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malamuddy at 14:50 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
When it comes to repeating research to disconfirm the results, Mr Shollenberger seems reluctant at best ... oh.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:50 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
So... Brandon... You have free access to Cook13, thanks to the generosity of those who jumped into to make the paper open access. You should be able to use any of the data available to craft your own version of the research.
"I believe publishing results is part of the process..."
The results were going to be published either way, with or without the $1600. The money only allowed people like you and many others free access to the paper, without having to purchase it through the journal.
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Brandon Shollenberger at 14:43 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Rob Honeycutt, if that is true, we should be able to define the "consensus" by looking at those categories and their definitions, both of which are provided on this site. That should make it a simple task anyone could do. Why then has nobody done so? Why have people made over a dozen responses to me without bothering to respond to a key point I raised?
As for the money, I believe publishing results is part of the process, especially in peer-reviewed science. We couldn't have much of an examination of this issue if the results were never published. That is, unless you're claiming the only people who examine it are the authors. I'm not sure what you'd say everyone else is doing then.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:34 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Frankly, Brandon, I would think that if you genuinely believed that there was a critical error in how Cook13 was crafted (or defined "consensus"), you and others would be racing to perform your own research.
Think of the impact! If you did a better study that better defined the terms, then performed the reserach – even at the 10% rate I suggested – and the results showed that public perception is actually correct... That would be huge!
If you were able to get such research published in a quality journal then you would completely change the broad discussion on the climate change issue. You would prove that there actually is serious debate over this issue!
Why would you not want the opportunity to do that?
Unless you just don't believe the results would be different.
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Composer99 at 14:33 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon Shollenberger:
You keep going on about how Cook <i>et al</i> 2013 didn't "define" consensus. Yet you brushed off the simplest explanation, provided by shoyemore upthread.
Why must Cook <i>et al</i> come up with some newfangled definition of consensus when a quite satisfactory definition can be found in, effectively, every dictionary of the English language currently in print? Are people reading science papers now so uneducated that unremarkable words like "consensus" can't be correctly parsed? Should we now begin to quibble over what the meaning of "is" is?
As far as I can see you are setting up a very mobile goalpost indeed if the definition of consensus has to satisfy you but, mysteriously, can't be the already commonly-accepted definition.
(I might also add that the above response is far more thought-out than, frankly, I think your attempts to criticize Cook <i>et al</i> 2013 on this thread or elsewhere deserve.)
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:20 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon@ 24... But the categories are what create the definition within the paper. So, my position still stands. If you think Cook et al did a poor job of crafting the research, by all means, show us how to do it correctly. Being that you're not offering any data or references to substantiate your position I would suggest that performing research of your own is the only way you're going to definitively resolve this issue.
And the $1600 was merely to allow the paper to be open access rather than offer any assistance in the "examination of this consensus." In fact, the $1600 came immediately prior to the paper being published, long after all the actual "examination" occurred.
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Brandon Shollenberger at 14:00 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Tom Curtis, given the accusations of dishonesty (and the conspiratorial ideation displayed) in your comment, I don't think I could respond while abiding by this site's rules.
caerbannog, the amount of time I may have to spend pursuing matters related to climate change doesn't indicate how much time I have to spend on any particular topic. Spending time on one issue forces me not to spend time on other issues, even if the total amount of time I have is "immense." As for getting people to help, I don't think many people I could ask for help would find this sort of project meaningful enough to justify doing.
Even if I could find the time and people to repeat this project's general approach, the burden would be enormous. And it'd say absolutely nothing about the issues I have raised here. One need not do something "right" to show someone else did it wrong.
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Brandon Shollenberger at 13:51 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
KR, my critiques of this paper have included data and measurements as provided by the authors. My critiques have also provided different interpretations of the same data as used by the authors, providing a form of replication. In short, I have done exactly what you say I have not done. The most you could say is my data and replication were not independent, but that is not what you said.
Moreover, you claim my critiques have been limited to redefining things yet ignore the fact a primary point I've raised is that no definition exists for the "consensus." Something cannot be redefined if it has no definition in the first place. Moreover, I haven't offered a definition for the "consensus" so I couldn't possibly be offering a (re)definition of any sort.
actually thoughtful, for us to measure a "consensus," we have to be able to define that "consensus." How else could we possibly know how many people endorse it?
