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chriskoz at 11:23 AM on 23 April 2016The climate change generation gap
All of those "gaps" can be explained by differences in vested interests. One group has different vested interests than the other regarding climate change mitigation. Therefore, the group with higher vested interests in maintaining status quo of FF burning, tries to rationalise their interests and develops higher perceptive bias against the established scientific facts and laws of physics. The control group will still have some bias (individual or subjective perception of reality is always biased one way or the other) but their bias will be smaller in that particular aspect.
For example, older generation, say baby boomer whose current remaining lifespan in US averages some 25-35 years, would have lived in the climate that is still preferable, so they feel happy and don't want to change anything. Wheareas the millenial generation (born ~20y ago) whose current remaining lifespan is some 65-75 years, would have not lived their lifespans before the situation changes radically. So, because the first group does not see GW as a threat to themslves, their cognitive bias (because GW is a threat to civilisation) will be larger than that of the second group.
The vested interest indiced bias exists even among the climate scientists. Those 3% AGW contrarians have been repeately shown to be so biased as to be clearly wrong in some cases. Some individual cases have indicated FF interests have induced the contrarian congnitive biases. For example, the famous case of Wili Soon, who accepted energy industry money without disclosing it. I think I've heard of an attempt to quantify the contrarian FF interest bias but I'm unsure if it was ever published. I would not be surprised if such attempt actually confirms such bias is larger than in a random group of climate scientists.
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uncletimrob at 10:59 AM on 23 April 2016New Video: Surveilling the Scientists
That is a deeply disturbing video!
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Glenn Tamblyn at 09:22 AM on 23 April 2016CO2 is not a pollutant
Actually aed939, that CO2 was defined as a pollutant dates back to Massachusetts vs EPA in the US Supreme Court in April2007 when SCOTUS ruled that the greenhouse gases are 'air pollutants' as defined under the Clean AIr Act.
President Bush issued an executive order in May 2007, authorising the EPA to regulate GHGs for mobile sources. -
jenna at 08:10 AM on 23 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Let's remember that the AGU took considerable grief the last couple of years, expecially from some of its membership, for a Climate 'friendly' mission statement that many felt lacked the proper imput from their wide ranging members. They may be still smarting from that experience.
But what I see as the almost worse than accepting Exxon's continued support is the way the AGU felt comfortable publicly thumbing their nose at the Climate Science establishment. This is something they wouldn't have done as recently as a year ago, imho. This signifies a troubling change. If Kerry Emanuel and other noted, high profile Climate scientists are considering breaking ties with the AGU, they should do it now and do it very publicly. There needs to be a forceful response to this, not just a few harsh words.
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donl70 at 04:01 AM on 23 April 2016The climate change generation gap
Yup! there are lots of gaps..biggest one at least in this country is brains versus no brains....those who deny can keep on polluting as usual and those who do..will work towards a better tommorrow!....when yer up to yer eyeballs in water..maybe you'll figure it out..this is for the denier..there are and have been deniers throughout our existance..I don't believe in god,others don't believe the holocaust ever happened...wait and see!
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aed939 at 00:56 AM on 23 April 2016CO2 is not a pollutant
Sorry, actually, the "carbon pollution" moniker was introduced by the Obama administration in 2013.
Moderator Response:[RH] Searching Google Trends for the usage of the phrase "carbon pollution" shows that you are incorrect. Try it out.
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aed939 at 00:52 AM on 23 April 2016CO2 is not a pollutant
Traditionally CO2 has not been considered a pollutant because it does not directly cause human harm (from inhaling it, like particulates), nor does it promote harm to human health indirectly by contributing to smog creation (as NOx leads to the creation of ozone, which in turn may trigger athsma), nor does it lead to property or wildlife damage (as SO2 causes acid rain). CO2, like H2O, is an odorless, harmless emission that is beneficial to humans and wildlife. However, since about 2010, the EPA has tried to intentionally conflate CO2 with other pollutants using the new "carbon pollution" moniker. There is a deliberate intent to confuse CO2--the odorless gas--with black carbon soot (particulates). CO2 itself does not cause any direct or indirect human harm or property damage. There is a theoretical link of global warming to more inense adverse weather events, and a theoretical link of increased CO2 to sea level rise, which may necessitate waterfront modification, depending on the magnitude of the sea level rise. However, in practice, CO2 could double or triple in the atmosphere without any temperature change because there is so much H2O in the system that has about the same greenhouse gas effect. So if you want to classify CO2 as a pollutant, then H2O would also fit the definition. Historically, CO2 has not caused warming. Rather, global warming was caused by some other factor (volcanoes, meteors, sun, etc.), and the warming has caused CO2 to rise as tundra melts.
