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cynicus at 02:16 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
@14, funglestrumpet. Your comment 'Wake up!' (America) made me recall a speech by r-cal. rep. Dana Rohrabacher. I reckon it complements your post pretty well, albeit in a weird way: Youtube. Pretty sad that people like him are an important part of government. -
Harry Seaward at 02:15 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Bud at 27 Please do. -
Bud at 02:12 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
This letter and list is not on your site. Why? More than 60 prominent German scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made global warming fears in an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Translated letter copied below) The more than 60 signers of the letter include several United Nations IPCC scientists. The letter urged Chancellor Merkel to "strongly reconsider" her position on global warming and requested a "convening of an impartial panel" that is "free of ideology" to counter the UN IPCC and review the latest climate science developments. Full Text of Translated Letter By 61 German Scientists: Open Letter - Climate Change Bundeskanzleramt Frau Bundeskanzerlin Dr. Angela Merkel Willy-Brandt-Strabe 1 10557 Berlin # Vizerprasident Dipl. Ing. Michael Limburg 14476 Grob Glienicke Richard-Wagner-Str. 5a Grob Glienicke 26.07.09 To the attention of the Honorable Madam Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany When one studies history, one learns that the development of societies is often determined by a zeitgeist, which at times had detrimental or even horrific results for humanity. History tells us time and again that political leaders often have made poor decisions because they followed the advice of advisors who were incompetent or ideologues and failed to recognize it in time. Moreover evolution also shows that natural development took a wide variety of paths with most of them leading to dead ends. No era is immune from repeating the mistakes of the past. Politicians often launch their careers using a topic that allows them to stand out. Earlier as Minister of the Environment you legitimately did this as well by assigning a high priority to climate change. But in doing so you committed an error that has since led to much damage, something that should have never happened, especially given the fact you are a physicist. You confirmed that climate change is caused by human activity and have made it a primary objective to implement expensive strategies to reduce the so-called greenhouse gas CO2. You have done so without first having a real discussion to check whether early temperature measurements and a host of other climate related facts even justify it. A real comprehensive study, whose value would have been absolutely essential, would have shown, even before the IPCC was founded, that humans have had no measurable effect on global warming through CO2 emissions. Instead the temperature fluctuations have been within normal ranges and are due to natural cycles. Indeed the atmosphere has not warmed since 1998 - more than 10 years, and the global temperature has even dropped significantly since 2003. Not one of the many extremely expensive climate models predicted this. According to the IPCC, it was supposed to have gotten steadily warmer, but just the opposite has occurred. More importantly, there's a growing body of evidence showing anthropogenic CO2 plays no measurable role. Indeed CO2's capability to absorb radiation is already exhausted by today's atmospheric concentrations. If CO2 did indeed have an effect and all fossil fuels were burned, then additional warming over the long term would in fact remain limited to only a few tenths of a degree. The IPCC had to have been aware of this fact, but completely ignored it during its studies of 160 years of temperature measurements and 150 years of determined CO2 levels. As a result the IPCC has lost its scientific credibility. The main points on this subject are included in the accompanying addendum. In the meantime, the belief of climate change, and that it is manmade, has become a pseudo-religion. Its proponents, without thought, pillory independent and fact-based analysts and experts, many of whom are the best and brightest of the international scientific community. Fortunately in the internet it is possible to find numerous scientific works that show in detail there is no anthropogenic CO2 caused climate change. If it was not for the internet, climate realists would hardly be able to make their voices heard. Rarely do their critical views get published. The German media has sadly taken a leading position in refusing to publicize views that are critical of anthropogenic global warming. For example, at the second International Climate Realist Conference on Climate in New York last March, approximately 800 leading scientists attended, some of whom are among the world's best climatologists or specialists in related fields. While the US media and only the Wiener Zeitung (Vienna daily) covered the event, here in Germany the press, public television and radio shut it out. It is indeed unfortunate how our media have developed - under earlier dictatorships the media were told what was not worth reporting. But today they know it without getting instructions. Do you not believe, Madam Chancellor, that science entails more than just confirming a hypothesis, but also involves testing to see if the opposite better explains reality? We strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this subject and to convene an impartial panel for the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one that is free of ideology, and where controversial arguments can be openly debated. We the undersigned would very much like to offer support in this regard. Respectfully yours, Prof. Dr.rer.nat. Friedrich-Karl Ewert EIKE Diplom-Geologe Universität. - GH - Paderborn, Abt. Höxter (ret.) # Dr. Holger Thuß EIKE President European Institute for Climate and Energy http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/Moderator Response: Your "prominent German scientists" are not necessarily all "climate scientists" as are the ones that are the topic of this post. It would be more relevant if you linked to the list of those 60 scientists; sorry, I can't read German, so I can't find that list on that site you linked to. -
