Australian scientists have rejected claims a multi-national climate change body is set to revise down its previous warnings about the rate of global warming.
The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is preparing to hand down the first part of a major report on the updated science of global warming in Stockholm next week.
But a series of apparent leaks has sparked media speculation the IPCC's highly-anticipated assessment could contain an admission it overstated rising temperatures.
It's a claim that's rattled Australian scientists, who say such a finding is hard to believe given it contradicts decades of data and the draft version of the report hasn't even been finalised yet.
In particular, they're furious at suggestions the IPCC will admit it got its numbers wrong and that over the past 60 years the world has been warming at half the rate stated in its previous 2007 report.
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"That is complete fiction," Professor David Karoly, a review editor of the IPCC report at the University of Melbourne, told AAP on Monday.
He said the observed global average warming of surface air temperature over the last 60 years was 0.12 degrees per decade - almost identical to the 0.13 value reported in the IPCC report of 2007.
That assessment was backed by Dr John Cook from the University of Queensland, who warned such statements misrepresented the findings of the IPCC.
Professor Steven Sherwood from the University of NSW said the IPCC didn't conduct its own modelling, but relied on analyses provided by global climate bodies like NASA and Australia's CSIRO.
The upcoming IPCC report is based on more than 9000 published scientific papers and aims to provide the latest assessment on the state of climate change and the risks it poses.
The IPCC was forced to issue a statement last week denying it was holding emergency meetings following alleged leaks to media organisations.
"Contrary to the articles the IPCC is not holding any crisis meeting," it said in a statement.
Greens senator Richard di Natale said the IPCC collected existing data, so was likely to show the world was still heading towards dangerous climate change as scientists had been warning for years.
"The idea that there is going to be some explosive allegation or claim made within the IPCC report is just laughable," he told AAP on Monday.
