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Comments 40251 to 40300:

40251. lennartvdl at 18:42 PM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       Tom @10,

       I think you're right. And adding the risk of large and fast SLR to other severe climate risks probably does change the maths into making even relatively limited global warming a civilizational threat, that we better insure ourselves against, as far as we still can.

40252. Dikran Marsupial at 18:31 PM on 6 December 2013
       Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
       

       4timesayear wrote "It is most unfortunate that the IPCC did just exactly that with their research - the focus was solely on man-made CO2."

       someone obviously hasn't taken the time to actually read the IPCC WG1 reports then! ;o)

40253. devadatta at 18:19 PM on 6 December 2013
       Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
       

       I have a question about LAI heating data in figure 1. Is it taken from part 2.3-5 in Church et al. (2011)? If you add those numbers you get 0.4+0.2 *10²²J from ice, 0.2 from the atmosphere and 0.67 from land. This adds up to ca 1.5 *10²²J, which seems like your result, although your graph implies you have more data from the period and not just an interpolation of these values.

40254. Poster9662 at 16:23 PM on 6 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       John Hartz  Having read the piece to which you pointed, I note that nowhere in that piece (as far as I could see) does it say that some meteorologists deny global warming.  What it does say is that some meteorologists are not convinced of human input into global warming,  which isn't quite the same thing

40255. vrooomie at 12:35 PM on 6 December 2013
       Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
       

       4TimesAYear, your comments rise--or fall--to the level of 'so wrong, they're not even wrong." Not sure where to start but here will do.

       "It is most unfortunate that the IPCC did just exactly that with their research - the focus was solely on man-made CO2."

       
       The IPCC did not *do* research: they compiled and--dare I say it?--averaged the data and research of thousands of respected and well-supported organizations, from governments' research institutions, down to the work of individual climatologists. The "focus...solely on man-made CO2" only exists in the minds of the dismissives: I assure you that, for nearly 150 years, all your other sources have been studied. 

       Facts, being pesky things, have shown that nothing can account for the change in our climate--from paleo records, to ice records, to dendro records, and to heliological studies--and the only thing left, as Sherlock would say, however improbable, is the answer. Humans have caused this rapid and unprecedented change in the Earth's atmosphere, and to bring this back on topic, the consensus of >97% of the world's scientists and scientific organizations....disagree with *you.*

        

40256. climatelurker at 11:51 AM on 6 December 2013
       Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
       

       What I think would have the biggest impact is showing real people's faces who either lost their lives, lost their children, or lost their homes and way of life, telling their stories to the world.  Since children are especially hard-hit by warming related diseases, there should be a ruthless use of their loss, the same way those religious organizations do to get donation money.

       
       Part of the problem here in the US is that many of the worst effects are on the other side of the world (well, there are plenty of examples right here too, and maybe that needs to be displayed as well to make it more close to home) and the average person never sees the face of the suffering.  Too much focus is placed on the future sometimes, when the reality is that there are real consequences now, today.  And that will only get worse.  Make it moral.  Because it is.

40257. John Hartz at 11:47 AM on 6 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Also see Chris Mooney's Blue Marble/Mother Jones blog post, Why Some Meteorologists Still Deny Global Warming 

40258. Tom Curtis at 11:05 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       lennartvdl @4, in general you should base your policy on the expected value of your actions.  With regard to sea level rise, this means determining your range of policy options and finding the costs (including the mitigation and adaption costs) of that policy over the range of possible outcomes; multiplying the cost times the probability of each outcome for each policy option; taking the sum of the products for each policy option; then choosing policy with the lowest integrated product (ie, expected value).  Because costs for sea level rise increase with the size of the rise, and with the rapidity of the rise, the expected value of greater rises will be greater than equally probable, but lower rises.  Therefore they will be given more weight.  However, the worst possible outcomes will have such a low probability that their expected value will be small.  Thus, policy should be weighted towards avoiding higher sea level rises, but not premised doing everything to avoid the worst possible but low probability outcome.

       Of course, if the worst possible outcome represents an existential threat to (in reverse order of severity), our civilization, our species, or our biosphere, that changes the maths and we should be basing our policy on avoiding the worst possible plausible outcome.  In this case, however, global warming does not threaten the biosphere (although it does threaten mass extinction); it may but is unlikely to be to threaten our species extinction, and has a plausible risk of threatening our civilization.  Sea level rise by itself, however, does not threaten any of the three, even with multi-meter per century rises.  

