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LWeisenthal at 03:49 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
With reference to: "Generally, scientists aren't funded to do work that's already been done." Actually, this is the type of work which does get funded, in the real world. In 1982, Emil Frei of Harvard gave the Karnofsky address at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meetings. He spoke about two types of scientists: Investigators and Discoverers. Investigators advance timid and most often trivial hypotheses, based upon prior work. This type of work has a high probability of success, and the success reassures the scientific community. Investigators succeed and are esteemed by their mentors and peers. At best, investigative research results in single step advances, which change no paradigms. Discoverers take risks. They usually fail. Their thinking disturbs both mentors and peers. But when they succeed, the result is a multi-step advance and sometimes a true paradigm shift (e.g. the bacterial causation of peptic ulcer disease). The problem comes when investigators become imbued with so much certitude that would be discoverers can never get funded and when discoveries can't get published. The weakest of all arguments in favor of a given theory is the degree of peer acceptance. This is purely a political argument and not a scientific argument. - Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA -
Riccardo at 03:46 AM on 23 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
so, Berényi Péter did calculations on a state wide basis regardless of the actual siting of the met stations (i.e. attributing the same increase in population to all stations) and kindly leave to us to do the proper calculations. In the meanwhile he maintains his quite strong claim, waiting for us to prove it. Great. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:43 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
LWeisenthal... I think this was stated previously but I'll reiterate. No one is claiming that there is 100% absolute proof that there is no other answer than AGW. No one is claiming there can't be another answer. They are claiming that science, when it gets to this level of study, with so many independent lines of evidence pointing to the same conclusion, it's most likely that the general consensus of the scientific community is correct. Might there be another explanation? Of course. Is it likely? Not very. -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Actually BP, 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. This is from the NSF's Strategic Plan, publically available on their website. -
AuntSally at 03:26 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Couple of thoughts based on these comments... 1. Generally, scientists aren't funded to do work that's already been done. So "proving" the human connection is not a priority, as there's already an enormous preponderance of evidence. And for this reason, one is unlikely to get funded to pursue research which a priori disregards this preponderance of evidence. (No one will fund your gravity research if your a priori hypothesis is that things don't fall when you drop them.) 2. I'm still amazed at the "science isn't done by consensus" comments. Nonsense. The difference, however, is that the consensus is evidence-based and it's the consensus of the relevant scientific community. Further, I generally find such comments intellectually dishonest (e.g., Arkadiusz above): if the stats were reversed -- if 98% disagreed with AGW -- the mantra would be "See, this proves people have nothing to do with it." Certainly they wouldn't be fighting for the necessity of listening to the "alarmist 2%." -
Tom Dayton at 03:26 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. -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
BP, >Is it normal practice to reject a proposal supported by reviewers based on the Program Director's unspecified priorities? The priorities are not unspecified, you can read about them here and here. -
tobyjoyce at 03:17 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
@JMurphy #16, David Attenborough told a story in one of his documentaries about how he was impressed by the theory of Continental Drift while a geology student at Cambridge. He mentioned this to his Professor, who put him in his place with an instant riposte "Dear boy, I will accept the theory of Continental Drift when you show me what the continents can float on". Actually, the Professor was totally correct. Without Plate Tectonics (which only came along in the late '50s), the evidence for Continental Drift (I think it was proposed in 1912) was quite slim. Instinctively, we always think the "losers" were wilfully blind or stupid in any intellectual debate, but often the "wrong" side were also the side with the better evidence at the time. This was a point Stephen Jay Gould was fond of making, when defending Cuvier, Catastrophism and other scientific "losers". Evolution was only totally accepted in the Modern Synthesis with genetics, and Lamarckism was kicked to the kerb. The point is that the scientific consensus HAS to be the starting point. Only when you have totally picked over its bones and understood it can you start thinking of alternatives. And the alternatives usually grow from points where the consensus is weakest, not from maverick science that rejects the whole consensus to begin with. -
Berényi Péter at 03:04 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#17 KR at 01:53 AM on 23 June, 2010 You can only state that the reviewers (over three submissions) and the people in the program thought other proposals were more worth funding for some reason or another 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. "other proposals [...] were of higher priority" Weird language. -
