Joint OceanICU - TRICUSO Webinar: IPCC - What is it all about?
- Thursday, 6 November | 14:00 (CET)
Established in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. Its assessment reports are compiled by leading scientists and are endorsed worldwide by member governments and scientists.
However, its complex process can seem elusive.
What’s the real story? This webinar unpacks the process—outlining how it works and how it helps the scientific community—from the perspective of previous authors and newly elected authors. We explored how the reports are used, how they feed into policy and what the personal motivations are for scientists willing to invest the necessary time to contribute toward them.
Scroll to the bottom for the questions from the audience.
MEET THE PANELLISTS
Stephanie Henson (NOC)
Principal, Bolding & Bruggeman ApS
Richard is the lead coordinator of the OceanICU project. He has worked since 2019 at NORCE in Bergen as Director of the Ocean Thematic Centre within the ICOS research infrastructure. This involves helping the surface ocean pCO2 observing community within Europe make the highest quality observations and in establishing more secure funding routes for surface Ocean C observations. Prior to his move to Bergen he served as Chair of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems Research Group in the UK National Oceanography Centre. He holds an honorary chair in Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton in the UK.
Alessandro Tagliabue (University of Liverpool)
Ocean Forecast Expert, Mercator Ocean International
Project Manager, EDITO-Infra
Richard is the lead coordinator of the OceanICU project. He has worked since 2019 at NORCE in Bergen as Director of the Ocean Thematic Centre within the ICOS research infrastructure. This involves helping the surface ocean pCO2 observing community within Europe make the highest quality observations and in establishing more secure funding routes for surface Ocean C observations. Prior to his move to Bergen he served as Chair of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems Research Group in the UK National Oceanography Centre. He holds an honorary chair in Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton in the UK.
Peter Landschützer (VLIZ)
Technical Coordinator EMODnet
Richard is the lead coordinator of the OceanICU project. He has worked since 2019 at NORCE in Bergen as Director of the Ocean Thematic Centre within the ICOS research infrastructure. This involves helping the surface ocean pCO2 observing community within Europe make the highest quality observations and in establishing more secure funding routes for surface Ocean C observations. Prior to his move to Bergen he served as Chair of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems Research Group in the UK National Oceanography Centre. He holds an honorary chair in Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton in the UK.
Sandy Thomalla
(CSIR)
Technical Coordinator EMODnet
Richard is the lead coordinator of the OceanICU project. He has worked since 2019 at NORCE in Bergen as Director of the Ocean Thematic Centre within the ICOS research infrastructure. This involves helping the surface ocean pCO2 observing community within Europe make the highest quality observations and in establishing more secure funding routes for surface Ocean C observations. Prior to his move to Bergen he served as Chair of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems Research Group in the UK National Oceanography Centre. He holds an honorary chair in Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton in the UK.
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Questions from the Audience
Answered by Stephanie Henson
It’s not about your skill and judgment as a scientist to make that assessment of uncertainty or likelihood language. The IPCC lays out guidelines about the uncertainty. The likelihood has quantitative numbers associated with this, for example 99% certain to happen, or 50% chance of happening. So if you are unable from the literature to determine what the likelihood of something is, or how certain we are about something, it doesn’t get into the report because you can’t assign it a certainty.
There are high confidence and low confidence statements that are included, although they don’t have quantitative numbers underlying them. The guideline states that if there’s loads of information out there and everybody seems to have consensus about a particular process, then you can give it high confidence. But otherwise, you have to be specific about the low confidence.
There is an effort to include ECRs within the IPCC. That is one of the criteria for selecting authors. There are definitely people who were on the ECR end which is really nice to see. Did we get training? Probably not centrally from the IPCC. But there were a lot of talks with different people about the lead author meetings and finding out how it all works and how it is done.
Answered by Alessandro Tagliabue
No, I want to just say that you can’t be policy prescriptive. That’s the mantra, you can’t prescribe a solution. The IPCC always say they’re not policy prescriptive. So if you start drifting into saying things like we should enact this action, then you might get pulled back. There is no censorship but there’s scoping.
The idea that someone would say, you can’t say this because you’re not conforming to some perceived orthodoxy about climate change. It is not true. That doesn’t happen.
There is a certain balance by the IPCC. There would be in any chapter a blend of new and more experienced authors. You don’t get formal training, there are some webinars. Everything is so specific to what each group is researching that it would be very difficult to provide general training.
Of course, there will be interesting moments or after the lead author meetings. We could update after key milestones.
Answered by Sandy Thomalla
I got an email from the IPCC to fill out a survey to indicate where I need help. For the new African authors of the AR7 they are gathering information with the intention to make sure that we get the most help and support.
Answered by Richard Sanders