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Brandon Shollenberger at 13:45 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Rob Honeycutt, my posts here have said nothing about the definitions of the categories. As such, the conversation here could not be about the definitions of the categories. The conversation is about the definition of the "consensus" Cook et al repeatedly refer to. As I've pointed out multiple times, this "consensus" has never been defined. There is no reason to avoid that simple issue by changing the subject.
And yes, I do believe the people who donated $1,600 to help the examination of this "consensus" are entitled to know what it actually is. A single sentence to define a key aspect of a paper is hardly a burdensome requirement.
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caerbannog at 13:28 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
<i>"That is especially true given that I am but one person, and you were 24."</i>
When you see skeptics making excuses like "We don't have the time, or we don't have enough people", remember that Anthony Watts likes to brag about how much more traffic, how many more visitors, how many more comments, etc. that his site gets than do sites like skepticalscience.com, realclimate.org etc.
If we are to take Watts at his word, then that would mean that he has access to far more warm bodies to throw at a problem than skepticalscience does. So the above excuses simply don't fly. If Watts and Co were serious, they could easily "crowd-source" an even bigger project than the Cook13 effort.
Furthermore, a quick bit of Googling will confirm that Mr Shollenberger has an *immense* amount of free-time on his hands. The "I don't have enough time or access to enough manpower to organize my own study" simply doesn't cut it, as far as I'm concerned.
A good way to distinguish genuine skeptics from "pseudoskeptics" is that genuine skeptics produce *results* while "pseudoskeptics" produce excuses.
And all we've seen in response to Cook13 is excuses.
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Rob Honeycutt at 13:09 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
"That is especially true given that I am but one person, and you were 24."
Brandon... First off, most of the ratings were done by 12 people, so you're only half right. But John Cook was but one person. He merely enlisted the help of friends. If this is such an important issue that you feel the need to spend dozens of hours arguing the issue, surely you have the time to find a dozen friends who could also spend dozens of hours compiling a similar body of research.
I would even go as far as to suggest that you really don't need to do 12,000 papers. Even 1200 randomly selected papers would give you a statistically significant sampling. Thus, you could perform the experiment with a fraction of the effort that the SkS team contributed to Cook13.
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Rob Honeycutt at 13:00 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Tom @18... Yes. Exactly.
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actually thoughtful at 12:26 PM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
There seems to be some confusion (by exactly one poster) about the purpose of the paper in regards to consensus. Put simply - that there is a consensus has been shown repeatedly in the literature. So you can think of this paper as showing how much consenus there is - is it:
51%?
65%?
80%?
90%?
95%?
Nope!
It is over 97%! (which we actually knew from previous work - but compare to public's perspective).
So the answer to what is the defintion of consensus is kind of the wrong question - the question is how much consensus was there (and of course, if the data showed it - how much *lack* of consensus was there). There is 97% consensus - even more if you weight the papers you look at to after 2000 - then it is over 98%.
Now where are you getting lost?
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KR at 11:45 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon Shollenberger - "...this site has posted many critiques of papers. Why should I refrain from doing the same?"
You should by all means feel free to present a critique.
However: A scientific critique include data, measures, replications of the work with different conclusions, or references to same (features of most rebuttals to 'skeptic' arguments, including those on SkS). You have presented none of the above, just attempts at redefining the various categories to definitions that were not used by the raters or the consulted authors, as far as I can see. In other words, you have presented redefinitions irrelevant to the work you critiqued. You have done nothing that should be taken seriously in a scientific context.
Please, feel free to disagree. But don't expect to be taken seriously until and unless you do some work - rate a thousand or so abstracts (as per Oreskes 2004), present your data, and demonstrate your hypothesis. Until then, I for one will have to regard your 'critiques' as nothing more than empty rhetoric, an attempt to discredit work you dislike - without putting forth the effort for actual science.
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Tom Curtis at 11:10 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Rob @17, I think he would need to include a self rating system. I am sure he could come up with any result he pre-ordains if he crowd sources the rating at WUWT.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:07 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
And yes, Brandon, we did think it was worth a great deal of effort. The critiques of Doran, Anderegg, Oreskes and others have been that they were small sample sets. We were curious if doing a large sample of papers would change the results.
We put in a lot of hard hours and the results were consistent with previous research.
If you think we did it wrong, then show us how to do it right. Craft your own and get it published.