Sean A at 02:56 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Victim bullying aside, the supposed "publication bias favoring agreement with conventional wisdom" is something that should be examined. Where does the "conventional wisdom" of science come from? Not out of "consensus building", or some kind of agreement to agree, but from years of evidence from study after study that have held up under scrutiny. So, if you want to publish something that goes against the body of evidence that represents our best understanding of reality, it had better be good! -
LWeisenthal at 02:52 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
With reference to: >>I believe a "consensus" properly indicates a result of multiple lines of independent inquiry, pursued by people often in competition for funding in different locations, institutions, and fields of inquiry, using different methods, yet arriving independently at similar conclusions. Therefore a "consensus" actually is a powerful indicator of validity. >>A 97% consensus of the independent variety is overwhelming testimony to the validity of the argument, and that is what we have in this case.<< There are a whole lot of things in the history of science which show just how poisonous it is to argue something on the basis of popularity among scientists. To cite just a single, very egregious example: The bacterial causation of peptic ulcer disease (PUD). In the mid-80s, 99.9% of the world's experts thought that PUD was primarily caused by excess stomach acid, which was, in turn, caused by things such as stress, smoking, alcohol, spicy foods, whatever. The evidence for this was overwhelming. The most lucrative operation for surgeons was the vagotomy and antrectomy (ulcer operation). The most lucrative drug was Tagamet (which reduced acid secretion). A lone pathologist in Australia, with no "credentials" came up with the idea that ulcers were caused by a bacterium (helicobacter pylori). No one believed him. He couldn't get the work published. He certainly wouldn't have qualified for any funding. It took nearly 20 years for the world to come around to his way of thinking. In 2005 he (Robin Warren) won the Nobel Prize. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html Today, the vagotomy and antrectomy, as well as Tagamet, exist primarily as historical reminders of the folly of scientific certitude. -
Esop at 02:51 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#4: The ever so slight problem with the "it's natural" camp, like the Polish geologists that you quote is that they went on record to state that global temperatures would continue to drop after 2008. They failed miserably, as we are seeing record high global temperatures during the lowest solar activity in more than a century. The natural drivers like PDO and solar are turned to the cool setting, but the CO2 signal along with a mediocre El Nino is already able to overpower the natural cooling and set records. That is remarkable. -
Ian Forrester at 02:50 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
JohnD, you have not answered my questions. Please reread my post and answer the questions. Large greenhouses are used in one of two situations. Firstly they are used for very high value products or produce. They are also used when some sucker governments get confused by pseudo-science and finance them even though more experienced people tell them that they are nonsense (see the Canadian example; google "Sprung Greenhouse"). If you did a proper review of the scientific literature you would see that increased CO2 accompanied by increased temperature will be a detriment to agricultural production, not a benefit as you suggest. -
tobyjoyce at 02:49 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
@Arkadiusz Semczyszak "...Polish Academy of Sciences, who officially say: that now it is nature that decides, not man-made ... " That is exactly the point! And how do we humans determine the decisions of nature? By science, of course, specifically, the scientific consensus. We all know the consensus may be wrong, but it has been a stable consensus now for twenty years or more ... For months now, (to take one example) A. Watts has been trumpeting how his blog is the most popular science blog on the web, as if that endorsed his position. So what? Tell him that "Nature decides", not the number of hits, Arkadiusz. Every survey that showed a decline in the % of the public accepting the science of global warming has declined was greeted with glee on every denialist website. Tell them that "Nature decides", Arkadiusz, not public popularity. Deniers unashamedly used so-called "Climategate" to undermine public trust, which was the equivalent of the Jonny Cochrane undermining the state's forensic science as tainted with racism in the OJ case. Tell them that "Nature decides", Arkadiusz, this is not a jury trial. When a poster ("marty") was told on a previous thread that "nature was not a democracy", he more or less said that scientists were trying to establish a dictatorship. Tell him that "Nature decides", Arkadiusz, there is not a show of hands at the end of a debate. -
caerbannog at 02:28 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
citizenschallenge (post 23). Note the ';)' at the bottom of my post. Also check out Dr. Andrew Wakefield's credentials. (Wakefield is the Monckton of medicine). My post and your reply demonstrate the power of Poe's Law. ;) ;) ;) -
