We must listen to the IPCC say the climate alarmists – except when it's not hysterical enough

As the Earth chills, polar bears and penguins gambol on the expanding polar ice, and Al Gore tries to repackage his patented brand of hysterical dishonesty, the BBC's chief global warming climate change alarmist, Richard Black, is scrambling around with increasing desperation for stories to keep the doomsday scenario alive.

And so we get reports like this on the BBC's website. Under the headline 'Forecast for big sea level rise', Black writes:

Sea levels could rise by up to one-and-a-half metres by the end of this century, according to a new scientific analysis.

This is substantially more than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast in last year's landmark assessment of climate science.

Sea level rise of this magnitude would have major impacts on low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

The findings were presented at a major science conference in Vienna.

The research group is not the first to suggest that the IPCC's forecast of an average rise in global sea levels of 28-43cm by 2100 is too conservative.

And so it goes on. The story, which reports findings by a UK/Finnish team, is suitably adorned with a beautiful yet poignant image of a Bangladeshi woman up to her waist in water, clutching a child.

For the sake of keeping the arithmetic simple, let's consider a sea level rise of 0.9 meters, towards the low end of the projections that have got Black so excited. This would require an average rise of a 100mm per decade for the next 90 years, or 10mm per year. Buried deep in Black's article is the current average annual rise: 3mm.

So how are the researchers able to predict a more than trebling in the rate of sea level rise? By using that paragon of reliability, the computer model, of course.

And into this particular computer model they fed information about ice caps melting as a result of rising global temperatures, regardless of the fact that the global temperature hasn't risen in the last ten years, and fell last year (it's projected to fall again this year, but unlike the alarmists we'll stick to observed facts). And regardless too of the fact that the Antarctic ice is at record coverage, the Arctic ice is recovering after recent melting, and ocean temperatures aren't rising.

The report reaches new heights of absurdity when Black quotes another scientist, Steve Nerem from the University of Colorado, as saying: "There's a lot of evidence out there that we're going to see at least a metre of sea level rise by 2100."

How the hell can anyone, let alone someone who purports to be a scientist, say they have 'evidence' that we're going to see something? On what planet does that constitute acceptable scientific methodology? And how can Black, with a straight face, include such a self-evidently preposterous statement in what purports to be a science report?

No scientist, of course, has ever produced a single grain of evidence to support any of the tenets of man-made global warming climate change. All they have ever produced are predictions, projections and guesswork, all of which have been based on the now-discredited hypothesis that global temperatures would continue to rise in line with CO2 emissions.

Another thing that's interesting about this story is that Black appears to have lost faith in the all-seeing, all-knowing, IPCC. You'll be aware that, whenever a 'rogue' scientist or politician raises doubts about the causes, effects or very existence of global warming climate change, the BBC, Gore and the rest of the alarmist movement invoke the IPCC, which they claim represents the views of the world's leading scientists, as the dissent-crusher of last resort.

Leaving aside the fact that the IPCC is not a scientific body, but a hopelessly politicised and bureaucratised offshoot of the United Nations that uses science when the science fits its agenda, and disregards it when it doesn't, it's strange then that Black is only too ready to doubt the findings of the IPCC when someone comes up with an even more alarming prediction than it can offer.

But we shouldn't be that surprised, because of all the reporters shilling for the alarmists, Black is one of the most shameless, shouting about every new finding, however unconvincing, that fits that alarmist narrative and ignoring any evidence that doesn't. At least his colleague Roger Harrabin had the decency to hold out for a couple of emails before caving in to threats from an eco-fascist (Glenn Beck video here if you haven't seen it). In Black's case, no threats are necessary.