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David Horton at 09:54 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Reading a thread like this induces in me a profound sense of depression, I don't what it must be doing to John Cook's sense of well being. The logic, if I am understanding the arguments from the usual suspects is that having 98% (who are the other 2%, that is bizarre?) of the scientists who work in the field of climate change in agreement on the fundamental thrust of the research is a bad thing, a cause for suspicion, and it would be better if only 2% of scientists accepted AGW because then the deniers would believe in it wholeheartedly. Or have I missed something?Response: I'll give you my gripe about this discussion thread - that the subject of scientific consensus provokes so much interest and discussion compared to the subject of scientific evidence. This applies to both sides of the debate - frankly, you're all guilty! :-)
Personally, I'm persuaded by the consensus of evidence much more than the consensus of scientists. Eg - that there are multiple lines of empirical evidence all pointing at the same answer - that humans are causing global warming. And this is where I try to keep the emphasis on this website.
But the "there is no consensus" argument is so popular, occasionally it needs to be put into its proper perspective - that the vast majority of the people who matter, climate experts, are convinced by the evidence. The reason is simple - the consensus of scientists is due to the consensus of evidence.
Anyway, I'll be returning back to a discussion of scientific evidence in the next post, thank goodness! -
The Walrus at 09:49 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I seee here many examples of how the deniers don't understand what science is, or what logic is, or what a logical fallacy is. One member suggested "publication bias" "favoring conventional wisdom." This commenter didn't suggest any method of controlling for that--he just suggested it's a reason not to trust the study. This commenter didn't explain why "publication bias" hasn't kept us in the dark ages; why science has done so well in spite of its mortal weakness of "publication bias." Another commenter didn't even try to address any of the facts of the article, but instead said Lord Monckton is right, that's that, end of discussion. And on and on and on. It disturbs me that so many people think they know what they're talking about, when it's so easy to show that they don't. -
Marcus at 09:41 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Sorry moderator, but I just can't let John D's latest comments go by without a response. You seriously don't get it-do you John? Nobody here has claimed that-under ideal conditions-CO2 *can't* be a plant food. What they've claimed is that its not that simple because (a) global warming won't provide for ideal conditions & (b) that it is nitrogen, water & trace elements that are more limiting factors on plant growth than CO2 abundance. For all your talk, you've not managed to answer several key questions which are: (a) under ideal conditions, can increased CO2 levels enhance plant biomass for the long-term, given acclimation? (b) even ignoring acclimation, can increased CO2 levels enhance plant biomass given a warmer & drier environment? (c) will increased vegetative biomass, from increased CO2 levels, automatically translate into significantly greater seed yields? (d) does increased quantity of edible biomass automatically translate into increased *quality* of edible biomass. (e) will increased CO2 levels impose any additional costs on farmers? (very important given the slim margins on which most farmers operate). Based on the evidence provided by the *one* FACE trial you've linked to, I'd say the answer is that, (a) though increased CO2 can provide short-term increases in total biomass (under ideal conditions) acclimation might eventually erode those benefits; (b) that though there was a significant increase in total plant biomass, this wasn't translating into significant increases in seed yield for most varieties & (c) that seed quality (in terms of protein content) was decreased, but total nitrogen demand from the plant was increased. As someone who actually deals with farmers on a regular basis, if you were to try & promote that to farmers as a *benefit* from increasing CO2 emissions, they'd probably laugh in your face-rightly pointing out that ideal conditions are already hard to come by, that seed yield & seed quality are all that's ultimately important, & that they would be ill-equipped to afford the significant increase in fertilizer costs that this enriched CO2 environment would demand. -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy ... why should we allow scientists to be involved in a process that provides a level of quality or acceptance on something they themselves were involved in producing? Let's say you had a medical problem and different doctors made conflicting diagnoses. Which one would you trust more: the doctor that was directly involved in your medical testing and has experience with your specific problem, or one that gave you a diagnosis over the phone and works in a completely different field of medicine? If we reject the consensus of experts then what's the point of having experts in the first place? -
