I cannot believe that we skeptics have caught grief from these folks for years for our science not being sufficiently peer-reviewed. But forget about peer-review for a moment (I think it is overrated anyway) — At least the analyses we skeptic have been doing have some kind of rigor, rather than just being surveys of a few random individual perceptions.
In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.
However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.
The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
What next? Are we going to ask a random group of parachuters how fast they thought they were free-falling to reset the of g (9.8m/sec/sec)? My son did more rigorous climate science for his eighth grade science fair project.
Here is the story about the dissertation:
http://climatequotes.com/2010/01/31/the-story-of-the-geography-major-dissertation/
He doesn’t even claim that climate change is reducing mountain climbs like the AR4 says!