Moderator Response:[TD] Provide evidence for your claim of deliberate intent to confuse CO2 with carbon soot. Else do not make such baseless, conspiratorial claims here.
Your claim of CO2's influence being trivial because of the H2O in the atmosphere is completely, factually wrong, because water vapor is a feedback rather than a forcing. Read the post "Explaining How the Water Vapor Greenhouse Effect Works." Read the Basic tabbed pane there, and then the Intermediate tabbed pane. If you want to comment on that topic, do so there rather than here; comments on that topic here will be deleted for being off topic.
Your claim that historically CO2 has not caused warming also is completely, factually incorrect. Read the post "CO2 Is Not the Only Driver of Climate"--the Basic tabbed pane and then the Intermediate one. If you want to comment on that topic, do so there, not here. Then watch climatologist Richard Alley's talk "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History."
[RH] Extended warning snip. It would be worthy to note that the EPA initially rejected the idea of making a ruling on CO2. It was a court case "Massachusetts v. EPA" that went to the Supreme Court where the court ruled that the EPA was required to make a ruling on greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (Wiki). The commenter here clearly lacks sufficient understanding of the issue s/he's opining on and would be well advised to fully inform her/himself before continuing commentary.
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bozzza at 08:43 AM on 22 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
@11,
People who work in oil and gas could easily surmise that it's a regulated markets problem and that they aren't responsible which I would suay is correct!
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scaddenp at 07:06 AM on 22 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Glenn, aside from magnetics, geophysics has much smaller role in mineral industry than in petroleum. Seismic is the paramount tool in petroleum exploration (and coal) but it is a far more useful in sedimentary rock than in the "hard rock" terrains of most other minerals. After seismic, would come well log petrophysics which is also used in coal, but again, this has much more limited applications in hard rock minerals.
John, that would be interesting and I note a different slant taken on climate by AAPG compared to AGU.
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Elmwood at 07:01 AM on 22 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
i work in the oil and gas exploration industry and can tell you people in my line of work, even if they admit the climate is warming because of fossil fuel extraction, don't really care. they care about where they are getting money or a job much more.
i think we need to be honest in and recognize the huge obstacle of apathy in the western world concerning AGW.
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RedBaron at 07:00 AM on 22 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
I have a completely different take on this issue completely. As long as there are no strings attached to present bogus denier quackery, not only should AGU accept ExxonMobil money, they should actually ask for double or quadruple from from them. A lot of the earth sciences revolve around cleaning up messes the fossil fuel industry, so why shouldn't that be funded by the industry causing the mess?
This whole controversy seems to be a little like cutting off ones nose to spite ones face. Spite is an ugly emotion. It causes people to act irrationally.
Now if you could actually make a case for the money being used to fund AGW denialism, or influence AGU to act irresponcibly, then a reasonable case could be made to refuse this money from ExxonMobile. I haven't seen such a case being made though.
So IMHO take the money and use it wisely.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:06 AM on 22 April 2016Climate Bet for Charity, 2016 Update
Thanks, Kevin. It's certainly interesting to look at the question different ways. If the decade plays out to the expected 0.15°C over the previous one, that will end up looking very different than what I think he's anticipating. I'm going to be curious how KT's responds as this moves forward.
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John Hartz at 00:09 AM on 22 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
GlennTamblyn:
In the same vein, how many members of the AGU Board of Directors are (or have been) employed by the extraction industry?
The bottom-line is that the AGU is a "Big Tent" organization. I cannot help but wonder what a survey of its entire membership about the scientific consensus re manmade climate change would reveal?
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Kevin C at 18:42 PM on 21 April 2016Climate Bet for Charity, 2016 Update
I think I've worked out how to get something out of KT's plot.
The one advantage it has is that because the denominator is constant, the noise level is also constant across the plot.
Against this, it incorporates a meaningless trend term which is solely dependent on the choice of baseline.
Suppose you were to rebaseline the UAH/RSS mean series by subtracting the mean of the first decade from the series. Then the first decade becomes a CUSUM plot, with the start and end points equal by definition. Progress on the second decade can be seen by whether the line is currently above or below zero.
CUSUM plots are not very intuitive, so I'm not saying it's a good representation. But it does have some mathematical meaning.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 18:23 PM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Interesting question scaddenp, what do you think the split would be between geo-types in FF based industries vs other mining/extraction - iron ore, gold, titanium dioxide and everything else?