michael sweet at 09:11 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
What Doug Bostrom said at 70 times 2!! Good summary of the argument. -
Chemware at 09:11 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
There is way to much emphasis by climate change deniers on funding bodies and their alleged bias. They clearly do not know how science is done. Most academics have reasonably stable jobs doing a mix of teaching and research, and get a good supply of graduate students, who do most of the actual "work". Most of those graduate students are funded by their university or government - not by research grants - and their scholarships are generally based on their undergraduate performance and nothing else. It does not matter whether the academic or student is pro- or anti- AGW or any other theory. (Aside: those grad students generally want to make a name for themselves - and prove that their professor really is an idiot deep down - and so the good ones do their best to challenge accepted ideas - been there, done that, on both sides of the fence). In reality, funding is needed to purchase complex equipment, or do field trips to remote locations, or go to conferences. Nothing else. So if indeed there was a global conspiracy to deny funds to all climate change skeptics, it would cramp their research somewhat - but not stop it. Einstein didn't apply for any grants to do his work on Relativity. Neither did Heisenberg, or Bohr. Fermi did - to build the world's first nuclear reactor. Funding does help - but being a good scientist helps far more. So if AGW was a crock, and there was a global conspiracy, there would still be thousands of papers tearing it to shreds anyway, from really pissed off academics and lean, mean and hungry grad students. There isn't. -
Albatross at 09:06 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
This is from the paper's abstract: "(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers." I concur with Anderegg et al., those skeptical of ACC (to use their abbreviation, anthropogenic climate change) have, for the most part, little expert credibility when it comes to climate science. That fact has dogged the "skeptics" from day one, and one of the reasons they had to generate several "petitions". Problem is, hardly any reputable climate scientists signed their petitions, and a petition is not as credible or subjected to rigorous vetting and critique (both prior to and after publication) as papers published in reputable peer-reviewed journals. All this bluster from the "skeptics" is not going to further their cause and only further undermines what little credibility they have left...it will get the faithful "skeptics" all riled up though, and perhaps that is the point. That or the belief held by some that the best form of defense is offense. -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy > To say some 30,000 scientists were beguiled by some fraudulent paper and hence they all signed the petition because they all believed the same fraudulent paper is the same as 30,000 lemmings following 1 lemming over a cliff in my book. Again, you should read the post before you attempt to criticize it. Nowhere does it say anything even remotely close to what you are describing - i.e., that the were being "beguiled" by a fraudulent paper. The main argument being made is summarized at the top of the post if you don't feel like reading: "The 30,000 scientists and science graduates listed on the OISM petition represent a tiny fraction (0.3%) of all science graduates. More importantly, the OISM list only contains 39 scientists who specialise in climate science." The same point is also brought up by robhon in his comment here. -
Albatross at 08:55 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Doug @70, great post. IMHO, you just hit the nail on the head (well, several times it seems). It is depressing how effective the tactics used by the "skeptics" are. I guess they had ample opportunity to perfect them during the tobacco and CFC "wars". I didn't see this spin about an imaginary list coming....the "skeptics" are very creative and can keep up this take for decades. Roy Spencer has entered the fray and (on his blog) is making similar accusations as those made by Pielke Jnr. And very hypocritical of Pielke Jnr to cry foul over funding when he has in fact received NSF funds to do research. -
KR at 08:51 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
In regards to argumentive tactics - creating doubt, questioning expertise, nitpicking a small point and saying that invalidates a large body of evidence, and calling consensus into question, especially those from Luntz - you might want to take a look at "Thank You For Smoking", either the book or the movie. This is a very funny and illuminating look at the diversionary tactics taken by an industry hellbent on protecting itself from science. I have a personal connection with this - my brother had that job for years, of apologist/denier, for a major US tobacco firm. He gave me a copy of the book shortly after he started - he was very amused that Buckley had nailed it so cleanly. 'Tho he did get a bit tired of the "how much does a soul go for" questions at family gatherings... -
