first published in weblog one hundred and forty eight on Sunday 28th May 2006

One problem with Global Warming Orthodoxy is that it is based on some pretty questionable scientific hypotheses built into its Climate Forecasting Models. Most of the computer models embrace partial hypotheses that rely on Old Science and are backed up by data of very varying reliability. Climate Science is a rapidly evolving field...and one that Climate Politics is unable to keep abreast of. New connections are being made by Good Science all the time.

With this uppermost in my mind I decided to take another of the one hundred blog spots that my Berlin-based bloghosts and devoted to Shepherd on Climate. I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon posting everything written in this year’s William Shepherd weblogs onto the new site.

My request on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC website for their report generated an instant e-mail response for downloading the document. I had to promise not to cite, quote or distribute it before I could get the document but duly did so. Not being sure quite how to keep on the right side of The Feds I then consulted my partner at the Cliff’s Edge Signalling Company on what to do with the document. Here is what I wrote.

I have downloaded the 15-page draft IPCC Report on Global Warming and was wondering about making it available on the cesc website for policymakers such as ourselves and our cesc colleagues...behind a password perhaps. Do you have a view on how cesc should deal with this? I ask because despite US Freedom of Information Acts etc. the IPCC website states ‘please do not cite, quote, or distribute the draft report’...see today's weblog for background.

I also included the text of the reply that went like this. Date: Tue, 9 May 2006; To: REB Limited (UK Company Number 04199788); Thank you for your interest in participating in the US Government Review of the Working Group I contribution ('Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis') to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. You will need the following username and password to access the Draft document; username = usreview; password = phys-sci. And the email continues in the best UN/S federalese.

Be advised that you must be a US citizen or resident alien to participate in the US Government Review. Please send properly formatted comments by the 9 May 2006 deadline if you wish to have your input considered for the official US Government submission. Comments submitted as part of the US Government Review should be reserved for that purpose and not also sent to the IPCC Working Group I Technical Support Unit as a discrete set of expert comments.

I particularly like the bit about the rights of aliens. But I suppose Venusians have a legitimate interest in making sure Planet Earth doesn’t go the way of their planet after the trouble the Pleiadians took to stock our solar system with intelligent life forms.

more from Shepherd on Climate