Der Spiegel reports:
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research would prefer to leave any discussion of the global warming hiatus entirely out of the new IPCC report summary. “In climate research, changes don’t count until they’ve been observed on a timescale of 30 years,” claims one delegate participating in the negotiations on behalf of German Research Minister Johanna Wanka of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Ministry for the Environment’s identical stance: “Climate fluctuations that don’t last very long are not scientifically relevant.”
At most, German delegates at the conference would be willing to include an admission that “the pace of temperature change has slowed” — a reinterpretation that doesn’t correspond to the latest research findings.
Germany’s highest-ranking climate researcher, physicist Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in Hamburg, is fighting back against this refusal to face facts. Marotzke, who is also president of the German Climate Consortium and Germany’s top scientific representative in Stockholm, promises, “We will address this subject head-on.” The IPCC, he says, must engage in discussion about the standstill in temperature rise.
German Research Minister Johanna Wanka of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Ministry for the Environment’s identical stance: “Climate fluctuations that don’t last very long are not scientifically relevant.”
What a wonderfully appropriate name.
“In climate research, changes don’t count until they’ve been observed on a timescale of 30 years,” – So, the trend of increasing temperatures from the late 70’s to the late 90’s does NOT count (because the trend is to short and the plateau is as well) and the IPCC has been wasting our time and money?
Den Rückgang zu verbergen?