Doug Bostrom at 08:38 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Sigh. Geo Guy: ...there is a blatant bias to the result of the survey when 50% of the participants were in fact involved in the matter on which the survey was made. I really fail to understand your difficulty in grasping this concept. The concept I grasp is that the participants know what they're talking about, they're the people who come closest to understanding the topic, everybody else understands less. It's axiomatic. ...why should we allow scientists to be involved in a process that provides a level of quality or acceptance on something they themselves were involved in producing? Because they know what they're talking about and selecting people who don't know as much about the topic necessarily means inferior judgment? But let's back up for moment. This is a truly ridiculous discussion, a synthetically created argument, a dance choreographed by artistes having zero interest in scientific research. Our partners are bereft of useful arguments about actual scientific results, so we instead are locked in a conversational embrace about a process having nothing to do with the pursuit of climate research. We somehow find ourselves earnestly talking about whether scientists are qualified to talk about science, in particular whether experts should have a voice in their own field. How very absurd. The reason we're unwillingly enrolled as clowns in this theater of the bizarre, why we're seeing papers of the sort brought up in this post is in part because people who have no useful scientific arguments turn to impressionism, they resort to such concoctions as "there is no consensus." This tactic was suggested w/regard to climate research by a political consultant called Luntz (look it up) having originally been used in earlier "controversies" such as tobacco-related illnesses, chlorofluorocarbon impacts on the ozone layer and the like. Kabuki-style quibbling about whether scientists will disagree with the collective published research record is the work product of public relations experts and has no utility in the advancement of human understanding of our natural world. On a parenthetical note, it's ironically amusing that even as Roger Pielke Jr. is whining about politics infecting science, he's a funded expert on this sort of degenerate meta-discussion. He's obtained money from the NSF for researching such important matters as this: Understanding symbols in political discourse is important because symbols shape how policy problems and options are framed. This project focuses on understanding the origins, evolution, and dynamics of the concept of "basic research" in science policy discourse. Perhaps he's becoming a case of selection bias. -
Berényi Péter at 08:28 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#61 doug_bostrom at 07:23 AM on 23 June, 2010 The really foundational physics behind "ACC" were largely explored prior to the inception of NSF That is not the case. Different estimates of entropy production in the climate system has quite a range. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the production of entropy: life, Earth, and beyond. Kleidon, A. and Lorenz, R. D. (eds.) © 2004 Springer Verlag, Heidelberg. ISBN: 3-540-22495-5 REVIEWS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 48, RG2003, 27 PP., 2010 doi:10.1029/2008RG000275 Radiation entropy flux and entropy production of the Earth system Wei Wu & Yangang Liu The former gives an estimated entropy production rate of 900 mW m-2 K-1, while the latter one settles on 1279±7 mW m-2 K-1 It is a 30% error margin. It does not sound like an area largely explored prior to anything. I wonder how computational climate models can do any useful work in describing the behavior of an intricate heat engine while one of the most basic state variables is essentially unknown. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:24 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy... I guess what has always bothered me about the Oregon Petition is that it casts a very wide and ambiguous net. So, 30,000 have signed it. That relates to what denominator? A million "scientists?" Ten million? who could potentially sign the petition? The 30,000 is a tiny tiny fraction of the broader scientific community as defined by the petition itself. But the way it's structured we have no idea. A numerator on its own tells us very little. At least the Anderegg study above makes the attempt to give us both a denominator and a numerator. -
KR at 08:23 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Berényi - a quick scan on the NSF search engine you pointed out using the term "radiative" found 10 funding opportunities, 5 or 6 of which (depending on how you read the summaries) are directly tied to climate change. These include "Water Cycle Research" involving latent heat transport versus radiative, "Synthesis of Arctic System Science" for studies of the Arctic, "Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change", "Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models", and so on. Lots of funding opportunities. "Atmosphere thermal" gave five categories. Searching on "Climate" gave 101 funding opportunities, just within NSF. I'm certain you could submit radiative research to NSF, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (which funded the Trenberth 2009 paper, on very similar topics), or some other agency. And if it was a decent proposal, it would have a competitive chance of acceptance. -
Phila at 08:15 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
