By Anthony Watts /
Via Retraction Watch:
A major new report about the dramatic warming of the oceans cites a 2018 Nature paper on the topic that was retracted earlier this week — the same day, in fact, that the report dropped.
But one of the authors of that paper tells Retraction Watch that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report, released September 25, must have meant to cite a different paper by the same authors.
The report concluded that:
It is virtually certain that the global ocean has warmed unabated since 1970 and has taken up more than 90% of the excess heat in the climate system (high confidence). Since 1993, the rate of ocean warming has more than doubled (likely).
…
What makes the flawed citation more remarkable is that researchers have been aware of errors in the analysis for more than 10 months. As we — and others — have reported, almost immediately after publication of the paper Nic Lewis blogged about his concerns with the analysis, concerns that eventually prompted the retraction.
Full story at Retraction Watch
The paper, Resplandy et al. has been well covered in WUWT since Nic Lewis first pointed out the fatal flaw in the “peer reviewed” paper.
This latest blunder seems pretty par for the course with the IPCC, and as we’ve seen in the past they’ve not only used “grey literature” but travel brochures as references to “scientific” assessments.
This latest blunder underscores the worthlessness of the IPCC to real science.
What we can do though, is alert them with reports about this error. From their website:
In case of a suspected error in an IPCC report, please send a mail to [email protected] containing the following information: Complete name, Telephone, Organization, Country, Publication, Chapter, Page, Line, and Comments. The IPCC Protocol for Addressing Possible Errors is here
I suspect all we will get is what Retraction watch got – a form email. Doesn’t hurt to try, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