Sean A at 02:27 AM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO2 change: a possible “standing volume” effect on deep-ocean carbon sequestration -- L. C. Skinner, 2009 "Abstract. So far, the exploration of possible mechanisms for glacial atmospheric CO2 drawdown and marine carbon sequestration has tended to focus on dynamic or kinetic processes (i.e. variable mixing-, equilibration- or export rates). Here an attempt is made to underline instead the possible importance of changes in the standing volumes of intra-oceanic carbon reservoirs (i.e. different water-masses) in influencing the total marine carbon inventory. By way of illustration, a simple mechanism is proposed for enhancing the marine carbon inventory via an increase in the volume of relatively cold and carbon-enriched deep water, analogous to modern Lower Circumpolar Deep Water (LCDW), filling the ocean basins. A set of simple box-model experiments confirm the expectation that a deep sea dominated by an expanded LCDW-like watermass holds more CO2 , without any pre-imposed changes in ocean overturning rate, biological export or ocean-atmosphere exchange. The magnitude of this “standing volume effect” (which operates by boosting the solubility- and biological pumps) might be as large as thecontributions that have previously been attributed to carbonate compensation, terrestrial biosphere reduction or ocean fertilisation for example. By providing a means of not only enhancing but also driving changes in the efficiency of the biological- and solubility pumps, this standing volume mechanism may help to reduce the amount of glacial-interglacial CO2 change that remains to be explained by other mechanisms that are difficult to assess in the geological archive, such as reduced mass transport or mixing rates in particular. This in turn could help narrow the search for forcing conditions capable of pushing the global carbon cycle between glacial and interglacial modes." (emphasis added) I don't think this study says quite what Arkadiusz Semczyszak wants it to say. -
Doug Bostrom at 02:21 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Speaking of fads, I'm disappointed that Berényi Péter is diverging from his usual diligence and is instead helping Dr. Pielke perform an embarrassing public tantrum over a declined proposal. Pielke's case is quite incomplete because we're lacking necessary information to form a conclusion about Pielke's implied charge of misbehavior of a program officer (Pielke is actually quite prolific at flinging dubious charges; see the matter of his accusing Pachauri of malfeasance, where Pielke was arguably perilously close to slander). I've never worked for NSF but I am very good friends with a two-term program officer at NSF and can testify from very close quarters that the integrity of the process is extremely good. Proposals making it all the way to being treated to detailed review at NSF are nearly uniformly of very high quality. Those finding their way to the desk of a program officer without obvious blemishes are even more tightly grouped in terms of prospects for successful research outcomes but money is scarce, too scarce to fund all proposals found meritorious by reviewers. The program officer's job is to select those proposals considered of most relevance to an individual program's overall objectives and the objectives of NSF as a whole. Given that Pielke's proposal will have been reviewed along with a sizable class of other excellent research projects, making any judgment about the justification of Pielke's annoyance over the failure of his proposal would be easier if we saw the cohort of proposals considered by the program officer. Indeed Pielke himself suggests this but leaps to a conclusion without any supporting data. Pielke himself helps to explain the dilemma of program officers while still being unable to resist injecting political rhetoric into his words: "NSF program managers have considerable ability to slant research that they fund with insufficent transparency of the review process. This has become quite a problem in the climate science area where, as one example, in recent years they have elected to fund climate predictions decades into the future. Well, of course NSF has funded climate projections; the future behavior of global climate is an important research topic with large impact and squarely in the purview of NSF. One could certainly make a reasonable case that global climate behavior is more important than hypothetical effects of land use on climate along the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. To me it appears Pielke is trying to use his clout as a pundit to politically influence an NSF funding decision. To the extent he succeeds he will be a degenerate influence on NSF funding decisions. He'd do better to expend his political capital in urging U.S. taxpayers to encourage more funding of NSF. -
citizenschallenge at 02:19 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Well, OK I’ve read Roger Pielke Jr. and Sr.’s articles and am not particularly impressed. My first observation is that there has been a concerted media campaign going on for years attacking scientists and the notion of “consensus” - so now the scientific community is reacting and defending itself - and now of course, they are being attacked for defending themselves. Some criticism of the paper seems justified - but that criticism doesn't seem to substantially threaten the conclusion, though, of course, "more study is needed" ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ caerbannog “This is a point that should not be ignored. Scientists who challenge the consensus are often shut out of journals or even worse, forced to retract papers they have managed to get published.” But, but, when those “skeptical” scientists are using deception and pedaling demonstrably false statements, then fall back on economic/political rational to bolster their opinions - then they do not deserve defending. I’m still waiting for a “skeptical scientist” to produce any convincing papers that do more than slightly adjust some details of the larger AGW picture. Where are these reports? -