40259. John Hartz at 10:54 AM on 6 December 2013
       What climate denial has learnt from tobacco denial
       

       ALL: Vincentrj found it impossible to comply with many provisions of the SkS Comments Policy. Therefore all of his comments, and responses to them, are being deleted.

40260. michael sweet at 09:12 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       GrindupBaker,

       Ocean water is more complicated.  The coefficient of expansion changes with salinity and pressure.  In the Arctic at the surface, the maximun density is about -2C.  Unfortunately, I do not have a reference for the values,but they are complicated.  Without a clear reference table it is best to not speculate on expansion from temperature increase.

40261. scaddenp at 08:37 AM on 6 December 2013
       We're heading into an ice age
       

       Its worth pointing out that the other thing you need to turn a local NH glacial event into a global event, is to pull down the GHG levels. See Hansen and Sato 2012 (esp Fig2). NH Albedo change only really affects NH climate.

40262. grindupBaker at 07:47 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       "water expands as it heats" in the posting can be misleading because water colder than 4C contracts as it heats (until 4C) and average ocean temperature is a tad above 3C according to sparse and somewhat contradictory information I've found. However, the topmost few hundred metres, with the significant +ve thermal expansion coefficient in lower latitudes, still has most of its heat remaining to be added to reach balance with the surface layer (I compute roughly 80% of heat still be added in the topmost 300 metres) so I think there's some decades of thermal expansion yet to come.

40263. Alexandre at 06:33 AM on 6 December 2013
       Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
       

       It's great to see a heavy weight film maker as James Cameron motivated to tell this story to a larger audience. Way to go, Jim!

40264. dagold at 05:32 AM on 6 December 2013
       Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
       

       Composer -- along those lines, my screenplay strives to firmly adhere to scientific projections.  I hope to have a website where folks can explore the scientific basis of the different scenarios depicted.  In fact, I initially wrote in a scene featuring methane clathrate 'explosions' but then deleted it after looking at the latest findings on the 'clathrate gun' scenario.

40265. lennartvdl at 05:31 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       Phil,

       I agree if we're talking about the IPCC ranges. I was thinking of the expert judgement ranges, however, assuming that the experts take into account the potential feedbacks that the IPCC models ignore.

40266. Composer99 at 05:15 AM on 6 December 2013
       Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
       

       The downside of a popularized account of the impacts of climate change is that it could end up being The Day After Tomorrow.

       Fortunately, I expect this new Showtime programme will not reach such depths. With any luck the production team will consult heavily with scientists while developing their themes and storylines for each season and episode, allowing an effective combination of factual accuracy and emotional/motivational impact (ideally maximizing both).

40267. dagold at 04:33 AM on 6 December 2013
       Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
       

       (Forgive the 'non-sciency' comment, but as this is a 'non-sciency' post..)  I am a climate writer over at Huffington Post.  Watching a Hollywood blockbuster a couple months ago (the Brad Pitt zombie movie, 'World War Z'), I realized that many, many millions more people would see and possibly be 'moved' by a Hollywood climate change blockbuster than ever would by my articles.  I've just about completed the screenplay; am about to send it in to a 'script doctor' for vetting and feedback.  Called 'The Devil's Bargain' ( a la Hansen's 'Faustian bargain'), it is set in 2072 in a now 4C warmer world on the eve of humanity's enormous geoengineering intervention via aerosol sulfate injection -- "Project Shield".  James Cameron is my target (along with Leonardo DiCaprio).  Perhaps it is time for such a movie -- whether my screenplay is up to snuff remains to be seen!

40268. HK at 03:52 AM on 6 December 2013
       We're heading into an ice age
       

       jhnplr:

       I didn’t bother to duplicate your graph, just inverted it (better with time running from left to right, don’t you think?) and adjusted it a bit.

       First of all, let me emphasize that I’m not a sceptic of the Milankovitch theory in general as it fits the temperature data quite well. And the reason why the summer insolation in the north seems to control the climate in the south is clearly related to the fact that the albedo feedback from ice sheets and vegetation is much larger in the north.