"We don't allow students to mark their own papers so why should we allow scientists to be involved in a process that provides a level of quality or acceptance on something they themselves were involved in producing?" Doing so is only a problem if you assume that international, interdisciplinary, multi-decade collusion is not only possible, but likely. Most of us, I think, are not prepared to do that without at least as much evidence as "skeptics" demand for AGW. Absent that evidence, you're basically just engaging in the fallacy of circumstantial ad hominem. Which is really a waste of time for all concerned, IMO. -
RickG at 08:14 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Roy Latham, It's not difficult to count the names of at least 300 qualified published climate scientists who are skeptics. Since climate science is a very narrow specialty, that enough to prove there is no consensus. Because the climate models are clearly not working, and the only basis of crisis theory is the models, if there is a consensus, then there shouldn't be. Validation of a scientific theory comes from observation of valid predictions, not a poll. Did you read the PNAS paper? It's not a poll. -
Phila at 08:01 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
The thing that always strikes me about the "funding bias" line of attack is that people who believe it tend to present it as self-evident...even as they subject every aspect of the consensus view on AGW to every sort of abstruse nitpicking. There's not enough evidence in the world to justify a belief in AGW, it seems. But hearsay and presumption are more than good enough to support accusations of groupthink, funding bias, conspiracy, etc. It's been said before, but this double standard is not what one would expect from real skeptics. -
Geo Guy at 07:51 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
e - # 60 While it didn't say that it certainly implied that. To say some 30,000 scientists were beguiled by some fraudulent paper and hence they all signed the petition because they all believed the same fraudulent paper is the same as 30,000 lemmings following 1 lemming over a cliff in my book. With regards to my mention of inaccuracies was to emphasis the fact the petition was rejected because of inaccuracies yet many reports and publications supporting AGW are equally misleading but are not being rejected because of that. Doug_b # 63 It is a simple. Given that there appears to be tens of thousands of climate scientists it should be rather easy to find those that have not been involved in the IPCC work to assess it and then provide a yea or nay. Allowing those who were involved with the IPCC work to subsequently provide a yea is like having those same scientists be a reviewer of their own work. "One of the very positive features of the IPCC synthesis work process is that it draws explicitly from the talents and direct efforts of the most productive and up-to-date researchers, meaning that the idealized survey you envision would automatically be substantially at variance with the state of the science. Inconvenient truth-- those words were chosen carefully and work in a lot of contexts." Sorry I disagree - there is a blatant bias to the result of the survey when 50% of the participants were in fact involved in the matter on which the survey was made. I really fail to understand your difficulty in grasping this concept. We don't allow students to mark their own papers so why should we allow scientists to be involved in a process that provides a level of quality or acceptance on something they themselves were involved in producing? Just makes no sense!!! -
Roy Latham at 07:41 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Asking if human activity is a "significant" contributor to global warming is the wrong question. As far as I know, virtually everyone, skeptics included, agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and doubling it can be expected to produce 0.75 degree of global warming. That's significant, so sure. The correct question would be something along the lines of "Is human produced CO2 the cause of a global warming climate crisis?" Even more interesting would be "Are climate models an accurate predictor of climate?" Since measurements are running below two-sigma of the predictions, that would tell how many climate scientists are paying attention. It's not difficult to count the names of at least 300 qualified published climate scientists who are skeptics. Since climate science is a very narrow specialty, that enough to prove there is no consensus. Because the climate models are clearly not working, and the only basis of crisis theory is the models, if there is a consensus, then there shouldn't be. Validation of a scientific theory comes from observation of valid predictions, not a poll. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:23 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
