The Guardian reports:

A group of the US’s leading climate scientists have compiled a withering review of a controversial Trump administration report that downplays the risks of the climate crisis, finding that the document is biased, riddled with errors and fails basic scientific credibility.

More than 85 climate experts have contributed to a comprehensive 434-page report that excoriates a US Department of Energy (DOE) document written by five hand-picked fringe researchers that argues that global heating and its resulting consequences have been overstated.

The Trump administration report, released in July, contains “pervasive problems with misrepresentation and selective citation of the scientific literature, cherry-picking of data, and faulty or absent statistics”, states the new analysis, which is written in the style of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

“This report makes a mockery of science,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University.

“It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.”

Another reviewing academic, Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, said he was “shocked and appalled” by the “total disgrace” of the Donald Trump report and was willing to join with other volunteer researchers from leading institutions to correct the record.

The review will be submitted as part of a public comment period on the report, which closes on Tuesday. [Continue reading…]