Bud at 02:10 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
The letter to UN Secretary Ban from scientists demanding disbanding of the UN IPCC is not posted at Meet the Denominator. The Open Letter with long list of scientists to President Obama in the New York Times, to inform him he is wrong about his stated concern about global warming, this letter and list is not posted at Meet the Denominator. The Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change and its long list of scientists and others is not posted on your site. The quotes I listed from many climate scientists including a 38 year veteran analyst at US EPA is not on your site. So, why did you delete these?Response:[DB] Merely copy-pasting articles and/or links amounts to copy-vomit; as such it adds nothing to the discussion. Without adding in context as to WHY you feel the materiel is important and HOW you feel it fits in or needs to be accounted for, then it adds nothing to the discourse here.
If your intent is to not be merely disruptive, then please adjust your comment construction accordingly. Thanks!
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Harry Seaward at 01:40 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Tom @ 23, I guess you forgot about your boys at the IPCC and this statement: "From new estimates of the combined anthropogenic forcing due to greenhouse gases, aerosols, and land surface changes, it is extremely likely that human activities have exerted a substantial net warming influence on climate since 1750." They seem to think there are a couple of other culprits. -
Bud at 01:33 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
These statistics are just wrong. I have previously attempted posted longs lists of scientists and their positions who oppose the AGW hypothesis, but my posts are apparently deleted by the editor. Would you like me to post them again? These lists would certainly be "on-topic" for this thread.Response:[DB] Poptech's list has been done ad infinitum on the Meet The Denominator thread. Please refrain from reposting them here.
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dmyerson at 01:33 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
There also is the issue of whether people trust climate scientists to know more about climate than they trust economists to know about the economy. There has been a concerted attack on the credibility of climate science and climate scientists and I don't know if it has penetrated beyond the denialsphere into the general public. -
gallopingcamel at 01:24 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Tom Curtis @ 16, You have put your finger on something really important; something that most of your peers on this site deny. -
Chris Colose at 01:23 AM on 12 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Part of the appeal of the Schmidt and Lacis et al papers is how "public friendly" and explicit they are in focusing on a topic which is of blogosphere interest. As for "how relevant" they are, Schmidt et al. specifically noted that they were motivated by a need for a reference concerning the attribution of the greenhouse effect into its individual components. If it is not relevant to understanding climate sensitivity, or further understanding anthropogenic climate change, it is only because they never claimed it to be. I'm not entirely sure the papers, especially Lacis et al (2010), said anything which hasn't been presented in the literature before (e.g., Kiehl and Trenberth 1997, Pierrehumbert et al., 2007; Voigt and Marotzke, 2009)so I don't think it should have been passed along as an original research paper. But it does help to reinforce rather well-understood physics details, and there should be nothing inherently surprising in the results. The experiment done by these papers is rather straightforward: The terrestrial greenhouse flux attribution calculations reported in Schmidt and Lacis et al. are for a current (year 1980) climate & atmospheric structure, with TOA outgoing fluxes recalculated after each constituent is added one-by-one to an empty atmosphere, or removed from the full atmosphere. The radiative transfer is done very accurately with the correlated k-distribution method of Lacis and Oinas (1991). Concerning the water vapor feedback, the trends reported in the cited Paltridge et al paper are highly spurious, based on data unsuitable for what they attempted to do (see e.g., Trenberth and Fasullo,, 2005; Soden et al 2005). Dessler and David (2010) further showed that the conclusions of the Paltridge paper are unique to that specific reanalysis set and is not robust to other choices of reanalysis sets. -
Albatross at 00:57 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Nicholas Berini @19, Do you perhaps have a link to that study? Thanks. -
Tom Curtis at 00:55 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Harry Seaward @21, it is laughable desperation to suggest that the climatologists regularly publishing on climatology would not recognise the emissions of Green House Gases as the only current theory of anthropogenic influence on global climate having any credibility. -
Albatross at 00:54 AM on 12 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Ken @75, He uses the NODC data, the same data Tisdale manipulated and cherry-picked to hide the incline. "You must have beaten Lindzen to death by now.." "...not included Dr Pielke Snr in the firing line." " Dr Trenberth's putative global warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m" Please tone down the innuendo and rhetoric. And one last request, please read the paper just published by von Shuckmann and Le Traon (2011)...there are hyperlinks provided above. -
Tom Curtis at 00:42 AM on 12 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Camburn @54. Ignore the comment about religious demeanour. It was a pun based on your mistyping of "irrelevant". I should have known better."I understand the model run quit well. His paper does not tease out the individual contributions of water vapor, clouds, etc. It holds those fixed while changeing one dynamic....which is co2."
