Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics 
Department of Economics and Finance
University of Guelph
519-824-4120 x53051
ross.mckitrick [at] uoguelph.ca
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Global Warming: IPCC Reviews & Critiques

CRITIQUES OF THE IPCC

THE IPCC'S DILEMMA IN ONE GRAPH: FINANCIAL POST COLUMN Sept 16 2013: The IPCC's Dilemma in One Graph. As we await the coming IPCC Report, I am keen to see how they deal with the evidence in one of their own graphs, which indicates a strong tendency for climate models to exaggerate the warming effect of CO2 emissions. Their attempt to explain it away in the body of the report is risible. I take the graph as indicating that we are entering a decisive period in which the models will either be vindicated in spectacular fashion by a sudden and rather massive warming trend, or they will be seen to be irredeemably wrong. The German study I mentioned is here. 

CONFERENCE ON RECONCILIATION IN CLIMATE CHANGE: During the last week of January 2011 I was at a conference in Lisbon on the theme of Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate. We were each asked to submit a 2-page note ahead of time. I had no idea what to submit, nor did I know who would be there at the time I accepted the invitation and made my submission. The note I sent in is here. In the end, the conference discussion went off in other directions and little note was taken of what I said. Before submitting it I deleted the words Carthago delenda est from the end of the last paragraph, but as it turns out I probably wouldn't have had much argument on the point from most of the people there. 


*2011: THE IPCC: FIX IT OR NIX IT, so to speak. I have published a report through the UK Global Warming Policy Foundation that reviews the assessment procedures of the IPCC and makes a series of recommendations for reform. The report is available here. I have also published an op-ed in the Financial Post describing the report. The report would have been an important point of discussion in any case, but in light of the release today of the  Climategate II emails, it is even more timely. 


I also discussed specific criticisms of how the IPCC operates in the following presentations, one of which became a book chapter and the other appeared in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Econonomics.
  • *McKitrick, Ross R. (2007) Bringing Balance, Disclosure and Due Diligence into Science-Based Policymaking  Presented to "Public Science in Liberal Democracy: The Challenge to Science and Democracy", University of Saskatoon, October 2004; Forthcoming chapter in book of same name, Jene Porter ed. (2007), University of Toronto Press.
  • *McKitrick, Ross R. (2005) Science and Environmental Policymaking: Bias-Proofing the Assessment Process Invited keynote address, International Policy Forum on Greenhouse Gas Management, University of Victoria, April 29, 2005. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics (53) 275-290.
February 28, 2007: Newsweek contacted me for an interview. By the end of it, the editor I spoke to decided they could not really fit what I had to say into a story, and they invited me to write a column instead. 

Fall 2007 I gave a talk at a conference sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, where I was a respondent to a presentation by David Henderson entitled "Governments and Climate Change Issues: the Flawed Consensus." In my remarks I discuss a series of examples drawn from my observations acting as an IPCC reviewer which, in my view, establish a disturbing pattern of bias on the part of the IPCC. I also explain how I think it should be fixed.
  • McKitrick, Ross R. (2007) Response to Henderson's "Government and Climate Change: A Flawed Consensus". in Todd, Walker and Kerry Lynch, eds. American Institute of Economic Research Economic Education Bulletin, vol. 48 no. 5 (May 2008) Special Issue “The Global Warming Debate: Science, Economics and Policy.” pp. 83—104. 
IPCC REVIEWS AND ISPM

MY IPCC AR5 REVIEW: Comments on the Second Draft hare here in a single PDF file. The first couple of comments refer to a Figure that has already been widely distributed. 


FEBRUARY 2007: McKitrick, Ross R., et al. (2007) Independent Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, Working Group I 
During the preparation of the ISPM there were a number of topics we decided to explore in more detail since the IPCC ignored or downplayed them altogether. That led to the book:
  • *McKitrick, Ross R. (ed.) (2009) Critical Topics in Global Warming Fraser Institute: April 2009. 
It's an approachable but technical treatment of 8 important issues the IPCC either ignores or gets wrong.

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