First, the IPCC  Himalayan glaciers claim turned out to be based on speculation from an interview — and copied incorrectly.  Almost immediately after that scandal, the claim that anthropogenic global warming could kill off 40% of the rainforest was exposed as an unsubstantiated claim from the World Wildlife Fund, postulated by two activists, neither of whom were climate scientists.  It just seemed like a matter of time before someone started digging through the IPCC’s report to knock down the entire house of cards.  Today the Telegraph reports on its research into the basis for the IPCC’s claims on AGW and discovers that much of its foundation consists of highly suspect components (via Newsbeat1):

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report is supposed to be the world’s most authoritative scientific account of the scale of global warming.

But this paper has discovered a series of new flaws in it including:

  • The publication of inaccurate data on the potential of wave power to produce electricity around the world, which was wrongly attributed to the website of a commercial wave-energy company.
  • Claims based on information in press releases and newsletters.
  • New examples of statements based on student dissertations, two of which were unpublished.
  • More claims which were based on reports produced by environmental pressure groups.

Student dissertations? The IPCC claims to use the peer-reviewed standard; in the East Anglia CRU e-mails, its chief threatened to redefine peer review to block legitimate scientists from introducing peer-reviewed papers that contradicted AGW claims. And in this case, these aren’t even doctoral theses:

It can also be revealed that claims made by the IPCC about the effects of global warming, and suggestions about ways it could be avoided, were partly based on information from ten dissertations by Masters students.

One unpublished dissertation was used to support the claim that sea-level rise could impact on people living in the Nile delta and other African coastal areas, although the main focus of the thesis, by a student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, appears to have been the impact of computer software on environmental development.

The IPCC also made use of a report by US conservation group Defenders of Wildlife to state that salmon in US streams have been affected by rising temperatures. The panel has already come under fire for using information in reports by conservation charity the WWF.

Estimates of carbon-dioxide emissions from nuclear power stations and claims that suggested they were cheaper than coal or gas power stations were also taken from the website of the World Nuclear Association, rather than using independent scientific calculations.

In fact, the Telegraph also reports that the IPCC deliberately ignored a peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Roger Pielke, an AGW believer who considers much of the alarmist rhetoric as fantasy.  The IPCC says that they believed Pielke “changed his mind” based on nothing at all, certainly not on any contact with Pielke, whose complaints led to the disclosure.

The IPCC doesn’t do science.  They do advocacy, mainly for the idea of international control of energy and manufacturing, with a healthy dose of redistribution of wealth.  These revelations should put an end to any reliance on IPCC work for American policy, and the UN should be pressured to fire everyone involved in this sham, starting with railroad engineer Rajendra Pachauri.