From Schmidt et al:"In one set of calculations, we remove the radiative effects of each major absorber in turn (water vapor, clouds, CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, ozone, aerosols), and then in the second set, we only use each individual absorber, thus defining the minimum and maximum impact of each radiative constituent (Table 1). For each absorber, both short‐ and long‐wave effects were used or removed simultaneously, though we focus on the LW impacts here. We also performed a number of combination experiments..."
Clearly you do not understand what was done. You claim that all factors where held constant, and just CO2 removed. What Schmidt et al actually did was hold everything constant, and remove the effect of H2O and run the model; then restore H2O, and remove clouds and run the model; then restore the clouds, remove the CO2 and run the model; and so on. They then repeated the whole procedure except that they kept in just one element, and removed all the others - one by one. By doing this, to the extent that the model is accurate, they determine the TOA forcing of the entire system with circa 1980 climatology but without each component, one at a time and the same climatology but with just one component for each component. And just for good measure, they ran some combination experiments in which they removed or retained groupings of components of the system. Granted that this is a model, and has whatever inaccuracies are inherent in that. But we cannot, after all, actually remove all the CO2 in 1980 to see what happens. However, given that limitation, how else could you possibly determine the relative effect of each component of the atmosphere than by the method used by Schmidt et al? That is a serious question. If you don't like that methodology, propose a methodology that would improve on it. I'm betting that you cannot; and I'm betting that because what Schmidt et al looks pretty much like text book procedure to me. In the end, your objection merely comes down to a claim that in the real world, if you removed all the CO2 (or H2O, or clouds) you would not retain the circa 1980 climatology. The claim is true but irrelevant. That does not preclude the determination of relative effect in a 1980 climate. It only means the determination once made is of theoretical rather than practical import. Your objection then, comes down to either pure obscurantism; or a bizarre insistence that only questions in which you are interested in are allowed to be answered, ie, that because you are not interested in the theoretical issue addressed by Schmidt et al, therefore any attempt to answer it is flawed. -
KR at 00:24 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Glenn Tamblyn - Why the disconnect with meteorologists? I suspect (opinion only, mind you) that it's because weather can only be predicted out to a short time frame. Most meteorologists don't have anything to do with long term predictions, like climate - perhaps they intuitively just don't see it as a possibility? -
Harry Seaward at 00:20 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
"Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" They found 97% of actively publishing climate scientists answered yes (Doran 2009). This question is ambiguous. Which human activity (or activities) is meant? And, in what context is the word significant being used? It should have been quantified. It is interesting to note that neither of the papers referenced by Mr. Cook mention CO2, and they should not be construed to do so. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:19 AM on 12 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
54, Camburn, Just to follow up, for more info on models, see these specific sections in Spencer Weart's pages: Simple Models of Climate Change General Circulation Models of Climate Both of these are very, very informative, and more importantly, they don't so much tell you what the results are as how they are achieved. There is nothing arguable or partisan about the topic under discussion. These pages simply provide a wonderful view of the depth, scope, complexity, evolution and current state of climate models. If you read this, you will have a much better understanding of Schmidt et al 2010, and everything else that is based on climate modeling. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:12 AM on 12 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
54, Camburn,It holds those fixed while changeing one dynamic....