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Tom Curtis at 11:06 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon @8, I (not Dana) have compared various permuations of the results to see if various criticisms of the paper actually have any impact on the result. For example, assuming a vary large number (50%) of false positives among affirmations only reduces the headline result from 97.2% to 96.2%. Such calculations in no way endorse the arguments being tested. Nor do they endorse the claim that 50% (or whatever) of the affirmations are false positives (or that false positives are only to be found among affirmations). They merely show how robust the results are even if the criticisms are given far more weight than they deserve.
In fact, the nearest I have come to the comparison you make (from memory) is to compare categories 1&2 as a percentage of categories 1,2,5,6,&7 (92.76%). (And no, I am not endorsing the absurd notion that no category 3 rated abstracts actually affirm the consensus.)
The silly thing is that I have to make these calculations. Where the critics of the paper making a serious analysis, they would perform these calculations themselves. Doing so they would conclude that the paper was interesting, and together with other papers analyzing the consensus showed that it is almost certain that papers endorsing the conensus (>50% warming anthropogenic) constitute >90% of all papers discussing the topic, and likely that they constitute >95% of such papers. We might then quibble about whether that is best called a "consensus" or merely an "overwhelming majority".
Serious analysis is, however, not the purpose of those blogs; most certainly not the purpose of your blogs. The purpose of the blogs is found in this graph:
Those attacking this paper, with few exceptions, know the overwhelming disconnect between public perception of the state of scientific opinion and the reality. They also know that that disconnect helps maintain strong political pressure against effective actions to combat climate change. Therefore they are bent on preserving the false perception by the public. They are determined to keep the public decieved for their own political ends. Hence they provide talking points, not analysis, in their attack on Cook et al 2013. Taking note, no doubt of Lincoln's dictum, they set their ambition on fooling enough of the people, enough of the time.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:02 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
" I'm at a loss as to how this is 'nitpicking the definitions.'"
You don't seem to agree with how the categories were defined. So I'm suggesting you create your own and perform your own survey. If you think the way Cook13 was crafted has unduly influenced the results, then I think everyone would be extremely interested to see you show how. And I mean that genuinely.
"You also felt it was worth a certain amount of money gotten from your readers."
What are you referring to? Are you talking about the money raised so that John could make the paper open access?
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Brandon Shollenberger at 10:21 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Rob Honeycutt, I'm at a loss as to how this is "nitpicking the definitions." You and your associates felt examining a consensus was worth a great deal of effort. You also felt it was worth a certain amount of money gotten from your readers. If examining something was worth that much, surely it is worth stating what that something is.
Glenn Tamblyn, this site has posted many critiques of papers. Why should I refrain from doing the same? As for replication, you guys spent a great deal of time on this study. It is unreasonable to suggest nobody criticize your paper without having spent an equal amount of time working on an issue. That is especially true given that I am but one person, and you were 24.
dana1981, you have suggested exactly that. I've even quoted you as suggesting exactly that. While I can understand you may have forgotten having done so, it is unwise for you to state it so categorically. My statement is fairly easy to verify.
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Tom Curtis at 10:19 AM on 29 May 2013Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
Barry @225:
1) To read categories (2), (3), (5), and (6) as consistent (and hence exclusive) even qualitatively, you must take (2) to include all papers that explicitly state anthropogenic factors as a cause of warming, but do not minimize or otherwise indicate the impact is minimal. If you do not, you can have papers rated as both (2) and (5) or (6). Likewise (3) must also be taken as excluding papers which minimize the anthropogenic contribution. Ergo saying that doubling CO2 causes a 1 C no feedback warming, but a 0.5 C warming after feedbacks would preclude an abstract from being classified as (2) or (3), and would pretty much mandate its classification as (5). However, while you can assess the meaning of ratings (2)-(6) in isolation, doing so excludes relevant information. The description of ratings (1) and (7) makes it clear the benchmark for "minimizing" or "not minimizing" is the 50% mark.
On that basis, a phrase like "... anthropogenic factors are the major cause of recent warming" would get the abstract rated as affirming the consensus. In contrast, a phrase like "... anthropogenic factors are a major cause of recent warming" would downgrade it to the neutral bin in that it is possible with that phrasing that natural factors are equal or larger causes.
