RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Climatologist and statistician Hans von Storch is one of three prominent scientists who have called for major reform of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the resignation of chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

The trio, which includes environmental researchers professor Richard Tol and professor Roger Pielke Jr, used an opinion piece in Der Spiegel to outline its case and list what it sees as the IPCC's failings.

Central to their argument is the requirement to safeguard the IPCC's reputation, and the credibility of the climate science which underpins policy decisions.

Der Spiegel published the article in the wake of a debacle over the rate at which glaciers in the Himalayas are shrinking. A 2007 IPCC report stated that glaciers could disappear by 2035, with disastrous consequence for water supplies in South Asia. Earlier this month, the IPCC admitted this was an error. But following the controversy surrounding emails between climatologists, there is concern that what has become known in climate circles as 'Glaciergate' will provide more ammunition to parties seeking to undermine confidence in the scientific consensus on climate change.

In the Der Spiegel article, Von Storch, Tol and Pielke say the "IPCC has failed" to live up to its ideals, and that the organisation's "shortfalls are illustrated with the behaviour of Pachauri". During his tenure, Pachauri has "participated in overt political advocacy" and failed to acknowledge and correct "a serious breach of the organisation's own standards of review."

They recognise that "such a large body of work [as the IPCC's 2007 report] contains some errors is unavoidable", but that an "appropriate mechanism to deal with false or contested knowledge claims is needed." Furthermore they assert "the IPCC needs to adhere to its own standards for appointing experts and reviewing material that it reports ... The IPCC peer-review should be made more robust, with quality assurance overriding deadlines. A formal mechanism should be put in place to correct errors after publication."

The trio say that research on Himalayan glaciers by Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is built "on the back of the error in the IPCC report". Furthermore, they assert that TERI has been funded by companies "with a financial interest in climate policy. Astoundingly, it appears that Pachauri has not broken any rules for the simple reason that there is no code of conduct governing conflicts of interest for IPCC participants and leaders."

Guidelines for the behavior of IPCC officials are required, they say, "and those guidelines must be enforced. With a policy on conflict of interest similar to those in place in leading scientific advisory institutions, it seems obvious that the IPCC would need a new chairperson."

Hans von Storch is a director of the Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. Since 2003 he has been editor-in-chief of the journal Climate Research .