Jim, many good points, and I may have been too hasty in my judgments.
To be clear, I meant that, in that
particular section of the study, they didn't seem to cover all the most recent relevant research. Elsewhere, they do indeed do an impressive job of including plenty of quite recent material, as I have seen as I have read further and looked over the full reference pages at the end. This may indeed be the most current
summary work, but it is still, as a summary of other research, inevitably going to be a bit behind the very latest scientific findings coming out in this fast-paced and intensively researched area.
And I didn't mean to imply that the report was "skewed by politics" exactly. (When I used the term "conservative" I meant it in the sense of "hesitant to present evidence that may sound too dire, hesitant to include some of the most cutting-edge research before it has been fully vetted, and hesitant to draw conclusion that go much beyond those already established in the literature..."--the kind of reticence that has been discussed recently by Hansen and by others. This kind of conservatism can, of course, be valuable in such works that are trying to be staid, authoritative and unassailable. But conservative they are, in this sense at least.)
Of course, no study can connect all the dots, and I think there are some relevant dots not connected here. (But again, it's a big honkin' report, and I have read some sections closely but definitely also skimmed through others, so that judgment also may be premature.) They do say pretty constantly that many of the most major developments are fairly new and still need lots of study, a point I hope all can agree on.
As to expertise, I note that two of the most important and authoritative experts--in the field of Arctic studies generally and the ESAS in particular--that they do not cite directly are Igor Semiletov and Peter Wadhams (at least as first authors; perhaps they are buried further down in some of the multi-authored studies?).
These are the two experts that have advantages over all of the authors of this overview report, afaics, and over nearly all of the other experts cited, at least when it comes to ESAS:
Semiletov because he has been working in the field since at least the '90's, and as a Russian, he has not only had better access to the area itself, but has been on top of the research in the area by other Russians, research written mostly in Russian and much of it in Russian publications not readily available to the West.
Wadhams because he worked in the Arctic with the Royal Navy since the '70's, gaining access to information and observations that few other scientists were privy to (and much of which he presumably could not share for security reasons), to my knowledge (again, always happy to be further informed, though).
Fully including the perspectives of these most authoritative voices may have altered the reports coverage of certain developments in the Arctic. So when you write "there are not any strong opinions by individual top level researchers that clearly are in opposition," I'm not sure that I can fully agree. But the report just came out, so there hasn't been much time for other experts to critique or make statements about it. (Just us a-holes spitballing from the peanut gallery.
At least they do cite and quote Shakhova a few times. But again, this is an area where there are clearly some differences even among the top researchers in the field. IIRC, even Michael Mann said that he didn't think a relatively quick release of large quantities of methane could be ruled out.
(I will point out that at one point they do say that emissions of methane at the 50 gigaton level are possible within a time frame of decades, which should be a bit...concerning, it seems to me. But most places they talk about time frame of centuries or more.)
There are two things (or 'dots') in particular (beyond methane matters) that I would have liked to see more discussion of:
1) Jennifer Francis' (and others') proposals connecting Arctic sea ice loss with shifts in jet stream amplitude, location and speed (though, I do see that one of her articles is in the works cited, so it must be mentioned somewhere--if anyone finds it, please let me know). If there really is a legitimate connection between Arctic ice loss and major jet-stream disruption, it would seem to me that this would qualify as a major, abrupt change of great import for humans--stuck highs and lows creating unprecedented extreme conditions throughout the Northern Hemisphere...
2) The possibility (that I mentioned at the end of my earlier post) of a collapse of the whole Hadley cell system in the Northern (and Southern?) Hemisphere(s), as has been discussed here and in these forums and on the blog, is another place that I would have liked to see some discussion. But this is perhaps asking too much, since it is as yet a relatively under-investigated area (but one where, it seems to me, things could shift quite quickly indeed, with quite enormous consequences for humans (and much else).
I should say that I do tend to trust scientific findings
most when they are telling us of things to be warned about, especially if at least some of the scientists involved in said research have particularly deep and intimate acquaintance with that particular part of the field.
But at least sometimes when (some) scientists tell me
not to worry about something--whether it's the dangers of nuclear power or the likelihood of total sea ice melt in the Arctic--I tend to be a bit more...skeptical; and the very existence of this forum and of neven's blog suggest that I am not alone in this kind of skepticism.
I do think that this report is likely to be viewed by many as authoritative.
But hey, if we all just accepted all science as it was presented and weren't interested in analyzing it, critiquing it, and coming up with our own (ideally carefully though through) conclusions, we wouldn't likely have this kind of blog and forum, which is devoted to doing just that afaics.
Sorry to go on a bit, here. I hope these make my positions clearer. It's fine to disagree on these things. But it's good to at least be clear about what we are or aren't disagreeing about, imo.
With great respect,
wili.
ETA: And I
am very glad that the report is giving the issue of possible WAIS collapse some over-due attention. I'm assuming we can thank Richard Alley for making sure that this issue was fairly thoroughly treated.