2) Because the evaluation of abstracts rated as (2) or (3) are based mostly on qualitative terms, it is likely that they will show more false positives than abstracts rated as (1). That does not justify distorting the meaning of the categories to minimize false positives. It is important to avoid false positives (and negatives); but it is more important that the characterization of the consensus be consistent across categories. Therefore arguing from the fact that the qualititive assessments in categories (2) and (3) will lead to false positives to the conclusion that the definition of the consensus differs for those ratings compared to category (1) puts the cart before the horse. The proper way to proceed to to determine the meaning of "affirms the consensus" from the available data from all rating categories and related comments; and if you do the position I am defending naturally follows. You then go on to assess the likely rate of false positives and/or negatives.
Because it is desirable to be conservative in these assessments, the way to avoid false positives is to be cautios in the ratings. Given the difference between the abstract ratings and the self ratings, I do not think there is any doubt that the Cook et al rating team were conservative. While there are likely to be false positives among the ratings, they are far exceded by false negatives. Arguments that the self rating data do not confirm that false negatives exceeded false positives depend essentially on ignoring what we know about the consensus of scientists and publication rates from other sources.
3) Turning to your first example, given only the data you provide, I would indeed have rated the paper as (3), and it would have been a false positive. It would also be an odd example, with the stronger result hidden in the body of the text. It would be rather like a newspaper article leading with "Dog growls at man" and mentioning in the last paragraph "assassination attempt on president". The reason for classifying the abstract as (3) includes the presumption that stronger, more interesting results will be mentioned in the abstract.
4) Turning to your second example, I would have classified it as neutral (4); and did so before I read the follow on part of the sentence.
5) Instead of checking category results, try doing the self rating excercise for 100 plus papers and check your level of agreement on endorsements with the Cook et al ratings. I am up to 35 so far, with complete agreement using my interpretation of what it means to confirm the consensus. I know from examples presented elsewhere that there are some abstract ratings I disagree with; but given that 12,000 abstracts were rated, it is unsurprising that there are some errors. You cannot check the validity of the rating system by picking out one or two errors; but only by rating a significant sample.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:14 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
I'm kind of thinking this is going to end up being like all the hockey stick graphs. Lots of complaining about methods and data and such. But never, ever, will the "skeptics" do their own research on this one, simply because their results would never support their preferred conclusions. And that is what makes them fake skeptics.
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dana1981 at 10:02 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
I've never suggested comparing Categories 6+7 with 1. Category 7 is comparable to 1, and 6+7 are comparable to 1+2.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 09:40 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon, let me second Rob's suggestion
Cook et al 2013 is a scientific paper. The time honoured method of critiquing or checking a piece of science is through replication. Someone seeks to replicate the earlier work. All other approachs, comments on blogs, self appointed 'auditors' etc are just a farce by comparison.Replicate the study Brandon. Or even better, design your own study method and go for it.
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scaddenp at 09:37 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
William, and yet the modellers have done what you suggest as the links provided show, and funnily enough do just as you propose as reading the papers would show you. "The appropriate balance" being of course the forcing set used which each model run explicitly shows you. "I would not automatically assume things are done correctly" - well good, but have you bothered to read how in fact it was done? The fact that you get similar results from completely different models, working in independent groups worldwide should at least suggest that maybe they are on track. Are you looking for the truth or looking for a rationalisation for inaction? If the former, then we are here to help - quote science papers in discussion though. If the later, then I would suspect ideological problems with proposed solution. Reality v. ideology. Hmm.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:27 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon... Instead of nitpicking the definitions (I would hold that no matter how Cook13 had defined it, you would still be nitpicking) why not write your own categories, do your own research and see what results you get?
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:24 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon... You might note there is nowhere in Cook13 where it states that only 10 papers out of 12,000 reject AGW. That would be as equally an unsupportable statement as saying only 65 papers endorse AGW.
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Brandon Shollenberger at 09:22 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
shoyemore, I was less clear than I should have been. The definition I'm referring to is not the definition of the word "consensus," but rather, the definition of the specific "consensus" being examined by Cook et al.
John Hartz, given I believe this issue is an important one, that could only serve to encourage me. I would like discussion to continue.
dana1981, you yourself have suggested comparing categories 6 and 7 with category 1. Given category 6 has as much (or rather, as little) quantification as category 5, what makes my inclusion of category 5 so much more illogical? Why should it be okay to include category 6 but not category 5?
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Tom Dayton at 09:17 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
William Haas, the construction of the models is described in great detail in the appropriate places that you easily can find by following the provided links and merely clicking around a bit. Your extreme skepticism is unconvincing since it is based on your ignorance that is due purely to your failure to bother reading.