BP it's fun rummaging through that database. I don't think facilities substantially devoted to synoptic weather forecasting, engineering models are really very controversial. Do you? You'll notice big expenses wherever hardware is involved, for instance where actual physical experimentation is being undertaken. Models and experiments both cost a lot of money, thinking less so. W/regard to your earlier remarks, there are actually quite a few arguably fundamental projects on radiation, thermodynamics and the like, fundamental in the sense of being theoretically oriented and offering opportunities for experimental investigation. Nobody's going to get funding to reproduce the stuff that was done and accepted decades ago; I suspect that as one digs further back, the more fundamental the research. The really foundational physics behind "ACC" were largely explored prior to the inception of NSF, which is why in their database one sees a lot of more detailed investigation of troposphere-stratosphere flux, validation of models via occultation, etc. Snapple: pseudoscientific ideologies that masqueraded as "science" WUWT in a nutshell, for sure. Geo Guy: By all means do use research from climatologists, but keep them independent of those who contributed in some fashion to the IPCC reports. How exactly would that work? The work product directly related to climate and flowing into IPCC comes from climatologists some of whom actually participate directly with the IPCC synthesis process and some who don't. One of the very positive features of the IPCC synthesis work process is that it draws explicitly from the talents and direct efforts of the most productive and up-to-date researchers, meaning that the idealized survey you envision would automatically be substantially at variance with the state of the science. Inconvenient truth-- those words were chosen carefully and work in a lot of contexts. -
snapple at 06:57 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Doug B writes: "Checking in at WUWT, I see the Anderegg paper is being celebrated, with Anderegg et al likened somewhat paradoxically to both Nazis as well as Communists." National Socialism and "scientific" Marxism-Leninism aren't so different. Both were pseudoscientific ideologies that masqueraded as "science"... -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy >... to state that those scientists who did sign the OIM petition were essentially all lemmings is equally unconvincing. Except nobody said that. Read the post before trying to comment on it. >Finally to say there hasn't been any misleading and inaccurate reports supporting AGW is equally misleading. Nobody said that either. Inaccuracies exist in all scientific disciplines, they will always exist, who here is claiming otherwise? You're arguing against strawmen. -
Berényi Péter at 06:39 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#38 doug_bostrom at 03:53 AM on 23 June, 2010 how about some data? [...] Pielke-gripe awarded cohort Wow. That's four hundred million bucks (Awarded Amount to Date $393,767,453). Top six are- $172,942,477 (0856145) Management and Operation of the National Center for Atmospheric Research
- $64,449,492 (0711134) A National Institute for Computational Sciences to provide leading-edge computational support for breakthrough science and engineering research
- $15,031,990 (0425247) Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (MMAP)
- $13,669,386 (0735156) UNAVCO Community and Facility Support: Geodesy Advancing Earth Science Research
- $7,385,125 (0434946) UCAR Educational Outreach Program and Other UCAR Activities
- $6,407,036 (0410014) Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS)
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Geo Guy at 06:38 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
robhon # 53 Conflicts of interest have to be managed. For instance a scientist might be asked to review or support an article that reports results that could refute a hypothesis that he has defended for over twenty years. Similarly he might be asked to support a petition that is being used to further support work he did on a paper or published report. In either case there is a clear conflict of interest involved with the actions. issue is not their experience but rather the underlying supposedly independent support they are giving themselves to the work they carried out. -
kdkd at 06:31 AM on 23 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP, #224 That's a great example of a suspect analysis combined with small picture thinking. It is also not relevant to the other matter raised in this thread, which was about philosophical issues. Your reply appears to be an attempt to mislead by misdirection. -
Albatross at 06:17 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Moderator, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think Pielke Jnr's proposal relevant to the story at hand? What is perhaps relevant is Pielke et al. trying to make it sound like there is some nefarious "black list" when there is in fact none. Going off on tangents about Pielke is seemingly an attempt to detract from the incredibly inconvenient findings (for those in denial of AGW or those skeptical of AGW) of this study. -
Geo Guy at 06:16 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Ian # 49 - Your phrase "denier" says it all. I could use the same arguments to discredit those who have signed petitions and letters supporting AGW but that serves no purpose. Also to state that those scientists who did sign the OIM petition were essentially all lemmings is equally unconvincing. Finally to say there hasn't been any misleading and inaccurate reports supporting AGW is equally misleading. It seems that when some people want to discredit the opposing view on the basis of certain parameters, they feel they can, however when those same parameters are used to support their view, all of a sudden they are acceptable. As the saying goes, you cannot have your cake and eat it to!! :) -