       As explained earlier, the main reason why I don’t believe in a new glaciation within the next few millennia is that the summer insolation in the north won’t drop much further before starting to rise again in 2-3000 years. Let’s look at the graph and study the end of the last interglacial, the warm Eemian.

       

       When the temperature had dropped to present level about 118,000 years ago (1) the 65N July insolation (2) was already lower than during the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago! It was in fact lower than at any time during the last 110,000 years, except for a short period about 70,000 years ago. When the insolation reached it minimum 3-4000 years later (3) after a drop of nearly 100 watt/m² from the peak, the temperature (4) was still comparable to the level 14,000 years ago – when the insolation was almost 60 watt/m² higher!

       It clearly takes a large increase of insolation to pull us out of a glaciation once it has started and a large decrease to initiate a new glaciation from an interglacial. The next few millennia will not give us that large decrease, but some of the CO₂ we’ve already emitted will stay in the atmosphere long enough to keep the concentration above 300 ppm – highest for 800,000 years – until the insolation start to rise again.

       The claim that early agriculture and deforestation may have prevented or delayed the next glaciation is an interesting theory. We shouldn’t dismiss that early humans may have had a significant impact on the environment despite their primitive technology if given some tens of millennia considering what we have done in only a few decades. But some of these impacts, deforestation and desertification from overgrazing, have increased the Earths albedo and therefore acted as a negative forcing. I don’t know if the positive forcing from a few more ppm of CO₂ was enough to counteract this. Maybe no one knows for sure, but it’s an interesting topic.

40269. jyyh at 03:06 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       Worse than worst case is pretty hard to estimate, I think only situation during PETM comes close of the current imbalance on the energy budget, and as that happened on earth without ice sheets, there is no good precedent to take clues of what's going to happen on grand scale. Sure the geomorphology constrains glacier flows somewhat, but surges of glacial ice from most glaciers having a marine outlet - say in ten year intervals - might result on further increases in the IPCC numbers.
40270. PhilMorris at 02:29 AM on 6 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       lennartvdl

       Decisions should be based on worse than worst case scenarios! There really is no indication that the abysmal efforts to mitigate climate change will change anytime soon, so we have to assume BAU. On that basis, we then have to assume an accelerating increase in positive feedbacks, not just from continued increase in anthropogenic CO2 and other GHGs, but also release of CO2 from the oceans as they warm; release of more CO2 and methane from melting permafrost; reduced albedo as the Arctic continues its death spiral; and reduced CO2 uptake from biomass such as Amazonia as extreme weather (changes in precipitation) adds to destruction caused by human activities. I for one cannot help but feel we're rapidly approaching a tipping point, if we haven’t done so already, that will result in runaway climate change.

       It will take a gargantuan and unprecedented global effort to slow down, let alone halt or reverse, climate change . For example, to replace the estimated 18.3 trillion kWh of electricity production by fossil fuels in 2025 (US IEA) would require the installation of about 4 million Megawatts of non FF electricity production. Assuming an optimistic 50% capacity factor, that’s about 6500 London arrays (the largest offshore wind farm in the world), or 1200 Hinkley nuclear power stations. And that will reduce CO2 emissions by a ‘mere’ 30% by 2025, which by itself will slow down the onset of runaway climate change, not prevent it.

       Although there’s hope that world leaders will wake up before it’s too late, it behoves policy makers to plan for worse than worst case – adaptation may be all we’re left with.

40271. michael sweet at 21:12 PM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Tom,

       In the USA there is little difference between a BA and a BS or an MA and an MS.  For a survey like this I would consider them equivalent.  I used to hire scientists and I just looked for a masters degree, I did not look at whether it was an MS or an MA.  The school that granted the degree, and the specific classes taken, were more important.

40272. Fergus Brown at 21:10 PM on 5 December 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #49A
       

       Chaps, slightly sideways, but I hope you pick this up as it deserves larger exposure than my poor blog can provide: http://www.iied.org/offer-extended-free-access-papers-cities-climate-change .

       I hope you can use this.

40273. lennartvdl at 19:55 PM on 5 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       John Abraham writes:

       "According to the best case scenario (humans take very aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gases), the experts think sea level rise will likely be about 0.4–0.6 meters (1.3–2.0 feet) by 2100 and 0.6–1.0 meters (2.0–3.3 feet) by 2300. According to the more likely higher emission scenario, the results are 0.7–1.2 meters (2.3–3.9 feet) by 2100 and 2.0–3.0 meters (6.5–9.8 feet) by 2300."

