ABC audited by BFF BBC

ABC's new chairman James Spigelman must have a screw loose if he thinks an audit of the ABC by its bestest friend the BBC will produce anything other than a white washed outcome. 

If Mr Spigelman seeks an independent evaluation of the ABC's performance it need look no further than this little blog. And it's free!

IPCC correct Table 10.2

In August last year we notified the IPCC (see HERE and HERE) of a series of errors with Table 10.2 of its Assessment Report Four, Working Group 2 report. These errors (listed HERE) included missing and incorrect references, incorrect and misleading claims about warming in the Himalaya and the astounding claim that temperatures in Sri Lanka were warming at a rate of 2 degrees per year!
The IPCC have finally made corrections to the relevant section of Table 10.2. Here's the original table (click to enlarge):

And here's the corrected version with changes made to Nepal and Sri Lanka, downloaded from the IPCC website on the 4/1/2011:

The complete corrected version of table 10.2 can be found HERE. We have not investigated other claims in the table.
The errors were discussed in a post on WUWT titled  Himalayan warming – pulling another thread from IPCC’s fragile tapestry. Comments in this post clearly identified the source of the error in Sri Lankan temperatures, finding reviewers comments were ignored at least two times.
It's great to see the IPCC finally clean up these errors, however as of 8 January 2011 there has been no acknowledgement of the error, no editorial statement explaining the changes the IPCC has made to its table, the changes are not listed in AR4 WGII errata, and no there has been no recognition of the role of ABC NEWS Watch and WUWT in assisting IPCC correct its report.

You may recall discovery of the errors arose when the ABC attempted to back up a claim in a report it sourced from the BBC that suggested  temperatures were rising faster at Mount Everest than the rest of South Asia. When ABC were requested to provide details of the “Studies” they cited  Table 10.2 from IPCC's AR4 Working Group 2 report.  However, contrary to ABC’s claims this table (see the old version above) showed that the area of fastest rising temperature in South Asia was Sri Lanka, not the Himalaya (and hence not Mt Everest). Both claims have now been shown to be erroneous. Interestingly the original BBC report "Sherpas warn ice melt is making Everest 'dangerous'", has never been corrected.


Funny where ABC's mistakes will ultimately lead. Job Done!


We have added a new page with all posts in this series under the title "Himalaya/IPCC".

BBC plans could be applied to ABC

Seems there's a lesson or two here for ABC head honcho Mark Scott; bigger isn't always better. 
But, please no cuts to ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs they are doing a great job!
BBC plans to halve website