johnd at 02:19 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Ian Forrester at 01:15 AM, reality is represented by what has been proved in recent years in glasshouse production of various plants using CO2 enrichment. There is a big market for CO2 generators for such use. Reality is also represented by the FACE trials over the last couple of decades. The fact is that CO2 enrichment works, so there is no point trying to maintain a position of denial. The point that you are missing is that given the technique of CO2 fertilisation is continually proven to work, and if the climate changes as many alarmists are predicting, then these expensive structures and equipment to provide CO2 enrichment won't be needed will they? ROFL Presently they are like monuments being built defying much of what many believers hold dear, no wonder you consider them nonsense. Perhaps you are not so confident about AGW after all if you think everyone has to convert their fields. I would have thought that would be the argument of someone who believed global cooling was coming. Of course if it doesn't change as quickly as being predicted then this type of private investment will still be needed, and perhaps the investors should then consider dipping into the public purse. That currently provides funding for all sorts of AGW related projects, all of which are not feasible without huge subsidies, not so amazing, some now being exposed as little more than scams, more intent on ripping off the taxpayers. -
KR at 02:14 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
D**n it, does that mean I'm unlikely to date Megan Fox? Sigh... CBW's right - not everything gets funded, not all jobs will hire you, not all wishes get granted. That's just life. -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:12 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Berényi Péter... I would venture to guess that virtually every scientist applying for research money in almost every field has a stack of letters identical to Pielke's. It's like being a writer. If you don't get rejection letters then you aren't trying. -
CBW at 02:08 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I think a lot of people don't understand how scientific funding works. A scientist doesn't propose to do work that is in favor or against the conventional wisdom, and very few proposals are for broad topics that could confirm or overturn an entire paradigm. Most science is small and targeted at very specific topics which can add a small piece to the overall body of scientific knowledge. Nor do scientists offer a certain set of findings and then propose work to get those findings. A proposal offers to clarify, refine, or explore a topic of some relevance. One usually has a hypothesis of some kind to be supported or disproved, but one of the most exciting experiences in science is when the results are unexpected. Nobody writes a proposal that says "I don't believe in AGW and I want money to prove it." They write a proposal that, say, illustrates what they believe are inconsistencies in the measurements of lower tropospheric heat flux, and propose a means to disambiguate the earlier findings. And no, not all proposals are funded. There are limited resources in science just like there are everywhere else. Many good proposals are turned down for the same reason that not all qualified job applicants are hired, and not all qualified students get accepted to every school to which they apply, and not all nice guys get to date Megan Fox. Do good work, propose interesting, relevant science, and you'll sometimes get funded. But not always. -
KR at 01:57 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Hmm, try this link for more NSF data - I think I mis-entered the one in my previous post. -
Gordon1368 at 01:54 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
The word "consensus" is used to mean two, opposite things in these discussions, and that is not helpful. Many use it as a pejorative term, representing a lack of independent thought, reflecting a desire to conform to the comfortable majority, out of laziness or a desire for funding. To them, a "consensus" represents a convenient but dishonest fabrication. They view people who do not agree with the "consensus" as being therefore more diligent, more honest, more courageous, and therefore more valid. I believe a "consensus" properly indicates a result of multiple lines of independent inquiry, pursued by people often in competition for funding in different locations, institutions, and fields of inquiry, using different methods, yet arriving independently at similar conclusions. Therefore a "consensus" actually is a powerful indicator of validity. A 97% consensus of the independent variety is overwhelming testimony to the validity of the argument, and that is what we have in this case. -
KR at 01:53 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Berényi, not all proposals get funded. In fact, for the NSF geosciences proposals, the acceptance rates were 31% in 2008 and 44% in 2009, as shown here. If half to two-thirds of all proposals are rejected, you cannot argue that a rejection (even a reconsideration of a rejection, as shown here) is evidence of a bias against a particular scientist or topic. Lots of proposals get rejected. You can only state that the reviewers (over three submissions) and the people in the program thought other proposals were more worth funding for some reason or another - not guess post-facto in the absence of evidence what that reason might be. -
Doug Bostrom at 01:53 AM on 23 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Ken, it seems that indeed you believe there's been essentially no significant warming of the ocean over the past 16 years. That's a remarkably bold assertion and leaves you in a vanishingly small minority, on the fringe even in the contrarian camp. You ought to make a case for your belief. It might be better to take further discussion of OHC to the thread you cited, but let me just remark that "The jump of about 7E22 Joules in a 2 year period is most likely an instrument offset error" is not a demonstration of an error, not a useful argument, it's a supposition for which you supply no evidence other than being uncomfortable with the eyeball appearance of a graph. You need to supply a cogent argument to support your assumption. At the very least, to form a conclusion about the 16 year period better than what the instrumental record suggests, you'll need to fill in the period you're worried about with some numbers. Note that the meta-analysis of OHC described here elaborates real methods and forms a conclusion derived from those methods. It's superior to your graphically-inspired supposition, more trustworthy until you do better work. -