       This is what these experts as a group think likely. But what do they think is possible? What could be the worst case?

       According to one of the authors, Stefan Rahmstorf, about half of these experts think there's a 5% chance that SLR by 2300 could be more than 4 meters in a worst-case scenario (whereas 3.8 meters seems to be about the worst-case according to IPCC AR5, chapter 13, figure 13.13).

       Four of this half think there's a 5% chance it could be more than 9 meters. Three of these four think it could be more than 10 meters. Two of these three think it could be more than 12 meters. And one of these two thinks it could be even more than 15 meters by 2300 (see Rahmstorf's inline response to my comment 9 at the RealClimate post).

       So should citizens and policy makers make decisions based on the likely range, or on the worst-case in the possible range?

40274. Dikran Marsupial at 19:03 PM on 5 December 2013
       CO2 measurements are suspect
       

       A good way to check on claims that have been made in journal papers is to use Google Scholar to identify papers that have cited the paper and see if any of them are critical or provide evidence that answers the claims made.  I this case, I found

       T. GüllükF. SlemrB. Stauffer, "Simultaneous measurements of CO2, CH4, and N2O in air extracted by sublimation from Antarctica ice cores: Confirmation of the data obtained using other extraction techniques", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (1984–2012)l Volume 103, Issue D13, pages 15971–15978, 20 July 1998

       A sublimation technique has been developed to extract air samples from polar ice cores for subsequent simultaneous measurement of several trace gases by frequency-modulated tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy. This extraction and analysis technique is shown to be suitable as an extraction method for the determination of concentrations of the greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, and N2O in air samples of ∼1–5 cm3 recovered from ice samples of 10–50 g. Air samples from the Siple ice core have been analyzed covering the period between 1772 and 1973. In addition, a few samples from two different ice cores from Vostok station have been analyzed. Our results are in a good agreement with results obtained by other researchers using melting and crushing extraction techniques. This agreement indicates that processes connected with the formation of clathrates in ice under high pressure at greater depths and their destruction after drilling are not affecting the CO2, CH4, and N2O measurements significantly.

       [emphasis mine]
       

       Which appears to provide experimental evidence directly refuting one of Jaworowski's arguments (in addition to that provided by Etheridge).  Essentially the scientists that work on ice core data do know what they are doing and do their best to examine possible sources of bias or error and eliminate them, as these two papers demonstrate.

40275. Tom Curtis at 18:45 PM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Dhogaza @48, what you wrote, verbatim was:

       "The AMS requirements were not as stringent in the past, as I indicated in my first comment. Watts is there because he's old enough to have escaped the need for a degree. He was a member long, long before he was an author of a relevent scientific publication."

       OK, where is your evidence that Watts was ever member of the AMS rather than an associate member?

       Where is your evidence, given that you have evidence of his full membership, that he retained full membership when associate membership was introduced?

       And, where is you evidence that Watts was a special case in either of the above - for lacking that, what was true of Watts could be true of any other non-degreeed member or associate member of the AMS from the same era?  You now claim that the assertions I attributed to you @45 where not yours.  No, they were merely direct implications of your assertions and the assumption that Watts was not a special case.  So unless you want to assert he was, stop evading your own claims, and defend them.  Or admit you were wrong.

40276. dhogaza at 16:10 PM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Tom Curtis:

       "you support by claiming that associate memberships did not exist at the time A Watts became a member"

       I never said this.

       What I responded to was a comment by Licorj that stated:

       "Theoretically, the wheat[h]er forecasters should be the easiest kind of scientists, should expected to be convinced about AGW, by climate scientists."

       I responded by saying:

       "Most weather forecasters aren't scientists. While in modern times most have a undergraduate years university degree, very few have a graduate degree, and very few are practicing scientists."

       No reference to the paper.

       You then proceeded to attack me for things I never said, and unfortunately I rose to the bait and tried to defend those unsaid things.

       Stupid.

       Let's get down to the nitty-gritty:

       Do you believe that most of the weather forecasters we see on, say, TV, are practising scientists?

       Now, going forward, where is your evidence that the AMS purged meteorologists who had previously earned the "Seal of Approval" from their full membership rolls?

