‘The general theme of obscurantism runs across the document’ — ‘Ducking, diving, bobbing and weaving are the general themes of the [IPCC] Summary for Policymakers, just released’
Andrew Montford: 'Not a word on the hurricane drought in recent years.'
'The divergence between model and observational estimates of long-term warming (effective climate sensitivity) is alluded to in opaque fashion in a footnote ("lack of agreement on values across lines of evidence") rather than being tackled head on in a way that would make clear the difficulties scientists are having with the climate jigsaw.
The general theme of obscurantism runs across the document. Whereas in previous years the temperature records have been shown unadulterated, now we have presentation of a single figure for each decade; surely an attempt to mislead rather than inform. And the pause is only addressed with handwaving arguments and vague allusions to ocean heat.
From the questions asked by journalists at the press conference, few cared about the science and the contradictions in what they were being told. The press corps are, almost to a man (and woman) environmentalists and only interesting in decarbonisation.
