IAC Review of ClimateGate Calls for Reorganization and Transparency

A review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) IPCC "climate-gate" emails reports that the science is valid, but the process needs a complete makeover, to bring it up to modern standards of transparency.

Read the Executive Summary here: http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report/Executive%20Summary%20and%20Front%20Matter.pdf. I excerpted the recommendations below:

"The Committee found that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall. However, the world has changed considerably since the creation of the IPCC, with major advances in climate science, heated controversy on some climate-related issues, and an increased focus of governments on the impacts and potential responses to changing climate. A wide variety of interests have entered the climate discussion, leading to greater overall scrutiny and demands from stakeholders. The IPCC must continue to adapt to these changing conditions in order to continue serving society well in the future."

CHARACTERIZING AND COMMUNICATING UNCERTAINTY

These recommendations are lifted from the report.

"Recommendation: The IPCC should establish an Executive Committee to act on its behalf between Plenary sessions. The membership of the Committee should include the IPCC Chair, the Working Group Co-chairs, the senior member of the Secretariat, and 3 independent members, including some from outside of the climate community. Members would be elected by the Plenary and serve until their successors are in place." ....


"Recommendation: The IPCC should elect an Executive Director to lead the Secretariat and handle day-to-day operations of the organization. The term of this senior scientist should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment. ....


"Recommendation: The IPCC should encourage Review Editors to fully exercise their
authority to ensure that reviewers’ comments are adequately considered by the authors and that genuine controversies are adequately reflected in the report. ....


Recommendation: The IPCC should adopt a more targeted and effective process for
responding to reviewer comments. In such a process, Review Editors would prepare a
written summary of the most significant issues raised by reviewers shortly after review comments have been received. Authors would be required to provide detailed written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the Review Editors, abbreviated responses to all non-editorial comments, and no written responses to editorial comments.

"Recommendation: All Working Groups should use the qualitative level-of-understanding scale in their Summary for Policy Makers 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." ....

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"Recommendation: Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is efficient 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). ....

COMMUNICATIONS

"Recommendation: The IPCC should complete and implement a communications strategy that emphasizes transparency, rapid and thoughtful responses, and relevance to stakeholders, and which includes guidelines about who can speak on behalf of IPCC and how to represent the organization appropriately. ....