Scientists argue for new climate science approaches

A number of mistakes and eroding public confidence has some scientists calling for drastic changes in how future United Nations climate reports are handled.

Scientists are laying out arguments for reform in Thursday's issue of Nature as clamor grows for the resignation of the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Like the financial sector last year, the IPCC is currently experiencing a failure of trust that reeals flaws in its structure, wrote Eduardo Zorita of the GKSS Research Centre in Germany.

The latest IPCC report said that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 -- a huge exaggeration -- exposing a number of shortcomings of the IPCC process.

It also follows revelations last November that University of East Anglia climate scientists stonewalled climate skeptics. The researchers were found to have violated Britain's Freedom of Information laws.

Zorita called for the panel to be made stronger and independent so that it drew only on established peer-reviewed literature. He also said opposing views would be included.

The UAE scientist said it should be replaced by a smaller IPCC-like science panel that reported more regularly, up to 10 regional panels looking at related local economic and social changes and a policy analysis body.

A new class of short, rapidly prepared, peer-reviewed reports is needed, said Mike Hulme, a lead author of the University of East Anglia in England.

However many IPCC scientists say it's impressive that so far only four errors have been found in thousand pages of the second report, with the overwhelming majority of the findings correct and well-supported.

Nature will publish five varied recipes for a new and better IPCC - or some other set of organizations set up to do the same basic jobs, but better.