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scaddenp at 10:58 AM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
I would expect that FF industry is the largest employer worldwide of geophysists. It certainly makes sense for Exxon to be supporting AGU given the fundamental importance of geophysics to oil exploration. Nothing at all sinister about that.
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John Hartz at 10:09 AM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Does anyone happen to know how many members of the AGU are employed by the fossil fuel industry? I suspect that it's a goodly share.
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r.pauli at 06:18 AM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
First off, I pass along the comment that AGU was foolish to accept $35 k for a total sell out... it is worth 10 or 20 times that. And so that price is so low, that they should just sweep it away.
Next we should all suspect that all media is corrupted. Recently Scienitific American discovered Clean Coal (although calling it something else.) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-oil-companies-save-the-world-from-global-warming/ - SciAm is an advertiser-supported arm of the same publishing house that owns the Journal Nature. (how do they make their money?) Presumably the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group knows what they are doing.
As does Exxon's and sponsorhip of AGU - it must pay off immesurably.
Climate scientists may want to bolt from AGU - the big issue is communicating climate science to the world,,, and AGU seems to make that more difficult - rather, the could do better.
Just model the future: in 2 or 5 years will the AGU be ready to make clear statements about mitigation? Or will we be stuck with Exxon adaptation planning?
Again, looking 5 years ahead, shouldn't there be a scientifica organization that assembles new research and then delivers unified statements without regard for the business needs of an oil company?
At the very least, AGU should hide the sponsors names to prevent bias. And the very best thing would be a new organization of scientists...say something non-profit, disconnected from economic bias.
This seem so obvioius, why would AGU blunder so?
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donl70 at 05:02 AM on 21 April 2016CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Sorry John..being a skeptic is fine but in this case you're incorrect..I'm not saying only mankind is contributing but I'm saying what they manufacture,since the Industrial revolution has contributed immensly..how could it not?? btw I taught several volunteer FYI college classes at night several years back to mostly adults who had no idea what it was all about....my saying to those who must deny GCC..is "well I guess we'll just have to wait and see"..yep it's moving along a good deal faster than old mother nature had in mind..have a swell day..glad I found and joined this site..ciao
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swampfoxh at 01:46 AM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
I suppose i could say, "It's all about the money, but maybe I should say, "It's only about the money". I don't think it takes an exhaustive investigation by a sleuth like Sherlock Holmes to find out whether a donor is part of the problem or part of the solution. AGU should just place itself above and beyond reproach, then we wouldn't have to split hairs over whether we are upholding the (apparently former) high ethical standards (of yesteryear?) On the other hand, people (corporations) don't give you money unless they have something to gain. Fossil fuel companies have everything to lose by having to leave their assets "in the ground", so subversion and chicanery by these groups is the only way they can assure themselves of selling us every last drop of the 1.750 trillion barrels of oil (or gas or coal) left in the ground. The solution for AGU is to either ban all "gifts" from industries who profit from the production of fossil fuels, or for the memebrship to jump ship and start a new organization (today).
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chriskoz at 21:11 PM on 20 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
It would be nice to specify all major AGU sponsors along ExxonMobil, along with their contributions (if such data exists). Presumably, we know about ExxonMobil only with its contribution be $35K.
That list would put Kerry's lament about "mockery of [...] a mere $35K" into a good perspective. Without such perspective I cannot know if the lament is reasonable.
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chriskoz at 20:57 PM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
Their statistical model assumes that the temperature influence from several individual forcings will add up to the total temperature influence from all the forcings.
I'm not sure if this is a valid assumption. The fact is, that different forcings are inhomogenous, for example land use and aerosols use are localised to NH where most people live. Further, different forcings have differnt efficacies, for example we know that CH4 has efficacy greater than 1, because of its stratospheric water vapour release.
The matter is discussed in detail by Anders in his blog. Therein, Anders cites (Kummer & Dessler 2014) which was written in response to the "climate sensitivity is low" claims by papers such as (Otto 2013) and others. Kummer & Dessler argued that assuming uniform (efficacy == 1) of all types of forcings, resulted in underestimated TCR (transient climate response) estimates by (Otto 2013) and others.
Same argument should apply here. You cannot just add up all forcings and assume the temperature change observed will reflect that sum. I think such assumption, that the authores have clearly made according to the quote above, is flawed.