Albatross at 06:10 AM on 23 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP, am I correct in concluding that you believe/understand AGW to be (for want of a more appropriate word) "fraud"? I really need to know exactly where you stand on AGW in order to appropriately place your posts in context. If you have stated so elsewhere, then please direct us there. Thanks. There is a fundamental flaw in your argument/s. You are clearly extremely critical of the scientific method, yet you seem to fail to recognize that some of the more credible AGW "skeptics" use the very same scientific method and scientific philosophy in their research. Intriguing then that you seem to have no issue with their science, and in fact cite their "science" to try and undermine the credibility of legitimacy of research which demonstrates that AGW is either real or a concern. Therefore, by your logic the science used by skeptics should also be dismissed. I agree, but I suspect for different reasons. -
Geo Guy at 06:08 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Doug # 43 My apologies if that how my comments are interpreted, as that is what I did not intend. By all means do use research from climatologists, but keep them independent of those who contributed in some fashion to the IPCC reports. Also realizes that the science of climate and climate changes involves a plethora of scientific thinking that transects disciplinary boundaries. In my view, we are only going to arrive at a more accurate synopsis of what is happening to our climate by involving scientists from across the spectrum. Finally I believe we have to place less emphasis on peer reviews and more on the process followed by scientists in arriving at the various conclusions we read about today. One observation I have made with a number of publications is that the authors tend to jump to the conclusion that climate change is the cause of the observations they have recorded without linking the two. A paper to illustrate this observation was the one referenced about the disappearance of lizards in various habitats around the world where the author has pointed the finger at climate change. More recently a paper was published about the disappearance of snakes in essentially the same habitat, however instead of pointing the finger at climate change, the author indicated in the report that more works needs ot be done to understand what the cause is - which IMHO is the more pragmatic approach to take. While not scientific, I did peruse the source of the scientists used by Anderegg et al, 2010 and found a lot of scientists that had signed various documents that are cited, to have been involved/participants in the generation of the IPCC reports - hardly independent sources. http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/list_sources.html Unfortunately I find this type of misleading profusion to be upsetting as it detracts from following proper process. If you have independent reports that support the IPCC's findings then that is one thing - to use reports or "letters" involving the same scientists that participated in the IPCC process to me is fraudulent. -
dhogaza at 06:07 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
"In my view, we are only going to arrive at a more accurate synopsis of what is happening to our climate by involving scientists from across the spectrum." Maybe we should use more pictures? -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:02 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy... I'm curious how you think that a contribution to IPCC reports would somehow disqualify a scientist from having an opinion on an issue for which they have extensive experience. That's seems tantamount to not asking certain oncologists their opinion on your tumor because they've contributed to a report on cancer. -
Albatross at 05:52 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
"Noosa’s event on Friday evening was attended by just 36 people" Reading that made my day. -
johnd at 05:41 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Ian Forrester at 02:50 AM, you have tried to divert from the issue under discussion, namely whether or not CO2 has a fertilisation effect, is a plant food.Moderator Response: We can take a hint! Please discuss this further on a more appropriate thread. Thanks! -
Karl_from_Wylie at 05:29 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Survey is not surprising. Would you be surprised to find a survey of Catholic priests found only 3 to 5 percent are agnostic? -
Berényi Péter at 05:28 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#34 e at 03:42 AM on 23 June, 2010 since you seem hung up on the word "priorities", perhaps the NSF's discussion of Investment Priorities would be more what you are looking for Unfortunately we'll not be able to decide the question whether rejection of Pielke's proposal was based on a fair application of these pretty vague priorities, as rejected proposals are undocumented at the NSF site. See Pielke Sr.'s recommendations.- present ALL proposal abstracts, reviews of both accepted and rejected proposals and program managers decision letters (or e-mails) on line for public access
- present the date of submission and final acceptance (or rejection) of the proposal.