For the last time, you have this 100% wrong, and you will be stalled in your understanding of climate science until you abandon your Wattsian belief system and start to figure out what is really going on.I stated that in the chaotic climate that is not fixed, the results of this study do not apply.
I had not seen this statement, but... why on earth would it not apply? First, the climate is not (normally) chaotic. Weather is chaotic, but the climate, without forcing, does not vary by more than ± 0.3˚C, and within that, I would doubt that the percent contributions of water vapor/clouds/CO2 vary by much, if at all. In fact, I would doubt that the percentages vary much even in a more chaotic climate, however that remains to be seen/studied/proven.He has used h20 vapor as a positive forcing.
No. This is more Watts-speak, and comes from your misunderstandings of models. If nothing else, please review the links at the end of this post. But in a nutshell, most models (and modelE in particular) are physics based. One does not set parameters. One does not say "I will declare that H2O feedback will be +3.53". They program in the absorption bands of H2O, and the specific heat, and the parameters surrounding evaporation, etc., etc. They let it run, and H2O does whatever it does under the physics programmed into the model. The fact that all of the models (programmed by different people using different methods and different assumptions) demonstrate the same behavior is one confirmation that they have it right. The fact that real world observations demonstrate very similar behavior in various resulting outputs is another confirmation. The fact that their final global mean temperature of the planet matches reality is another confirmation. Beyond this, models are not just run once. They are run multiple times, with variations in parameters and random events, so that an ensemble average can be computed. This stuff isn't done in a vacuum, and it's not done just by setting parameters. Please read: FAQ on climate models FAQ on climate models: Part II It is also highly recommended that anyone interested in climate science take the time to read Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming. It is a very easy read, very, very informative, and provides a great foundation for understanding the current state of the science, regardless of whether or not you agree with current conclusions about climate change.Response:[DB] Fixed text.
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Harry Seaward at 00:02 AM on 12 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
The limited sample size of respondents, 79, seems to lead to questions of the accuracy of the Doran paper. Ask the right questions of the right people and you get the right answers. Was the paper legimtately peer reviewed? -
Camburn at 23:44 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Tom Curtis @ 52: I don't know where religion entered here, but if you think Schmidt is religious or not religious, that is your perogative. Sphaerica: I understand the model run quit well. His paper does not tease out the individual contributions of water vapor, clouds, etc. It holds those fixed while changeing one dynamic....which is co2. The study isn't inadequate, and I have never stated that. I stated that in the chaotic climate that is not fixed, the results of this study do not apply. He has used h20 vapor as a positive forcing. The data from both balloons and satillites concerning this issue has such a large error bar that it, at this time, is unreliable. That is why I posted the paper that links to this. Anyways, thanks for the discussions and pointers. I learned one thing, I will not use slab as a description again as it seems to raise red flags and offend some. That was not my intent. -
Nicholas Berini at 23:35 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
John, what about the Stanford study?! A third, independent review with even stronger conclusions (ie that not only are 97% of climate scientists convinced by the evidence but they are the more qualified scientists based on standard metrics) Also I think this could be a great social networking piece - ask all SS readers (and I'm sure JR would get on board too) to make this their facebook picture. I hate social media as much as the next but that cr*p seems to influence public opinion (and at minimum would be worth the minimal effort.)Response: [JC] The Stanford study is the Anderegg 2010 paper listed above. -
Ken Lambert at 22:59 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Albatross #72 Where did Tamino get the OHC chart from? I went to the site and could find no reference. It does not even compute with Fig 1 from the top of this thread. dana1981 #74 "We'll present Lindzen's alternative to AGW in Lindzen Illusion #7, coming in a few days. I can't say it's based on real-world data though, as the post will show." You must have beaten Lindzen to death by now - surely not another beat-up in #7. I notice that you have not included Dr Pielke Snr in the firing line. He seems well respected enough to correspond with leading ocean heat scientist Josh Willis and publish their email exchange on his website. This from 13FEB11: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/update-of-preliminary-upper-ocean-heat-data-analysis-by-josh-willis-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9can-unpublished-update%e2%80%9d/ It seems that Willis **preliminary** analysis of the Upper Ocean Heat Content 2005-2010 is showing around 0.16W/sq.m globally. If we add Purkey & Johnson's number of about 0.1W/sq.m from the deep oceans the total is about 0.26W/sq.m globally. This is a lot less than Hansen's 0.6W/sq.m and Dr Trenberth's putative global warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m.Response:[DB] Willis himself had this to say:
This estimate only goes back to 2005. The reason for this is that Argo still has a number of floats for which no PI has responsibility for quality control of the data. For early incarnations of these floats, this could mean that significant (albeit correctable) biases still exist in the pressure data. Normally, these biases are corrected by the PI, but since these floats are sort of homeless, they have not yet been corrected. It is also difficult (or in many cases impossible) for the end user to correct these pressure data themselves. Argo is still trying to figure out how to deal with these data and I sure they will receive bias corrections eventually, but for the moment we need to exclude them. So, for this reason I am still not comfortable with the pre-2005 estimates of heat content. – Josh Willis
The uncertainties will eventually be hammered out; the gap will eventually close. Your earlier suggestion of a global gridded system of floats to measure the deep waters as well remains a good one. The task is to convince someone to pay for it...