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dana1981 at 09:01 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon, there are several ways your argument could be interpreted since frankly it's totally illogical, comparing every single implicit and explicit rejection/minimization (Categories 5-7) to explicit endorsements with quantification (Category 1). If you'd prefer, we can describe it as a misrepresentation of our survey, since you're comparing incomparable categories.
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rockytom at 09:00 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Rob, the reason "they" don't do the research is that "they" can't substantiate "their" comments by factual information that research would provide. It is enough for the prevaricators and deniers to state an opinion. Facts are not important!
Kudos to John and the Team!
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William Haas at 08:37 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
Dikran Marsupial, 1850 to 2012 is much more challenging because of the changes in direction. To be of any value such simulations have to be appropriated calibrated and contain the appropriate balance of human caused and natural factors. A simple model has been used but how has it been calibrated with reality. I would not automatically assume that things are done correctly. In quality, the projections do not look much like what has been happening over the past century and a half.
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John Hartz at 08:34 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon:
As they say, "If the shoe fits, wear it."
BTW, The more comments you post, the more likely that John Cook will write a sequel.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:27 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon... You know, with the amount of time you've spent trying to discredit Cook13 you could have actually done something useful and started up your own research project to see if you can replicate Cook13. You know, that would be the "skeptical" thing to do.
My only takeaway, at this point, can be that you folks don't really believe the position you're putting forth. It seems the only thing that is important to you is to "manufacture doubt" (to borrow a phrase) rather than test the ideas you have.
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scaddenp at 08:05 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
William, you are asking the wrong question. Try "do models have skill?"
See the FAQ at Realclimate for detail on this.
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shoyemore at 07:52 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Brandon #2,
What is wrong with the dictionary definition?:
1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2. general agreement or concord; harmony.
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tcflood at 07:45 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
In order to better understand this paper, I need to ask a couple of low-level questions.
How does a “simple” climate model give uncertainties that are more meaningful than a more complex model?
They say that a certain amount of uncertainty comes from climate sensitivity. I thought CS came from the calculation rather than being an input parameter?
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Brandon Shollenberger at 07:22 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
This post says:
This technique of unrealistic expectations was illustrated in another blog post claiming that only papers which quantify the human contribution to global warming count as part of the consensus.
Referring to a post which quotes arguments I have made. As I am a target of this criticism, I feel I am obliged to respond. My response is twofold. 1) Where in that post, or anywhere else, is it claimed "only papers which quantify the human contribution to global warming count as part of the consensus"? As far as I can tell, that post never defines the consensus. It merely (and accurately) says:
When stripped down to the bare truth, the actual number of studies in the Cook sampling that can be said to endorse the position that human activity is responsible for most of the experienced global warming is — get ready for this (drum roll …) — sixty-five.
That doesn't say only 65 endorse the "consensus." It says only 65 endorse a particular position. That particular position may or may not be the "consensus."
2) There is no clear, much less explicit, definition of "consensus" in the Cook et al paper. None was provided on Skeptical Science either. Obama's tweet about this paper, which Skeptical Science has used for publicity, describes the consensus found by this paper as something it could not possibly be. It's cheeky to criticize people for using a different criterion for the "consensus" when you never bothered to provide one of your own.
Unless or until a clear definition for the "consensus" is provided, it is silly to criticize people for using a different one.
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Dikran Marsupial at 05:48 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
William Haas The IPCC already did pretty much that, for example the
20c3m experiments are forced with historical green house gas forcing as well as the time varying ozone, sulfate, volcanic aerosols, and solar output for the 1900-2000 period. This analysis uses 20th century experiments from 10 models. The B1, A1B and A2 experiments are forced with a predicted green house gas forcing scenario for the 2000-2100 period. (www)
so we have the 1900-2000 period to judge the model's performance. IMHO it is hubris to think that the worlds leading climate modellers didn't think to do this, and hubris2 not to bother checking first before posting.
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DSL at 05:36 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
William, is Jones et al. 2013 not good enough?
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william5331 at 05:34 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
Maybe we should forget climate change. (I'm kidding)
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html
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William Haas at 05:33 AM on 29 May 2013Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change
If the models are wrong the subsequent analysis will be of no value. I would like to have seen them use a starting date for their simulation of 1850 so we can compare what actually happened with what their simulation says should have happened. The real world should be a combination of greenhouse gas causes and other causes. If the simulation cannot accurately predict what has actually happened between 1850 and now then its predictions for beyond now are of no value.