I don't know how this flaw influenced the principal outcome of this paper (anthropogenic attribution of forcings). Perhaps not that much, perhaps even downgraded the attribution, because e.g. aerosols, with E > 1, do mask the CO2 influence more than they and (Otto 2013) had thought, but I don't feel confident qualifying it. I hope someone can do that, and confirm or refute my claim above.
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william5331 at 18:38 PM on 20 April 2016El Niño is Earth's rechargeable heat battery
Since water vapour is a green house gas, during an ElNino with increased water vapour, the green house effect should be enhanced.
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Nick Stokes at 09:36 AM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
"humans have caused all the global warming since 1950"
I think talking about "all the warming" is a trap. It implies that "all" is a cap, and the first graph shows that this isn't so. It invites the retort that, if something else also caused some warming, humans can't be responsible for all of it.
The AR5 doesn't say this. As quoted here it says:
"The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period "Clumsy, and I'm sure it can be said better. But more accurate. And yes, they half fell into the trap with "more than half".
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longjohn119 at 05:03 AM on 20 April 2016Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
Our model of past climate proves your model of future climate is wrong
Huh?
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longjohn119 at 05:01 AM on 20 April 2016Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
For cripes sake a 'reconstruction' is in and of itself a Model ....
That should be obvious
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longjohn119 at 03:29 AM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
What is really problematic here is eventually Nature is going to catch back up as Carbon Stores in the Arctic and other places where frozen tundra is thawing for the first time in several millenia start being massively released into the atmosphere
That's when all Hell with break loose .....
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EdSilha at 00:24 AM on 20 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Time to send a letter to Margaret Leinen (president of AGU) reminding her that accepting support from ExxonModile and supporting ALEC damage the reputation and credibility of the organization and risk the loss of members. http://about.agu.org/contact/
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link
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r.pauli at 23:42 PM on 19 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Great report. So much for ethical smarts. AGU failed to take a pricipled stand - so now members must take a stand. I'm not sure the AGU was the optimal organization for climate scientists anyway.. This may be an opportunity for change.
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chriskoz at 17:52 PM on 18 April 20162016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #16
To add to the extents of bleaching events in Australia and the entire world:
Sydney's corals now bleaching in 'pretty shocking' sign of warming waters
This is the very first such event in Sydney. There seem to be no place on the East Coast that was not affected by this monster 2016 ElNino. I wonder how much recovery (if at all) we will witness in couple years from now...
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you.
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BBHY at 02:12 AM on 18 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Europe heat wave of 2003: "14,802 heat-related deaths (mostly among the elderly) occurred during the heat wave, according to the French National Institute of Health"
So that was just one single heat wave in one country that was very likely exacerbated by climate change. I don't recall news of any cold spell causing so many deaths. How many thousands died in around Moscow in the Russian heatwave of 2010? How many millions of people died from droughts and famine and floods all exacerbated by climate change?
A comprehensive study would find that there is no comparison to the devastation already being caused by climate change, and that isn't even the really big concern. If atmospheric CO2 keeps increasing and the global average temperature keeps increasing this will get much, much worse.
Lomborg is just completely wrong, as usual.
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MA Rodger at 23:18 PM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @30.
I don't think we should dwell on this as it is off-topic here. But the Tories were in a coalition government 2010-15 which may have lulled many into a false sense of security with the Tories. And while the Tories did win a small majority in the 2015 elections allowing them to mis-rule alone, they achieved that small majority with a minority of the popular vote (37%) and a minority of the full electorate's support (24%). This may make one-in-four of the population candidates for being branded as 'stupid people' although JS Mill (as quoted @25) is quite definite to suggest not all would be 'stupid people'. I should also mention the FPTP system of voting employed in UK elections may give some of those Tory voters the excuse of not being Tories at all, but having voted tactically.
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Jonas at 06:18 AM on 17 April 20162016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #16
Just some positive feedback, from time to time: this collection was and is one of the most important sources of input for me.
I currently do a port of my garden forum and the garden season starts on monday and there is the paid work and the charity work. But this collection keeps me informed even in times of very sparse time on one of the most important topics of all.
Thank you so much!
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome.
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Tom Curtis at 02:58 AM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bartverheggen @33, first, and for question 1, the percentage of all respondents that agreed with the IPCC (attribution of 50% plus) was 65.9% +/- 2%. Your claim is that including the unconvinced shifts results by about 3%. As that is larger than the uncertainty margin, the results are biased based on the inclusion of respondents based on their stated opinion rather than merely their publication history. Ergo, the sample is nonrepresentative. The bias is small, but small is not the same as non-existent.