40277. Tom Curtis at 15:54 PM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Having had a closer look at the data, I have serious doubts as to whether the articles conclusions are warranted by the data.  In particular, expertise is graded in the paper by a compound index.  First three indices are generated based on responses to three questions.  For the first index, respondents who publish primarilly on climate are given a grade of 2, those who publish primarilly on other areas are given a 1, while those who do not publish are given a 0.  For the second index, those whose "area of expertise" is climate are given a 1, with all others given a 0.  Finally, those with a PhD are given a 2, those with a Masters are given a 1, and all others are given a 0.  The final expertise index is the sum of the three individual indices.

       These indices produce some odd result.  To begin with, it shows those who publish on climate to be twice as expert, all else being equal, to those who publish in other areas.  So taken, the coefficient of determination (R^2) for experts in climate, atmosphere and other are, respectively, 0.885, 0.882, and 0.961.  These values strongly suggest that within groups, expertise in the form of publishing area explains far more of the variance than is explained by all factors examined in the paper, which is odd.  More importantly, if it is assumed that publication in another area represents 2/3rds the difference in expertise between those who publish on climate and those who do not, rather than on half, the coefficent of determinations rise to 0.976, 0.959, and 1 respectively.  Assuming that it represents just one third of the difference in expertise drops the coefficient of determination 0.74, 0.695 and 0.856 respectively.

       I am not arguing here for any particular scale of expertise.  Rather I am merely noting the influence an essentially arbitrary scaling of "expertise" has on the result.

       Going one step further, I created a two part composite index based on the proceedure used in the paper, excluding only educational standard as I do not have the relevant result.  The resulting composite index had a coefficient of determination of 0.955.  That by itself would appear to be a very strong result, suggesting that expertise is the dominant explanation of variance in the result.  Given that, and given that expertise was only the third strongest explanation of variance in the papers results, that suggests that adding in an index of educational standard confounded the result.  That is, it appears a large portion of meteorologists with PhDs, not being experts in climate, and not publishing on climate (and therefore having no particular professional knowledge on climate) but still having a rating of 3 on expertise; and rejecting anthropogenic cause may have concealed the fact that expertise was the dominant factor in determining opinions on climate change.

       Without additional information I cannot draw that strong a conclusion.  I would need to test the correlation of determination between acceptance of anthropogenic cause and the full expertise index to see if it does (as I conjecture) significantly reduce the coefficient of determination.  Further I would have to test all four factors against the reduced expertise index (or get somebody to do it for me).  However, this preliminary look is strongly suggestive, and the authors of the paper report no analysis to suggest the compound index of expertise has not confounded factors in a way that conceals the true influence of expertise.   

40278. A Change in the Weather at 15:04 PM on 5 December 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #49A
       

       I suppose I must cough up the $57.00 to read the NAS report on abrupt climate change risks before blowing off steam here. But I can't fathom how flipping the solid white heat reflector that is the Arctic to liquid black heat absorber is not an extreme risk for sudden disequilibirum in atmospheric circulation patterns. I didn't see this risk addressed in the NYT article.

       The disappearance of the ice cap won't be merely a different situation. It will be an inverted situation. It will be the opposite of what now exists. The jet stream circulates the Northern Hemisphere in its historic track due largely to the temperature gradient between the pole and the lower latitudes. That gradient is literally degrading, and we're seeing some pronounced loopiness in its track, which destroyed the 2012 apple crop in Michigan and steered Sandy sharply west into NYC (two monsters scratching at the door). What will happen to that gradient when the ice cap is gone?

       The risk of massive agricultural failures over the span of just a few subsequent years is huge. With the jet stream ever more erratic, seasonal highs and lows that agriculture to occur--a very geographically specific enterprise--will fail to form in their historic patterns. It will rain where it shouldn't, when it shouldn't, in amounts it shouldn't, rather than where, when, and in the amounts that agriculture has depended on for hundreds if not thousands of years.

       And how will the disappearance of the ice cap not initiate a postive feedback loop of further warming, permafrost melt, CO2 and methane release, and further warming? Does this really take much imagination? I am very interested to know if the NAS report addresses this risk.