JMurphy at 01:30 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Arkadiusz Semczyszak wrote : "... and from my country, I will add dozens of scientists from the Polish Committee of Geological Sciences - Polish Academy of Sciences, who officially say: that now it is nature that decides, not man-made ..." Funny how it's always the Geologists who take the opposing view, as they did over Plate Tectonics until they were forced to amend their conservative thinking by facing up to the facts that even they couldn't reject forever. Hopefully it won't be too long before the same happens with regard to global warming. However, the Polish Academy of Sciences, as a whole, support the conclusions of the IPCC, as shown by this statement in Polish. Perhaps Arkadiusz can confirm or deny the contents ? That statement represents the views of all the Divisions and Institutes, including the Division of Earth and Mining Sciences, of which The Institute of Geological Sciences is a part. Alongside them in that Division, but not denying, are The Institute of Geophysics, and The Institute of Oceanology. The Division of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences don't appear to be denying either. Why is it always the Geologists who think they know better than anyone else in any other field, even when it's not their area of expertise ? -
Berényi Péter at 01:26 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#10 robhon at 00:54 AM on 23 June, 2010 I just don't buy the "funding bias" argument. There are definitely real scientists who are genuinely skeptical of AGW out there who are getting funded. Except when they are not. "It is clear that revisions have been made, and it is clear that reviewers see merit in the project. Nevertheless the proposal was turned down, principally because the Program [Director] has determined that other proposals in this competition were of higher priority."
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walter crain at 01:22 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
john, thanks for the article. and thanks for keeping track of and offering context/rebuttals for all the skeptics' false arguments. on this topic - the extent of the consensus - i've been bugging gavin over at realclimate to start a "list of jims" (similar to biologists' list of steves) named for james hansen. could you give him a nudge? -
Ian Forrester at 01:15 AM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
JohnD, at a cost of about $4,000,000 per hectare, how many farmers do you think will be able to convert their fields in such an optimum manner? Any news of any hydroponically grown wheat? Any data on how the price of tomatoes has probably sky rocketed since this technology was started (or how much government subsidy went into it)? A similar piece of nonsense was built in Canada a number of years ago and was a financial disaster once all the government subsidies were removed. You are dreaming in technicolour matey. Time to come down to reality. -
Spencer Weart at 01:00 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Although I am personally "convinced by the evidence" and am surprised at the number who are not, I have to admit that this paper should not have been published in the present form. I haven't read any other posts on this; the defects are obvious on a quick reading of the paper itself. Here's what I saw: Many scientists might have been "unconvinced by the evidence" and yet chosen not to volunteer to sign a politicized statement that "strongly dissented" from the IPCC's conclusions -- which is the only criterion the authors of the paper had. What if they weakly dissented or are just, like many scientists, shy about taking a public stand? You don't have to invoke groupthink, fear of retribution or all that. The statistics are certainly interesting, but must be interpreted as "2-3% of people who have published 20 climate papers are willing to publicly attack the IPCC's conclusions." That is, to me, a surprisingly high fraction, although I think it can largely be attributed not to the scientific process but to the unfortunate extreme political polarization, which can induce blindness... on both sides. -
sleepership at 00:57 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Its amazing that the small few-under 5% have so much power. This surely shows the far right agenda still has many believers who listen to those in the 'scientific community' who have limited credibility and still look at the enemy anyone who disagrees with Rush or Beck. -
snapple at 00:54 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I also wrote about this today and have a link to the full PNAS article. http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/06/proceedings-of-national-academy-of.html http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf This link may change because it is the early edition. -
Rob Honeycutt at 00:54 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I just don't buy the "funding bias" argument. There are definitely real scientists who are genuinely skeptical of AGW out there who are getting funded. Doesn't Svensmark currently have a large project going at Cern? Lindzen continues to publish. As do Christy and Spencer. This is not the issue at all. Coming up with a project that is rational and counter to AGW would be quite difficult at this point with as much evidence as there is to the contrary. Again, extraordinary claims.... well, in this case, would require extraordinarily tolerant funding. -
Berényi Péter at 00:47 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#2 omnologos at 23:38 PM on 22 June, 2010 read the comments by Pielke Jr, Curry, Christy please Yes, do that, all of you. A New Black List by Roger Pielke Jr.