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Ian Forrester at 05:27 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geoguy, your reference to the Oregon petition shows how deeply in the AGW denier camp you are embedded. The response to the OIM petition was based on a simultaneous presentation of a fraudulent paper (made to look as if it had been published in PNAS) along with rather misleading questions. As an indicator of how scientists and others feel about AGW it is useless. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:24 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Checking in at WUWT, I see the Anderegg paper is being celebrated, with Anderegg et al likened somewhat paradoxically to both Nazis as well as Communists. Watts does his very best to establish that Anderegg's paper contains a "black list," which it does not. Watts is also mixed up about the authorship of the paper, or at least he's rhetorically reversing the author relationships in order to improve the artistic merit of his impressionism. Pielke Jr. is also working the same "black list" conflation angle. This paper -really- touched a nerve. Here's (pdf) the Anderegg paper. Can you find a "black list?" I can't. -
CBW at 05:13 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
fydijkstra, like any other research paper, Anderegg's addresses some questions, not ALL POSSIBLE questions. There is broad agreement within the climate science community about the fact that the climate is warming and that human activity is the cause. There is not now, nor will there ever be complete agreement on every aspect of the problem. That's not how science works and that's not how people work. Science, by definition, takes place at the edges of knowledge where human understanding is incomplete and work must be done to ferret out the truth. It is both unrealistic and unnecessary to require unanimity before taking action. We know that smoking causes disease, despite the fact that there are still people disputing that reality. And research into the effects of smoking continues. But it would have had severe public health consequences to not have taken action while waiting for every scientist to be in complete agreement with all of findings of the consensus, or while waiting for the research to be "complete." -
Doug Bostrom at 05:04 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
fydijkstra ignoring for a moment the evidence that anthropogenic climate change does seem to be having a number of knock-on effects, before any policy response can happen the public and by extension policy makers need to have some sense of whether the -fundamentals- of anthropogenic climate change are reliable. That's why Anderegg et al stick with the notion of "tenets of anthropogenic climate change." They're not querying on "chapter and verse" but instead basic mechanisms and basic attributions. The fundamental thrust of the research is to help understand the disparity of understanding this topic between scientists and the lay public. There's a legitimate need for investigation of this. Beyond applications this gulf of understanding is a subject of keen curiosity for social science researchers because it's rather strange and difficult to explain. Sometimes just reading the abstract can be helpful: Anderegg: Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers. The source of public confusion will hopefully be tracked down in a scientific way as opposed to simply speculating based on PR expenditures by interested parties. Anderegg and others are following that path of inquiry. -
dhogaza at 04:50 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Yes, BP, it is normal practice for granting agency program directors to set and use priorities. Grant decisions are made by them, not by the reviewers. Reviewers are just advisers.
In fact, the prior setting and later using of priorities is one of the mechanisms that helps to keep the process objective. The rejection letter cited above points out that reviewers felt the research had merit, it just didn't match well with priorities. Of course, if there had been fewer grant requests in the queue, perhaps the rejection letter would've been an approval. -
fydijkstra at 04:38 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
This should not appear on Skeptical Science (just as the Anderregg article should not have been published in any seriously reviewed journal). 'Skeptical Science' claims to be skeptical in a better way than the so called climate skeptics. Well, there we go! Is the unthinkingly acceptance of such an article the real skepticism? I have always thougth that skeptics do not accept things without first asking a lot of questions. "97 to 98% of climate scientists are convinced by the evidence of human caused climate change." OK, maybe that in a certain sample of climate scientists 97% answer 'yes' to such an umbrella statement. But of what are they really convinced? How much has the globe really warmed in the last 2 centuries? Which part of that warming is due to human activities and which is due to natural factors? Which human acivities have caused climate change? Do they really trust climate models? Do they believe the predictions of these models about sea level change, disaster damage, health risks? Etc. etc. etc. Climate skeptics claim that there is no scientific consensus on these issues. The Anderegg article does not in any way show the contrary. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:37 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy suggests that in assessing climate-related publications we must eliminate those researchers whose work is most closely associated with climate research. Down the road we're going to look on this period as akin to a situation where we were repeatedly forced to submit to digital prostate exams from self-professed doctors unable to distinguish their thumbs from their middle fingers, only later to discover to our chagrin that the gland in question was perfectly healthy all along. -
Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon, You can make guesses all day long as to what the parameters in your model represent, but it does nothing to change the conclusions that you can logically draw from your model in and of itself. You've made some very dramatic conclusions in your WUWT post, and suggested that these conclusions can be drawn directly from the results of your model. Now, without inserting information that is not directly included in your model or it's results, please explain why this is the case. -
mazibuko at 04:21 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I really can't see how this paper is terribly helpful, and it's top stat is actually wrong--I believe the highest value in the "unconvinced section" is the Pielke Sr. data point. Pielke Sr. states fairly clearly that he is convinced by the evidence, although thinks that land use has a greater influence on climate than in commonly accepted. Minds are already made up on this, and more proof of "consensus" isn't going to convince any skeptics. This is simply another artillery round in the ongoing war, which will in due course be answered by a return volley (however feeble or unconvincing it may be to those of us who don't indulge in conspiracy theories). -
barry1487 at 04:05 AM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
robhon,Actually, I just went back and was looking through Knutti 2005 and they say in the introduction, "Atmospheric CO2 is prescribed directly in the idealized scenarios used here, other forcings are not considered." So, they get 1.4C to 6.5C without other forcings.