40279. A Change in the Weather at 13:52 PM on 5 December 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #49A
       

       I suppose I must cough up the $57.00 to read the NAS report on abrupt climate change risks before blowing off steam here. But I can't fathom how flipping the solid white heat reflector that is the Arctic to liquid black heat absorber is not an extreme risk for sudden disequilibirum in atmospheric circulation patterns. I didn't see this risk addressed in the NYT article.

       The disappearance of the ice cap won't be merely a different situation. It will be an inverted situation. It will be the opposite of what now exists. The jet stream circulates the Northern Hemisphere in its historic track due largely to the temperature gradient between the pole and the lower latitudes. That gradient is literally degrading, and we're seeing some pronounced loopiness in its track, which destroyed the 2012 apple crop in Michigan and steered Sandy sharply west into NYC (two monsters scratching at the door). What will happen to that gradient when the ice cap is gone?

       The risk of massive agricultural failures over the span of just a few subsequent years is huge. With the jet stream ever more erratic, seasonal highs and lows that agriculture to occur--a very geographically specific enterprise--will fail to form in their historic patterns. It will rain where it shouldn't, when it shouldn't, in amounts it shouldn't, rather than where, when, and in the amounts that agriculture has depended on for hundreds if not thousands of years.

       And how will the disappearance of the ice cap not initiate a postive feedback loop of further warming, permafrost melt, CO2 and methane release, and further warming? Does this really take much imagination? I am very interested to know if the NAS report addresses this risk.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] You can either download a PDF of the entire NAS report and/or read the entire report for free by clicking here. 

40280. Tom Curtis at 12:09 PM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Supplement to my post @45 - I must be thinking slowly this morning.  Anyway, I finally got around to looking at the actual summary data for the AMS survey, and find that 52% have PhDs, 28% have MS or MAs, 19% have BS or BAs, while less than 1% have lower level qualifications.  I am concerned that the methodology makes no distinction between an MS or an MA for determining expertise in climate science. 

40281. Tom Curtis at 11:38 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       dhogaza @39, I am trying to establish the basis for your claim @32 that there exist a significant number of full members of the AMS lacking even a relevant bachelors degree, which you support by claiming that associate memberships did not exist at the time A Watts became a member, and that at that time people became members without that degree, and retained their full membership once associate membership were introduced.  You have provided no documentary evidence of this claim, and nor can I find any.  I mention the AMS seal of approval in the of chance that of chance that your claim is based on the situation with regard to the seal of approval.

       Regardless of that, however, I have a better way of determining the likely proportion of people holding different credentials within the survey.  Specifically, in 2008, an extensive survey of AMS membership demographics was published.   It found that among full members and retired members only, in 2005, 46% had doctorates, 26% had masters degrees, 26% had bachelors degrees, while only 2% had less than the equivalent of a bachelors degree.  In the actual survey on gobal warming, 52% had a PhD so that we can presume the sample to by slightly better educated than that in the 2008 study.  It is fair to presume, therefore, that only about one quarter of respondents had a highest educational attainment of a bachelors degree, and only a very small number having not even a bachelors degree. 

40282. Rob Honeycutt at 09:22 AM on 5 December 2013
       CO2 measurements are suspect
       

       ajc...  Watch this small section of the Richard Alley lecture and he tells it like it is on this point.  Start at min 12:10.

40283. Kevin C at 08:43 AM on 5 December 2013
       Cowtan and Way (2013) is now open access
       

       Tony: Drop me an email and I can get you both of those.

       DSL: I'm working on monthly updates to the v1.0 hybrid data as we speak, which will go into the trend calculator straight away.

       However I'd rather finish the v2.0 calculation based on separate reconstruction of the land and ocean data before we start pushing the results out to other sites. We've done a proof of concept for the update, which shows a number of benefits over the method in the paper, but to do it properly requires the whole HadCRUT4 100 member ensemble which is computationally demanding. I hope we will have a version out for the new year, although the uncertainties might not be done by then.

40284. Dean at 08:19 AM on 5 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       You would expect IPCC to give the average expert judgement. On the other hand a bit too conservative estimates are expected according to Brysse et al 2012. Perhaps I'm going out of topic, but just mentioning some other apparently "too conservative" assessments and perspectives in the latest report:

       - The climate sensitivity interval assessed only as 'likely' with the lower end at 1.5 despite very very little supporting the lucky case of <1.5.

       - The many places mentioning the 'hiatus' and 'hiatus period 1998–2012'. There is even an entire chapter called "Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global-Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years". But there is no good scientific reason to pick a single period starting in an extreme El Nino like that.