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Bob Lacatena at 22:59 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Camburn,my point is that in the real world of climate Schmidt's paper is pretty much irreverent.
You have pretty decisively failed to prove a single point. You have failed to grasp even the basics of his paper. Your posts amount to casting aspersions and declaring that things are not what they are. Schmidt's paper takes a simple problem -- a subset of the much larger problem -- in trying to tease out the individual contributions within the atmosphere to radiative warming of water vapor, clouds and CO2, within the "starting point" 1980 climate regime. It does so using complex physics based models that you do not understand, and which you have grossly oversimplified in your own mind. He comes up with results that are reasonable, and trustworthy within the current limitations of climate science. Lindzen's entire position, on the other hand, is comically and cosmically ridiculous. He has made no effort to support it, and it is in fact so flawed in so many ways that deconstructing it is trivial. He makes a child's argument, hoping that the childish will fall for it. He operates, as you do, simply by declaring things, without supporting evidence or complete understanding (although in this case, his demonstrated ignorance is an intentional convenience). Your ability to arbitrarily declare the study inadequate, "fixed," or anything else does not detract from the validity of the science. It merely detracts from the validity of your contribution to the discussion. -
Tom Curtis at 22:58 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Camburn @51, I don't know what Schmidt's religious decorum has to do with anything ... More seriously, we know you are trying to assert the irrelevance of Schmidt's paper. What you have not done is provide any reason to consider it so. The best you have come up with so far is that you are more interested in the result Lacis et al than in Schmidt et al. Fair enough. Each to their own; but your personal preference has no bearing on whether Schmidt et al asked an interesting question and answered it effectively. The question in fact may not be interesting of itself, but has been made so by the frequent false assertions by deniers that CO2 has an inconsequential greenhouse effect. The answer was effective because it was clear, and derived in the only practical way to do so. It also gives every indication of being rigorous within the current limits of modelling. -
seeohtoo at 22:53 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
@ John Cook: nice concept, but WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? There are female climate scientists, after all. @Daniel Bailey: here in the US, I can't show this to a general audience! Is there a version without the F-bomb?Response:[DB] The Hungry Beast's lair is here (in it I can find no clean version though).
As far as the rest of your comment, well, Mars Needs Women, too.