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shoyemore at 05:29 AM on 29 May 2013The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial
Congratulations to John and his team, again.
I think future historians (let's hope the are some around long term :)) will highly value this contribution to "the science of doing science", or "the science of science interfaced with politics" in the early 21st century. Meta-science?
It's immediate practical contribution is to de-bunk the fake-sceptic argument (made now mostly by politicians like Mitt Romney) "We can't do anything until the scientists make up their mind".
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JasonB at 02:34 AM on 29 May 2013Cherrypicking to Deny Continued Ocean and Global Warming
MA Rodger,
I don't think Lindzen and Spencer disagree that "a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would (by itself without feedbacks) cause a little over 1 C of warming". Spencer has even posted articles trying to "educate" the less-informed "skeptics" on the reality of the greenhouse effect. As CBDunkerson said, they rely on "undefined negative feedbacks" to support their beliefs in a low CS.
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DSL at 00:02 AM on 29 May 2013Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
What gets me about this whole rigmarole is that in publication, almost no one actually questions the attribution studies that have been done. There aren't actually a large number of people working on this question. As CBD points out on another thread, "Actually, I am not aware of any 'legitimate scientists' who disagree that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would (by itself without feedbacks) cause a little over 1 C of warming." Solar studies are virtually uniform in their pointing out that solar variation is either an insignificant and/or negative forcing for the trend of the last fifty years. Those two pieces of evidence alone should be enough to convince any scientist working in or near climate that anthro is the primary forcing behind the trend of the last fifty years.
The range of responses to the Cook study is telling. The un-engaged mainstream either accept it or don't, without investigation. Few of those aware of the attribution research quibble with the presentation of the study, because they know the above: the dominance of the human factor is pretty obvious. Now, who are these people who quibble? Why do they quibble? For some, it's obviously the same reason they quibble over Mann's "hockey stick" and the Marcott reconstruction. The message is simple and rhetorically powerful in the public domain, and undermining that message is job no. 1 (literally for some--Watts, Singer, Monckton, et al.). For others, I don't know . . . follow the leader, I guess. It's rather obvious, though, that if this level of scrutiny were applied to Soon & Baliunas (2003), Scafetta's work, or Chilingar et al., then there'd be fewer in the ranks of doubters and many more angry at the publication standards of petro journals (e.g. Energy & Environment). -
MA Rodger at 23:52 PM on 28 May 2013Cherrypicking to Deny Continued Ocean and Global Warming
CBDunkerson @107.
You appear to be setting far higher standards for a "legitimate scientists" label than I would accept. Consider a scientist like say Lindzen who genuinely believes in his unorthodox scientific position despite the overwhelming evidence supporting the orthodox position. He will not balk at challenging that evidence, would not think twice at throwing light into dark corners that other scientists who accepts the veracity of the available evidence would never dream to disturb. While those dark corners continue to exist, the likes of Lindzen continue to do science a service, of sorts.
For instance, take Spencer & Bradwell 2008. Is this not legitimate science produced by a contrarian?The problem with the likes of Lindzen & Spencer is not the science. It is their behavour ouside the science that is unacceptable, things like Lindzen's presentations to non-scientific audiences in which he makes assertions he would never get away with within the science. The same goes with Spencer's book.
This extra-scientific comment from contrarians is part of the fuel for opinions like that presented by matzdj @102. 100% of the evidence supports AGW? "That can't be," writes matzdj.
Well surely, if AGW is the correct theory, bar the science misinterpreting evidence (available evidence won't always and unfailingly point in exactly the correct direction), I say, "It can be. Indeed, it must be!" -
CBDunkerson at 21:08 PM on 28 May 2013Cherrypicking to Deny Continued Ocean and Global Warming
matzdj wrote: "Both sides do have legitimate scientists on them (more on the CO2-is-the-ogre side), but there is no legitimate way that every statement that either side makes can be wrong."
Actually, I am not aware of any "legitimate scientists" who disagree that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would (by itself without feedbacks) cause a little over 1 C of warming. The evidence on that became overwhelming decades ago. Rather, the handful of 'skeptics' claim that undefined negative feedback effects will reduce this warming (and the known positive feedbacks) and that the observations of warming in line with rising CO2 over the past century must therefor have been caused by some other undefined factor. That's getting sufficiently implausible to start straining the "legitimate" scientist label on its own, but that is the extent of current disagreement. No one disputes the CO2 greenhouse effect except non-scientists whose views have no foundation in reality... and which therefor can indeed 'always be wrong'.
