it is a document designed to help governments and officials make policy decisions that can impact both the environment and on people’s lives?

It is important to already realise that the IPCC is already a review document – its role already is to bring together the conclusions of thousands of scientific studies.  It also has a clear and transparent process and a excellent track record of reporting the latest scientific consensus accurately (see above).  This is unparalleled by any other source of information (compare it to the convicted felon and chief scientist Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute for example).   In my opinion, as someone who knows the IPCC process and its outputs well, I don’t think a detailed review would find more than vanishingly small number of poorly supported or erroneous statements, among thousands of scientific statements that are robustly supported.

However, given the extreme importance of climate change to government decision-making, it would be important in my opinion for any government or decision-making body using the IPCC process to apply due diligence – to explore it and be satisfied with its accuracy, objectivity and thoroughness.