True - those figures are derived by including estimated feedbacks to CO2 forcing. They don't consider other forcings. -
Geo Guy at 03:58 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I think your post was made without due assessment of the supporting evidence. With respect to Doran 2009, his work entailed a web-based survey of 10,257 earth scientists, of which 3,146 responded. Of these 5% (157) were reported to be climate scientists. What isn’t evident is the response from those climate scientists for the two questions. Even at that, only 82 percent answered yes to the question: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Now, the above question does NOT ask “Do you think human activity is DRIVING the change in mean global temperatures.” Which I believe would have resulted in a different level of response. For instance I personally believe that human activity IS a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures, however not in the way being promoted by IPCC. In addition I do not feel that mean is a valid measurement to determine what man’s impact is on global temperatures. With respect to your comment that “very few scientists who actually have expertise in climate science.” How can you use that argument when you use someone else's work (Doran 2009) who, based on your criteria, should not be considered given that the survey focused on responses from 3,146 geoscientists of which only 5% were climate scientists? Climate science is not a topic by itself. Instead it incorporates knowledge from a number of scientific disciplines, including geoscientists, physicists, chemists, biologists, atmospheric and environmentalists to name some and which composed over 50% of those who signed the OISM petition. This is in sharp contrast to your reported 39 scientists. Furthermore you have consistently provided links in this blog to studies carried out by biologists, geoscientists etc so if they are good enough to support your position on climate change, similarly educated scientists should be accepted for their contrary view point. As for Anderegg et al, 2010, when you delve into their respondents, close to 50% were associated with the IPCC which from a statistical perspective, should be removed from the data as having a conflict of interest. You are using the same authors to support the findings of a panel to which they contributed. In addition there is no method to verify that all of those scientists that were included in the list were in fact climate scientists (given that you seem to reject any contrarian viewpoint from a scientist that isn’t a climate scientist. You can’t have it both ways. In the end, you conclusion is contrived and extremely biased and holds no credence. -
tobyjoyce at 03:57 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Here is the link for #39 Oreskes paper -
tobyjoyce at 03:55 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Incidentally, didn't Naomi Oreskes publish a similar paper some years ago? With similar findings? Wasn't she accused of cherry-picking the data, then cleared? She was not accused of making a Blacklist, as I have seen on blogs like Spencer's and Watts', a spin that seems to be Pielkes Jnr.'s. Oreskes paper -
Doug Bostrom at 03:53 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Regarding Pielke, how about some data? Here's recent history of funded proposals from the program Pielke suggests is being lead by dishonest and biased program officers: Pielke-gripe awarded cohort Can you spot the dishonesty? -
Gneiss at 03:53 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
BP asks, "Is it normal practice to reject a proposal supported by reviewers based on the Program Director's unspecified priorities? Not even that. An unspecified entity's unspecified priorities." I guess you've never submitted an NSF proposal. Yes, it is quite normal. That is basically a form letter, which I and probably many others here have seen at times in response to our own lovely proposals. What's new here is the black-helicopters belief that let-them-down-gently boilerplate wording now reveals a sinister political intent.
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