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JasonB at 20:23 PM on 28 May 2013Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
barry,
Jason, can you define, precisely, the consensus position you rated under? If there are caveats regarding the 7 ratings, can you also indicate? I want to understand what you did.
I'll do you one better, I'll show you the abstracts I rated as 3 in addition to the one shown above.
1. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359431106001980
I rated this as "3. Implicit endorsement" because the first sentence is "Climate change induced by global warming is a result of an excess of energy at the earth’s surface due to the greenhouse effect." My reasoning was that the author was unequivocal about the fact that global warming is due to the greenhouse effect, and since man is responsible for the enhancement of the greenhouse effect, I decided that it implicitly endorses man's responsibility.
Cook et al rated this as "4. Neutral".
2. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asmb.530/abstract
I found this one to be tricky but ended up rating it as "3. Implicit endorsement" because the way the paper discusses "‘clean up’ (e.g. reforestation)" and "irreversible emissions" suggested to me that they were taking for granted man's effect with no indication that they thought anything else might be involved.
Cook et al rated this as "2. Explicit endorsement".
3. http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=4830
I rated this as "3. Implicit endorsement" because the paper talks about the economics of different greenhouse gas emissions abatement rates in the context of interactions between global climate change and the world economy, implying (to me) that they take for granted the relationship between emissions and climate change (discussing abatement rates would be pointless otherwise) with no indication that they thought anything else might be involved.
Cook et al rated this as "4. Neutral".
In each case, I felt that the authors were making a link between AGHGs and global warming and none of them indicated there was any other factor involved at all, so your four categories of ">50%", "dominant", "significant", or "some" don't apply at all — there is no clue in any of those abstracts that anything other than man is causing global warming.
Can you help me understand this? If a paper was rated as neutral, it was not included in the tally. Is that how this supposition is figured?
1,342 papers were rated by their authors as endorsing the consensus, while 39 were rated by their authors as rejecting the consensus. Hence the rate of endorsement was 1,342/(1,342 + 39) = 97.2%. If half of the "endorsement" papers were mistakenly rated as endorsing the consensus when they should have been neutral, the rate of endorsement would have been 671/(671 + 39) = 94.5%. (We are assuming here that no author is going to mistakenly rate their paper as endorsing the consensus when it actually rejects it, which seems to be reasonable given the motivation to draw attention to a "contrarian" paper that's passed peer review and the availability of levels 5, 6, and 7.)
Any case, that is not the argument I'm making. I need to know, definitively, the consensus position Cook et al were rating under. Is it this?
The consensus position Cook et al were rating under was very clearly spelled out in the paper: "that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)"
Given they rated two papers as neutral that I thought were pretty clearly implicitly endorsing that very statement, it seems they used a very strict interpretation of it.
Because if the original Authors rated under the lower bar (any anthro influence) for 2 and 3, then the comparative results are not as robust as indicated.
That's a big "if", and one for which you are yet to provide any evidence whatsoever.
Why would authors rate under a lower bar? Why would they rate their own paper as "endorsing" if, in fact, it assumed or stated a minor human influence, when levels 5 and 6 were available for them to categorise their own paper? After all, the authors were working with their entire paper plus their own knowledge of what they actually meant by what they wrote, so if in their view their paper said nothing to imply something other than humans was the main cause in their entire paper, how can you argue that their paper is "actually" not endorsing the consensus?
Regarding Cook et al's ratings, if you feel that mistakes were made, feel free to check them yourself. They're completely open. There's no point discussing "potentialities" when you can actually check the reality. If you're just going to check a random subset, remember to count how many you check so we can assess the significance of your findings.
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barry1487 at 16:56 PM on 28 May 2013Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
Jason, can you define, precisely, the consensus position you rated under? If there are caveats regarding the 7 ratings, can you also indicate? I want to understand what you did.
I upthread asked for peopel to precisely define what they think is meant by 'consensus position' in Cook13, relative to rating options 2 and 3. I was interested to see if their was conformity or not.
a) >50% human influence
b) dominant human influence
c) significant human influence
d) some human influence
These are four ways that I can think of to legitimately interpret the consensus position for ratings options 2 and 3. When I did the public survey, I applied criterion d) (I missspoke earlier upthread). I am unsure as to what degree Cook et al would have applied to ratings 2 and 3.