And this one.
Comments On The PNAS Article “Expert Credibility In Climate Change” By Anderegg Et Al 2010 by Roger Pielke Sr.
"The Anderegg et al paper is another in a set of advocacy articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (see and see). This paper illustrates more generally how far we have gone from the appropriate scientific process."
It is always good to know how things work (as opposed to how they'd be supposed to).
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KR at 00:38 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
One of my favorite quotes (Bern, I suspect you were thinking of the "extraordinary evidence" quote?) regards the outliers, the scientists (and non-scientists) who go against the trend, and whose theories are claimed by some to be trampled by the conventional wisdom: "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan If you are forced to retract a paper, well, that means your paper was wrong, that clear mistakes have been pointed out. Nobody makes that kind of admission of error without proof - if there isn't clear proof of error, bad data, incorrect methods, etc., the paper will remain in the marketplace of ideas, and will be cited (or not) based on it's perceived worth. -
caerbannog at 00:28 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
The cited statistics are compelling, but, in all areas of peer review science, there is a publication bias favoring agreement with conventional wisdom -- likewise a similar funding bias. In a scientific environment where such an overwhelming majority of scientists favor a certain point of view, one can readily appreciate how difficult it would be to obtain funding or publication of ideas and data contrary to those of the predominate school of thought. This is a point that should not be ignored. Scientists who challenge the consensus are often shut out of journals or even worse, forced to retract papers they have managed to get published. Just ask Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He's more than happy to tell folks all about how he's been repressed by the corrupt scientific establishment. ;) -
caerbannog at 00:21 AM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Dietze, 1997.... hmmm..... According to Sourcewatch, Peter Dietze is an electrical engineer, not a climate scientist. He has published no climate-science research in the peer-reviewed literature. Citing someone like that isn't likely to convince the science-savvy participants here. Electrical engineers who know nothing about climate science but still consider themselves climate-science experts are a dime a dozen. I know a few personally. They may be experts in their own narrow specialties, but they have little appreciation of the limits of their expertise. -
Bern at 00:17 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
The other way to look at it - yes, there have been times in the history of science where a very small group went against the conventional wisdom, and were shown to be correct. Very few times, though. In the vast number of cases, the majority have been right, and the small group way off base. For me, it comes down to the preponderance of evidence for the pro side, and the significant lack of evidence for the nay side. And saying "but XX doesn't *prove* AGW is happening" is not proof that it's *not* happening, although that seems to be a common argument. At this point, given the rather unevenly stacked evidence, I would say that the anti-AGW faction are making extraordinary claims, and we all know what Carl Sagan had to say about those! @Arkadiusz - how many members of that committee of Geological Sciences work in the field of climate research? -
Dennis at 23:58 PM on 22 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Deniers will try again to move the goalposts on how the scientific process works and reaches a consensus. We will hear that these guys publish and are cited because of money and "conventional wisdom" while the "truth" is shouted down. We will hear yet again about how a small number of individuals doing "real" research are the only ones who know what is really going on. But this argument really means that the entire scientific process from grants to peer-review to the editorial boards of the publications they read are all really in a corrupt conspiracy. I wish the deniers would just come out and say that, because I can't think of any other logical conclusion. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:50 PM on 22 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
"The thousand profound scholars may have failed, first, because they were scholars, secondly, because they were profound, and thirdly, because they were a thousand." — Edgar Allan Poe, The Rationale of Verse ... and that I could finish my writing ..., but ... Not so long ago (2002) 98% of scientists claimed that: LIA = bacteria = rats = the Black Death ... And what happened (after 2002)? ... ... of course two constituents of the center of the puzzle ... Me in place of "thousand" one Lindzen is enough, maybe I would add Pielke ... ... and from my country, I will add dozens of scientists from the Polish Committee of Geological Sciences - Polish Academy of Sciences, who officially say: that now it is nature that decides, not man-made ... -
Berényi Péter at 23:41 PM on 22 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Guys, there is no merit of Bayseian or whatever technique until basic concepts are set straight. I have already explained to you why logarithmic dependence of UHI extends well below "rural" population densities, based on IPCC TAR WG1 2.2.2.1 and actual local UHI studies. I have also explained why it matters. Now I have pulled US historical population data for the 48 states of the contiguous US from the U.S. Census Bureau site and USHCN v2 monthly data from CDIAC (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center), a GZIP-compressed file of the average of bias-adjusted mean monthly maximum and minimum temperatures (with estimates for missing values), as it is explained in the readme file. Both datasets cover the 110 year period of 1900-2009. As the Census Bureau site's presentation of data is a bit convoluted, it took some time to collect all the annual data. I've put it here as a gift for you. Then I've computed both temperature (t) and log population density (d) trends for each state. As part of temperature trend is clearly explained by population density trend, I've looked for a value c for which the area weighted sum of (t'-cd')2 over all 48 states is minimal. It turns out the optimum value for c on this dataset is 0.238°C/doubling, which is huge. But it is not outside the range indicated by multiple UHI studies. Without UHI correction temperature trend for the lower 48 states is 0.657°C/century while the actual trend with proper UHI adjustment is only 0.139°C/century.