Because that bias exists, and differs in magnitude based on the number of respondents to each question, the effect of removing the bias by considering just that subsample of respondents included on the basis of publication (including overlaps with the unconvinced group) should also have been reported for each question IMO. Failure to do so means you did not clarrify the impact of the bias. I have no major objection to modifying that claim to "insuficiently clarrified the impact of the bias"; but as it stands the inclusion of "unconvinced" introduces a known bias of unkown quantity in the results as reported, so I think the stronger claim is justified.
Have no doubt, I think that failure is a flaw in the paper. It is particularly a flaw given that you must have known heading in to publication that AGW deniers would pick up on the paper and misprepresent it. Limiting that misrepresentation by forcing them to ignore clear statements regarding the impact of the bias, and reporting the result absent that bias for each question inadvertently made that task of misrepresentation easier.
This is a very specific criticism, and should not be misinterpreted as a general criticism of the paper (which I consider well concieved and and excellent addition to the quantification of the consensus on AGW).
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longjohn119 at 00:49 AM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
This will likely get the axe despite it making an important point that can't be made as effectively any other way ....
If you went to 100 IT Specialists and 97 said you were in danger of being Hacked, 2 said they weren't sure and one said your Security is just fine don't worry, what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY end up with a hacked computer and an empty bank account ....
If you went to 100 auto mechanics and 97 said your brakes are gone, 2 said they weren't sure and one said don't worry you have plenty of brakes left, what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY die from a car wreck (and stupidity) because your brakes failed ....
If you went to 100 doctors and 97 said you have Cancer but it's treatable, 2 said they weren't sure and 1 said you are Cancer free don't worry what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY die from an untreated Cancer (and stupidity)
Moderator Response:[RH] No all caps, please.
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bartverheggen at 23:07 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Tom (31),
Contrary to your claim we did clarify in our article how large the impact on the consensus estimate was by including known contrarians:
"As indicated, contrarian viewpoints are likely overrepresented
in our sample (amounting to ∼5% of respondents), about half
of whom have published peer-reviewed articles in the area of
climate. However, this does not fully explain the difference with
the abovementioned studies. Excluding those tagged as
“unconvinced” more closely approximates the methodologies
of earlier studies and increases the level of agreement, for
example, from 84% to 87% based on Q1, excluding undetermined responses."By quantifying the approximate impact of their inclusion and seeing that it's very small, I stand by what I wrote earlier: I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion.
Also: Both Cook (2013) and Verheggen (2014) are partly based on the same sample, namely a WoS keyword search for global climate change or global warming. That includes many scientists who study climate impacts or mitigation. Many of them are not climate scientists in the sense of studying the physical climate system. That doesn't invalidate the findings of course, but it does mean that these surveys sample the wider scientific field wo have published on climate issues. In other words, for each survey you have to take into account what sample of articles/persons is being surveyd.
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Wol at 18:23 PM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
>>“cold kills many more people than heat” and 2) “climate change will reduce the number of cold days” and “that will cut the total number of cold-related deaths.” <<
What on earth has the number of cold related deaths to do with the number of heat related deaths caused by food shortages, sea level rise and all the rest. It's not cherry picking - it's just bring up extraneous issues to confuse.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:27 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze, RedBaron, denisaf
Our present way of life, at least in the developed world, is healthy neither for us nor the planet. I'm convinced, whether I'm right or not, that mitigation efforts to avoid dangerous warming would entail considerable change — upheaval — in that way of life. We and the planet would be the better for it, but the people fighting such efforts don't see it that way — hence the campaign to bamboozle the general public into thinking scientists are still arguing amongst themselves about the reality or otherwise of climate change.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:02 PM on 16 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
OPOF, okay, as I understand it then, it's not so much fossil fuel that has to become increasingly expensive, but the burning thereof.
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Tom Curtis at 12:03 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bartverheggen @26:
"As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion."
Bart, the correct way to ensure the sample is representative is to exclude all members of the "contratrian" grouping who would not also have been included based on the other criterion for respondents. Even just retaining "scientist contrarians" means that they could be included due to publication history in climate science or political statements agains effective policy on climate change. In contrast, non-contrarian scientists could only be included based on publication history. The effect is that including "scientist contrarians" who do not also appear as an author publishing on climate science is to bias the list in favour of contrarian opinions.