As Tom mentioned before, in order for the original authors' level of endorsement to drop to 94.5% — a figure I would still consider overwhelming — you would need to believe that half of the original authors mistakenly assessed their papers as endorsing the consensus when they should have been rated as neutral.
Can you help me understand this? If a paper was rated as neutral, it was not included in the tally. Is that how this supposition is figured? Any case, that is not the argument I'm making. I need to know, definitively, the consensus position Cook et al were rating under. Is it this?We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).
Because if the original Authors rated under the lower bar (any anthro influence) for 2 and 3, then the comparative results are not as robust as indicated.To put it simply, and assuming;
1) Cook et al rate with the consensus of >50% anthro as the standard for all ratings bar neutral. They get 97% endorsement.
2) Original Authors rate 1) same as Cook et al, but rate 2) and 3) as endorsing any amount of human influence of global warming. 97% endorsement, also.
You don't see a problem with this potentiality?
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JasonB at 15:56 PM on 28 May 2013Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
barry,
Out of interest I compared the ratings I gave to the ten papers in the original exercise with the ratings that Cook et al gave.
The paper that I rated as a 1, Cook et al also rated as a 1.
The five papers that I rated as a 4, Cook et al also rated as a 4.
That leaves four papers, all four of which I rated as 3's. Of those four, Cook et al rated one a 2, one a 3, and two as 4. So of the five that I rated as endorsing the consensus, Cook et al only counted three as endorsing the consensus, applying a much stricter test than I did for the most part.
The original authors, on the other hand, had a higher endorsement rate than I did — my average was 3.3, the original authors' average was 2.8. However, knowing that the original authors were assessing the entire paper explains why so many of the 4's were recategorised, such as this one that I (and Cook et al) rated as a 4 based on the abstract, but who's very first sentence in the introduction of the actual paper was:
The anticipated increases in greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere are predicted to raise temperatures by about 2.1 to 5.0 C globally within the next 100 years (Wigley and Raper, 1992; IPCC, 2001).
Note that the 16% disagreement was over all seven levels of endorsement category. In my case, the paper I rated as 3 that Cook et al rated as 2 would be counted as a "disagreement", even though it would have no impact on the final endorsement vs rejection percentage. I suspect that when lumping the 1+2+3 and 5+6+7 categories together the level of disagreement would have been much lower. And the two that I rated as 3 that Cook et al rated as 4 would actually lower the final endorsement percentage.
I'm not especially concerned that they had to revisit and discuss the interpretations of the criteria as real-world examples were encountered so they could reach a consensus on how the criteria should be applied; I've encountered exactly the same issue when marking exams with written answers. I'm also not concerned that the original authors may have individually been applying a slightly different interpretation, for the same reason that nobody seeks to rigorously define exactly what "beyond reasonable doubt" means to jury members. When you get large numbers of people responding, unusual interpretations tend to cancel out.
All these factors mean is that there is an error margin when it comes to the precise level of endorsement in the literature but nobody should be getting hung up on the precise percentage. The fact is that the results are overwhelming. As Tom mentioned before, in order for the original authors' level of endorsement to drop to 94.5% — a figure I would still consider overwhelming — you would need to believe that half of the original authors mistakenly assessed their papers as endorsing the consensus when they should have been rated as neutral. Now, some may have made a mistake, but to assume that half did beggars belief, and even if they did it still wouldn't change the take-home message.
I have seen statements here and there to the effect that such-and-such is the final nail in the coffin of "CAGW" and that there is a growing opposition within the scientific community to the IPCC's statements or that a "silent majority" of scientists are sick of IPCC alarmism and are gradually coming out of the woodwork to speak out against the "corruption" of science, but there is absolutely no evidence of this, and Cook et al actually shows the endorsement growing with time. If that belief was reflected in reality then we wouldn't need to be arguing over whether "humans are causing global warming" means something different to "global warming is caused by humans", there would be a lot more papers unambiguously rejecting the consensus. No matter which way you cut it, that category is tiny, and that's before we even get into the nitty-gritty detail about the actual quality of those papers.
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gpwayne at 15:38 PM on 28 May 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #21
Message to John Hartz: great work, but you really need to run your posts through a spell checker - examine the first paragraph please...
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