The US Census Bureau has population data down to county level. The exact location of USHCN stations is also documented. I leave it to you as an exercise to do it in a much more detailed way and also check the IPCC claim of UHI logarithmic dependence on population density. If it is done right, it can be published in the peer reviewed literature. I have no more time to spend on this issue, it's not my job.
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omnologos at 23:38 PM on 22 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I guess the uncritical acceptance of such an abysmally-low-quality of a paper says a lot about Skeptical Science (read the comments by Pielke Jr, Curry, Christy please). You would be definitely better off by sticking to Monckton... -
LWeisenthal at 23:37 PM on 22 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Skeptics claim "no funding without a cause." The cited statistics are compelling, but, in all areas of peer review science, there is a publication bias favoring agreement with conventional wisdom -- likewise a similar funding bias. In a scientific environment where such an overwhelming majority of scientists favor a certain point of view, one can readily appreciate how difficult it would be to obtain funding or publication of ideas and data contrary to those of the predominate school of thought. (I'm not a denier, but I've had a lot of discussions with deniers -- the preceding arguments are always made). - Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA -
Ken Lambert at 23:14 PM on 22 June 2010Astronomical cycles
DougB #94 and kdkd #95 "The jump of about 7E22 Joules in a 2 year period is most likely an instrument offset error. Take out the jump and the OHC is pretty flat for the whole 16 year period - and the more accurate Argo data from the 6-7 analyses starts to converge on a flatter trend over the last 6 years (Fig 2)." Go and work the numbers for yourselves and show me my error. I also note that most sea level charts show a flattening of SLR from around 2005-2008 eg. see Fig 3 of: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf Then they happily report a rise from 2008-2009 to put the SLR back on the 3.2mm/year trend from 1993-2009. Of course 6 years a ridiculously short period according to kdkd when SLR and OHC is flattening and there is a 'lack of warming', but one year is fine to get the SLR back on trend, when the trend fits the AGW theory. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:12 PM on 22 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
"misunderstanding" - in past and future ... Probably the "biogeochemical cycles", that processes are, however, decisive - biological feedback. It's biosphere determines the amount of CO2 in the assessment. Hence, shortening, often for thousands of years, a cool ocean does not equal - a little CO2 in the atmosphere (and vice versa) ... ... "In IPCC scenarios it is assumed that far more fossil reserves would be burnt than is physically recoverable. Using an eddy diffusion ocean model, the IPCC HAS GROSSLY UNDERESTIMATED the future OCEANIC CO 2 uptake. Hardly coping with BIOMASS response and taking a double to treble temperature sensitivity, all this has led to an IPCC error factor of up to an order of magnitude." (Dietze, 1997, continuous update - 2010). -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:10 PM on 22 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Once again, about how ... ... with great certainty, John Cook says: "As the ocean warms, the solubility of CO2 in water falls. This causes the oceans to give up more CO2 into the air." "So the CO2 record is entirely consistent with the warming effect of CO2. In fact, CO2 warming explains both the dramatic changes in temperature in the Earth's past and how temperature change ..." Glacial – interglacial atmospheric CO2 change ..., Skinner, 2006: "Although it is clear that changes in atmospheric CO2 have remained tightly coupled with global climate change throughout the past ∼730000 years (Siegenthaler et al., 2005), the mechanisms responsible for pacing and moderating CO2 change remain A MYSTERY. The magnitude of the marine carbon reservoir, and its inevitable response to changes in atmospheric CO2 (Broecker, 1982a), guarantees a significant role for the ocean in glacial – interglacial CO2 change. Based on thermodynamic considerations, glacial atmospheric CO2 would be reduced by up to 30 ppm simply due to the increased 5 solubility of CO2 in a colder glacial ocean; however this reduction would be counteracted by the reduced solubility of CO2 in a more saline glacial ocean and by A LARGE REDUCTION IN THE TERRESTRIAL BIOSPHERE under glacial conditions (which would release carbon to the other global reservoirs) (Broecker and Peng, 1989; Sigman and Boyle, 2000). The bulk of the glacial – interglacial CO2 change therefore remains to