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Camburn at 21:44 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
scaddenp: No, my point is that in the real world of climate Schmidt's paper is pretty much irreverent. dana1981@50: Yes, in the lower atmosphere it appears to be. Upper atmosphere? It doesn't appear to be. -
Jesús Rosino at 20:54 PM on 11 May 2011Animals and plants can adapt
Another link that doesn't work is in "it left out most ecological detail" (http://www.mncn.csic.es/pdf_web/maraujo/Thuiller_et_al_2004Nature.pdf). It may be this one: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/ThuillerEtAl2004.pdf -
Daniel Bailey at 20:48 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
So, where do you get your information from? I go with the experts, the real climate scientists: (H/T to Tim Lambert and Tom Curtis) -
Tom Curtis at 20:47 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
funglestrumpet @14, I've pinched myself and checked, and yes, I am awake! And being awake I've noticed that most deniers including those that dominate popular media and politics deny that CO2 levels have any significant effect on global temperatures. Therefore even if you could get them to agree that the Earth was warming catastrophically, they would not agree that reducing CO2 levels would effectively combat the warming, what ever the cause. So avoiding the argument about the climate effects of CO2 is no short-cut to effective political action. On the contrary, abandoning that argument is a guaranty that no effective action will be taken until it is too late for my children, and for theirs. -
Tom Curtis at 20:39 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
JoeRG @13, A) Given the ordinary operation of the climate system, anthropogenic emissions are a sufficient condition for climate change. What is more, B)Given the known current circumstances, anthropogenic emissions are the only sufficient condition that has actually occurred over the last century. It follows that anthropogenic emissions are the cause of climate change in the most relevant sense of the term. It is also the most common sense of the term. Splitting hairs based on an obscure philosophical definition of causation simply causes confusion for those who don't understand your obscure usage, and adds nothing to clarity of public communication. The most likely consequence is 'deniers' picking up your claim and interpreting it as a denial of A and B above. -
Jesús Rosino at 20:07 PM on 11 May 2011Animals and plants can adapt
The link to "a study I conducted in 2003" doesn't work (http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Brook_2003_Extinctions.pdf). It may be this one?: http://www.dbs.nus.edu.sg/lab/cons-lab/documents/Brook_etal_Nature_2003.pdf -
funglestrumpet at 19:48 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
For pities sake, WAKE UP! All the while the argument regarding climate change is about whether the current warming is anthropogenic in origin or not, the action that is becoming more and more urgent gets put on the back-burner. Why? Because those politicians who, for reasons known to them and suspected by us, take either no action, or the absolute minimum necessary to keep their seats, the situation gets worse. The main problem is that the public sees the cause as important rather than the cure and who can blame them – it seems to be the only thing that the scientific community is interested in – this site included. The current debate makes me think of a situation where a jumbo-jet is spiralling out of control while the captain and first officer are busy arguing as to the cause. Whether it was due to too much rudder or too low an airspeed is only of academic importance. (The flight-recorder recovered from the bottom of the resulting crater will determine the answer to that argument.) What they should be doing is getting the aircraft back under control (and organising an orderly queue for the toilet). they can leave the cause to be decided later. The evidence is not going to change in any detrimental way. The argument should be centred on whether the world is warming or not and whether we should do whatever we can to offset that warming. Once the public sees that the debate is about the danger they and their offspring face and what we as a species should do to offset the warming that is causing that danger we might move forward. I.e. get the plane out of the spin and sod the cause for now. If greenhouse gases are a source of warming, they should be reduced - period. For now, it doesn’t matter whether they are the main cause or not. We can, and most certainly will, debate the cause of the warming when it comes to dealing with the results of climate change. When we have to re-house tens of millions of Bangladeshi refugees, just to cite one example, and pay for the expense of same, the debate will get really serious. I rather think that the current batch of politicians who will be seen to have hindered remedial action will be called to account, as will their nations that failed to take that remedial action as a result. There will be many grandparents viewed with contempt by their grandchildren, not a nice situation for anyone and one to be avoided if possible, yet, unless they understand the science, they cannot be blamed for following their political leaders. As things stand, the fossil fuel industry continues to make its corporate profits and its employees their bonuses while we all go to hell in a handcart. This side of the fence will be seen to be partially culpable, despite the clarity of the science. That clarity does not excuse the failure to redirect the debate towards the dangers of inaction; where the debate should really be. So I repeat: WAKE UP! -
JoeRG at 19:26 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Heraclitus #6 One may say, that we force climatic effects significantly in several cases -we do indeed- but without causing them, and therefore it is an inaccurate conclusion. But, of course, this does not change the fact that we have a major impact on climate and that we have to act to minimize such effects. It's just the "normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that." (see D. Adams for details) It makes me wonder if some "sceptics/denialists" might use this inaccuracy as an argument against the consensus. -
