More on Climategate - UN Panel Losing Credibility

The wheels seem to be coming off the bus on a lot of the Global Warming IPCC claims
From the Times Online:

Top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility

by Johnathon Leake

A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.

Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.

The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035.

Read the rest including these links for background.

* The IPCC's Synthesis Report (See section 3.3.2)
* International Institute for Sustainable Development - report on how climate change might affect crop yields
* Climate change speech by Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general