Solomon’s “Divergence” Problem « Climate Audit

Although NOAA were minor players in the Climategate letters, the recent report from the Inspector General of the US Department of Commerce (re NOAA) is the first report to date in which the investigators made any effort to crosscheck evidence from Climategate correspondents against independent sources.

NOAA Misrepresents Inspector General Report « Climate Audit

NOAA’s assertion that Solomon had been “given legal advice that IPCC work done by scientists were records of the IPCC, not NOAA” is not a finding of the report. Solomon claimed that she’d been given such advice, but the NOAA lawyers denied giving it to her, with the IG saying that he was unable to reconcile the divergent claims.

NOAA’s assertion in the press release misrepresents the IG report, a misrepresentation that has been picked up by various news outlets, e.g. CBC here.

Scientist's View: In Climate Action, No Shortcuts Around CO2 - NYTimes.com

Given the recent push on other substances, many of the scientists most deeply immersed in charted human-driven heating of the planet have become increasingly concerned that carbon dioxide’s primacy is under-appreciated.

This group includes Susan Solomon, the federal climate scientist who led the 2007 science review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Kenneth Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University and Raymond T. Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago and (on occasion) Realclimate.org.

I recently toyed with the idea of calling such scientists “CO2 hawks” — as distinct from self-described “ climate hawks.” But Solomon (wisely) counseled me against adding yet another divisive and implicitly political labels to the caustic mix.