alan_marshall at 19:24 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
David Horton @ 1 I know who the 3 in 100 are! I have amused myself by calling them "The Three Stooges". This might be a bit harsh, even unfair, as the obvious stooges like Monckton, Plimer, etc. are not climate scientists. I was fond of the earlier infographic, but this one is more accurate in showing the grey, undecided, figures. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 19:13 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
This quote from the paper is interesting "The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103) and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36)." Economic Geologists is understandible. Their field is digging stuff up out of the ground for profit. What Is less clear, and I have come across this before, is the disconnect between what climatologists think and meterologists. Oceanographers, geochemists etc are more likely to agree than the meteorologists. What give with that bias? -
OPatrick at 18:52 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
les, you're right that's the important point. The question leaves no ambiguity that the experts think human actions affect the climate and therefore the implication is that through our actions we can do something to reduce the problems we face. -
les at 18:38 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
6 JoeRG /8 Heraclitus Interesting issue... maybe the important point is that we are in the causal loop in such a way that we can actually change things - continue to contribute to GW more strongly or stop the escalation. -
OPatrick at 18:28 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
JoeRG, I'm sure everyone reading this has had the same thought, but I note that you missed out a significant word - the question included "significant contributing factor", which I would say nudges the brief headline "causing global warming" to an honest summation. We can't live our whole lives assuming the worst in human nature, no matter how strong the evidence seems to be. -
dorlomin at 18:19 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
David Horton "Always puzzles me as to who the other 3% are!" Its hardly unusual for there to be a few contrarians in any field. Older scientists who have not moved with the paradigm shift and perhaps a couple of younger ones who were drawn to the field to challenge the “orthodox”. -
JoeRG at 17:56 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Dear John, Sorry for critisizing you, but with this post you gave a fine example of an incorrect conclusion. There is quite a difference between being a "cause" (your conclusion) and being a "contributing factor" (what was asked for). Nevertheless, it doesn't change the main evidence. -
villabolo at 17:31 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
@1, David Horton: "Always puzzles me as to who the other 3% are!" No need to be puzzled. Based on the few whose ideology I've been able to ascertain that 3% are hardcore right wing ideologues and quite a few ultra-fundamentalists. Both are predisposed to be anti-whatever their ideology/religion happens to be. -
ScaredAmoeba at 17:15 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Doran 2009: "While respondents’ names are kept private, the authors noted that the survey included participants with well-documented dissenting opinions on global warming theory." Mmmm! the usual suspects. -
danno at 16:43 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
the 1% is a handful of scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry? -
AndrewMF at 16:12 PM on 11 May 2011It's the sun
Thanks, that's helpful. :) AMF -
John Cook at 16:12 PM on 11 May 2011Upcoming 'Climate Change Denial' book launches in Sydney and Canberra
No plans for Adelaide or Melbourne, sorry. Haydn and my resources are limited and a tour of all capital cities is beyond us, I'm afraid :-( -
adelady at 16:03 PM on 11 May 2011Upcoming 'Climate Change Denial' book launches in Sydney and Canberra
Yes, Adelaide. I was wondering about that too. -
dana1981 at 15:16 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
"H20 vapor may not be always positive as a feedback. It depends where it is at."
Globally it's positive. -
Bern at 15:14 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Thanks for this, John - I'll be putting it to use quite shortly here at work! I particularly like the way you've distinguished between the "No it's not" and the "I'm not sure" categories. It reinforces the message, that those who think humans are not responsible are a very tiny minority. -
David Horton at 14:53 PM on 11 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Always puzzles me as to who the other 3% are! -
scaddenp at 14:30 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Camburn, as far as I can see, your objection to Schmidt amount to "Models cant be right, so attribution cant be done, therefore CO2 isnt a problem". Or do you have better way to do it? -
dhogaza at 14:02 PM on 11 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
Go read the whole friggin' abstract, folks, to see how fragile the straw is that Camburn grasps at. The authors, in the abstract, say this, for instance: "it is important to establish what (if any) aspects of the observed trends survive detailed examination of the impact of past changes of radiosonde instrumentation and protocol within the various international networks." if any ... like, we don't really believe this ourselves, we're just putting the radiosonde data out there for people to look at and, hey, don't blame us, we're putting caveat after caveat in our abstract and paper. Camburn thinks it's significant, even though the authors think it probably isn't ("if any").
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