Call For Tighter Review Of IPCC Data
THE Australian scientist who compiled a disputed UN report on climate change is pushing for a more rigorous review of data.
Professor Jean Palutikof, who spent five years at the British Met Office preparing the UN report, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, admitted yesterday the existing system was flawed because "quite a lot" of information had not been peer-reviewed by independent scientists before publication.
She said the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which underpins international decision-making by governments, "needs to remain very credible".
"It would be a shame if the IPCC became suspect," Professor Palutikof told The Australian yesterday.
The UN has asked the Academy of Sciences to review the IPCC's processes, after widespread criticism of its Fourth Assessment Report, which Professor Palutikof managed. Flaws included a statement that most Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, based on a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Professor Palutikof said that the authors of the next IPCC report would need to be "very, very, very careful about writing things down every step of the way".
"For the Fifth Assessment, it will have to be different," she said. "There's a widely held view among the scientific community that much greater scrutiny as you go through the assessment will be required.
"The Fourth Assessment has been very carefully reviewed by people other than the authorities, subsequent to being completed. But it would be very nice if we didn't have to spend all of the time going back over stuff to check it."
Professor Palutikof said the Fourth Assessment report was being "picked over by people" because it had been based on "quite a lot" of information that had come from governmental, conservation group or UN reports, without having been peer-reviewed and published in scientific journals such as Science or Nature.
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