be explained by more complex inter-reservoir exchange mechanisms, and the most viable proposals involve either the biological- or the physical “carbon pumps” of the ocean. Indeed it appears that whichever mechanism is invoked to explain glacial – interglacial CO2 change must involve changes in the sequestration of CO2 in the deepest marine reservoir ..." Quantifying the roles of ocean circulation and biogeochemistry in governing ocean carbon-13 and atmospheric carbon dioxide at the last glacial maximum, Tagliabue et al., 2009, "Overall, we find that while a reduction in ocean ventilation at the LGM is necessary to reproduce carbon-13 and carbon-14 observations, this circulation results in a LOW net sink for atmospheric CO 2. In contrast, while biogeochemical processes contribute little to carbon isotopes, we can attribute over 90% of the change in atmospheric CO 2 to such factors. The lesser role for circulation means that when all plausible factors are accounted for, over half [!!!] of the necessary CO 2 change remains to be explained. This presents a SERIOUS CHALLENGE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING of the mechanisms behind changes in the global carbon cycle DURING THE GEOLOGIC PAST." Modelling atmospheric CO 2 changes at geological time scales, François et al., 2005 ; "Long-term carbon cycle models ARE STILL IN THEIR INFANCY. The major areas for improvement in these models ..." The scope of our ignorance (The low CO2 glacial ocean as a reverse paleo-analog for the future high CO2 ocean, Heinze, 2009) and the uncertainty is huge: Climate–Carbon Cycle Feedback Analysis: Results from the C4MIP Model Intercomparison (2006) - 29 authors analyzed through 11 models as well as changes to the absorption of CO2 into the oceans and soils as a result of warming. Variance, difference in the results (Figure 1) as the land for the year 2100 is 17 Gt C / year (!), the oceans: 7 Gt C / y! Building on this area of uncertainty for the calculation of positive feedback for p.CO2 - it's just a misunderstanding ... -
CBDunkerson at 22:20 PM on 22 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Fun with illogical formulae; Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.22*(Month(n) Anomaly + 0.58) Ergo, if the temperature Anomaly were fixed at -0.58, atmospheric CO2 would remain unchanged. Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.22*(-0.58 + 0.58) Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 Note that this is anomaly, rather than actual temperature. So, as the temperature climbs during Summer the atmospheric CO2 level would remain constant so long as the temperature was always 0.58 below the baseline used in the satellite temperature record. Thus, per the formula, rising temperatures do NOT cause atmospheric CO2 to increase... only rising temperature ANOMALIES do that. Somehow, incredibly, the flux of atmospheric CO2 is PERFECTLY correlated to the variation from average monthly temperature over an arbitrarily determined period. If a point 0.58 below that satellite record baseline is followed then atmospheric CO2 never changes... meaning that the satellite temperature baseline is somehow directly tied to atmospheric CO2. Thank goodness UAH picked the years they did to compute the baseline. Had they used a different time period we'd never have uncovered this magical correlation. -
Ned at 20:14 PM on 22 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon, I have no idea why you are quoting that passage. If you think it's a response to something from my comment, you'll need to be more explicit about what part of the comment it's a reply to. I would appreciate a straightforward response from you on the following points. Do you now accept that: (1) Almost all the explanatory power of your model is contributed by a constant representing the mean monthly linear increase in CO2 independent of variation in temperature. Temperature contributes very little to your model, and can be dropped or replaced by other variables with almost no change in the results. This is clear from the structure of the model itself, and was also shown visually here and here. (2) As a result of (1), the statement that "[this] simple model can be used to show that the rise in CO2 is a result of the temperature anomaly" is an incorrect interpretation of your model. This was the central claim of your post at WUWT, and it's quite clearly wrong. If you agree that it is wrong, just say so (it would be nice to update or retract the post over at WUWT too). If you do not agree, you have a Herculean job of explaining to do. But in either case, please stop avoiding the issue and just address it! -
Marcus at 19:05 PM on 22 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
LOL David. Yeah, I meant <300ppm. Sorry, had a bit of a brain-fart, as the saying goes ;)!
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