Whether or not a group is representative depends on the absence of bias in the selection method for that group. As it happens your selection method did have such bias, and the results are non-representative. That is a different issue to how large is the impact of the bias, something you could have clarrified in your paper but chose not to. Indeed, you have not done so even now in that the effect of the bias would be different when considering all responses compared to when considering only those responses from respondents with 10 or more papers. I assume the 3% and 1-2% figures are related to the latter grouping.
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grindupBaker at 10:57 AM on 16 April 2016Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
I had thought I was about to disagree with the post but I might only be disagreeing with the myth. Anyway, I disagree with any premise that a computer simulation such as these can have "climate sensitivity" as an input, because it's an output, a result. I've written a computer simulation program. It's more problematic to have a pre-determined output from a computer simulation than it is to compute a trapdoor function in reverse. I think it's impossible. The only way would be iterative simulations, still not an input. You run a few simulations with diverse settings for parameters such as forcings, cloud effects and many others. Then compare the "climate sensitivity" results and there's a technique I've forgotten that I programmed in 1970 (ironically, oil exploration) where the one with least preferred result is discarded and the results are projected from worst to best to yield a set of preferred inputs. And so on iteratively until the desired result is produced, then those inputs are the ones to use. That's the only way that a simulation can produce an output such as "climate sensitivity" as a pre-determined result.
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Roberto Toca at 10:15 AM on 16 April 20162016 SkS Weekly Digest #13
On Toon of the week: Sad but true.
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Haze at 07:48 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
MA Rodger@25. Given that the conservatives in the UK have been in power since 2010 and won the last election fairly comfortably, the obvious conclusion from your argument is that most Britons are stupid.
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r.pauli at 03:04 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Bjorn Lomborg is stuck with his name and reputation. For a great while now, I see his name and associate it with pandering,,, financial and ideological.
Every so often, I check in and read about him, and it only reinforces the validity of the labels. Thanks for checking him again.
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CitizenSmith at 00:33 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
I read both letters. I am not surprised your "Guest Letter" was not published. It was poorly argued and missed a major point that populations can migrate. In fact the original Global Change.gov document was lacking too. While it was much more comprehensive than either of these 2 letters, it was still one sided and neglects to mention any benefits of a warmer climate. There is a term for government documents that provide information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view: Propaganda.
Moderator Response:[JH} Sloganeering snipped.
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RedBaron at 00:26 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@John #28
Ok. I'll buy that argument. So then the obvious solution is to sever the link in the public mind that AGW mitigation requires payment of a fee/tax of any kind. If what you are saying is true, then it is a flaw in mitigation strategies that needs to be corrected so as not to meet such resistance.
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John Hartz at 00:11 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Why are humans reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace the body of scientific evidence about manmade climate change?
Human psychology influences the decisions we make every day, including unwise ones. Our psychological profile can make us reluctant to pay for services that benefit everyone, including those who don't contribute. It makes us focus on achieving short-term gains and avoiding short-term losses. And, most importantly, it prompts us to engage in rationalization and denial rather than tackle difficult challenges.
Scientists suggest appealing to human psychology to create solutions to climate change by Rosemary Mena-Worth, Stanford News, Apr 13, 2016
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PhilippeChantreau at 23:28 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Ikaika @ 17. The argument is in response to the fake skeptics' contention that there is significant disagreement among scientists, a tactic inherited from the tobacco industry. There is no significant disagreement. That's all the message of these studies.
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bartverheggen at 19:24 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
As already noticed, the survey mentioned at Breitbart is based on a misrepresentation of the survey I undertook while at the Dutch PBL institute. More info about how it's been misrepresented at various places can be found on my blog. Or this post specifically how Rick Santorum misrepresented the survey.
Basically, we found ~90% agreement among respondents with more than 10 climate related peer reviewed publications that recent global warming is for the most part (more than half) caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Notice that we used a much stricter definition of what entails the consensus position than most other studies did. That probably goes a long way to explain why we found a slightly smaller level of consensus than some ither studies.
As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion.
For more questions about or survey, see e.g. this FAQ.
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MA Rodger at 18:10 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @18.
You ask "Why is climate change viewed so differently by Republicans and Democrats?" I am a Brit so here assume the UK political scene is an equivalent to the US version.
I once got into a long interchange on the impacts of and evidence for AGW with Peter Lilley, a right-wing Conservative MP & recently a recruit to the GWPF (Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy). As well as exhibiting all the signs of delusion and denial, the man eulogised the political philosopher JS Mill. This I considered rather strange as JS Mill famously said (and thus I suggest answers your question):-
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
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