       Quite disappointing that the authors couldn't fully keep the scientific integrity vs the media debate including a lot of "sceptic" propaganda. But on the other hand that was predicted by Lewandowsky. At the recent AGU Chapman conference he mentioned that psychological theory suggests that the scientists would be affected:

       "There are several known psychological and cognitive variables which suggest that denialist discourse should seep into the scientific community".

40285. CBDunkerson at 08:09 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Poster wrote: "This influence of political ideology on the objective views of climate scientists should give some cause for pause."

       The flaw in your logic... the vast majority of AMS members are not climate scientists.

40286. scaddenp at 08:02 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Poster, I would firstly agree that no individual scientists view on controversial topic will be completely objective. The practise of science itself is about recognizing that everyone has cognitive biases.

       However, I also think they are drawing too strong a conclusion from their data. Their measurement of expertise doesnt distinquish what a PhD was in, but more importantly, if you were worried about political bias influencing the practise of climate science, ie those doing active research (as evidenced by publishing) in climate science, then the papers results speak for themselves (Table 1).

       My comment on why political bias enters climate science still stands.

40287. Poster9662 at 07:11 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Sorry for this.  Lines 435-437 in Post 41 should read ""While we found that higher expertise was associated with a greater likelihood of viewing global warming as real and harmful, this relationship was less strong than for political ideology and perceived consensus."

40288. Poster9662 at 07:06 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Michael Sweet and Scaddenp.  With the greatest respect I am not certain that either of you have read the report of the AMS Survey.  If I am mistaken, my sincere apologies.  The point I have been trying to make (unsuccessfully it seems) is that the political idelogy of the scientists who are members of the AMS influences their attitude to climate change.  I'm not referring to anyone other than these scientists.  To clarify this it probably  is best to quote the report itself.  

       "While we found that higher expertise was associated with a greater likelihood of viewingas real and harmful, this relationship was less strong than for political ideology and perceived consensus_. (Lines 435-437).   "More than any other result of the study, this would be strong evidence against the idea that expert scientists' views on politically controversial topics can be completely objective". (Lines 439-441)

       This influence of political ideology on the objective views of climate scientists should give some cause for pause.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Two points: 

       1. Very few of the meteorologists who responded to the AMS are climate scientists.

       2. The body of climate change science has been and continues to be assembled by thousands of scientists from around the world.  For the overwhelming majority, the partisan politics of the US are totally irrelevant to their scientific endeavors.

       WARNING: Excessive repetition is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Please read the policy and adhere to it.

       [JH] Upon further review, I withdraw the above. 

40289. scaddenp at 06:35 AM on 5 December 2013
       CO2 measurements are suspect
       

       It's hard to take ZJ seriously, but for detailed look at the ice core CO2 process and validation, see Etheridge 1996.

       and follow cites for more recent work. For a direct rebuttal, see here. The consilience of CO2 levels between ice cores from different location (eg Greenland, Antarctica) would be big hint that the method is fundamentally sound. Furthermore, the idea that AGW is based on icecore data is hopelessly wrong. ZJ would appear to be a classic case of a scientist "gone emeritus"

40290. scaddenp at 06:22 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Poster, I think there are a number of processes at work the led to politicising of climate science. I dont think the subject was controversial at all until it became obvious that some action was needed. Proposed solutions included:

       • International treaties (“it’s a move to World Government”, “UN is restricting our freedoms”).
       • Carbon costing. (“we don’t want no stinking taxes”)
       • Moratoriums on some activities (eg building thermal power). (“Government restrictions on business freedom”).

       Ie. things that raised big red flags for some political ideologies. Rather than propose solutions that fitted their ideology, most found it is easier to deny a problem existed. Who wants to pay more for their energy, especially if you figure the cost from climate change wont be paid by you? Furthermore, restrictions on FF usage pose a substantial risk to shareholder value in FF companies so there is no shortage of funding for political opposition.

       Coupled with that, in many parts of the world, you have highly politicized media, and populations that choose to hear news from sources where is it framed to suit their ideological biases (left and right). If your only source of information on climate science was Fox news, then you would have a very incorrect understanding.

       Finally, once a stance becomes associated with an ideology, then tribal affiliations take over. There is plenty of misinformation sites to assure those troubled about truth that climate science is wrong.

40291. DSL at 06:15 AM on 5 December 2013
       CO2 measurements are suspect
       

       ajc, which of ZJ's claims would you like a response to?  Tamino responded to the "too smooth" concern here.

40292. wili at 06:15 AM on 5 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       Great work. Abraham is the best. Has a similar study been done about top climatologists estimations of levels of CO2 and global temperatures? I have seen a few articles recently that suggest most climatologists think we are headed for at least 4 degrees C by the end of the century, but these weren't accompanied by specific polls, iirc. For example:

       http://www.climatecodered.org/2013/11/parts-of-australia-reaching-threshold.html

       "Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College in London,...said: 'We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that...'"

        

40293. ajc at 05:38 AM on 5 December 2013
       CO2 measurements are suspect
       

       How can we be confident that the CO2 concentration measurements from the ice core samples, which may have been contaminated in some way, either historically through leakage or in the recent withdrawal process, gives a reading comprable to those from Mauna Loa? Has there been a good rebuttal to the work of Zbigniew Jaworowski in this area. I have not done exhaustive research in the area (really just debating amongst non-science friends), but one brought up this line of argument to discredit the top graph here on historical CO2 concentrations. In researching the issue of comparability and the reliability of the CO2 measurements, I found Jaworowski and few folks countering his arguments. I'm genuinely not trolling here, just interested in the topic.

40294. dhogaza at 04:31 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       "[JH] Please explain what you mean by "relevant scientific publication""

       Well, Tom Curtis used the term first.  In my response, I'm assuming he meant the paper (or papers?) which listed Watts as a co-author along with Pielke, Sr and a long laundry list of others.

       This, for instance:

       http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JD015146/abstract

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Thanks for the clarification. 

40295. dhogaza at 04:27 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       "Further, can you show that members at that time that did not qualify for full membership under the new rules were allowed to retain full membership?"

       Hmmm, I see various endorsements such as the Seal (as you say, held by Watts), Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (the more modern endorsement requiring an undergrad degree), and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (more stringent).

       But I see nothing in the membership requirements that indicates one must hold one of those endorsements to be a full member.

       And absolutely nothing to indicate that the move from the Seal of Approval to the CBM program would lead to those not chosing to become CBMs to lose full membership.

       What is it in the published criteria for membership that would lead you to believe this?

40296. John Russell at 03:55 AM on 5 December 2013
       Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise
       

       This study is also discussed at Carbonbrief.

40297. DSL at 02:58 AM on 5 December 2013
       Cowtan and Way (2013) is now open access
       

       Any chance of getting the GMST monthlies from Cowtan & Way 2013 into WoodforTrees?  I know we have the SkS calc, but I like to use WFT to avoid wading through a bunch of anti-SkS crap when the conditions include fake skeptics. 

40298. michael sweet at 02:46 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Poster,

       Perhaps I misread your comment.

       The scientists who do the work studying AGW are not politically biased.  The general public has become biased in the last 10 years.  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is commonly quoted as saying that he was in favor of doing something about AGW until he heard what the possible cost was.  Scientists are not biased by potential costs, they study nature.  If the AMS found that their members are biased due to politics, that does not mean anything relative to the accuracy of scientific studies of AGW.  It means that the AMS members are not very well informed.  That is consistent with the fact that many of the AMS members are television performers who have little knowledge of AGW (Anthony Watts being a prime example).

40299. Poster9662 at 01:00 AM on 5 December 2013
       How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?
       

       Michael Sweet  It is the finding of the AMS reported from their survey of their members that political ideology had a significant association with it's members views on global warming.  This is hardly a "denier's meme" but a statistically derived result from the survey data.  To suggest I have a political bias because I accurately report what the AMS said seems a rather odd comment.  The survey also found scientific consensus was the most significant association with its members views on global warming.  By your logic that must also be a denier's meme as it also is a findng from the survey.  Of course it is not but neither in this instance is the finding of the political ideology association.  Both are results from the data derived from the survey and not as you say "meme without supporting data" 

40300. PluviAL at 22:19 PM on 4 December 2013
       Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
       

       If the tabaco industry was sued for the damage they did with their product and mis-information, is there grounds for similar action against the fossil fuel industry?

       Is there any current actions in that direction?

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