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Comments 45201 to 45250:

  1. Uncertainty no excuse for procrastinating on climate change

    Sadly "The Australian " newspaper today (27 May) was up to its usual trick of misrepresenting the science by stating in the opening sentence "The earth's temperature is unlikely to increase by more than 2C by 2100.." whereas the authors are clearly saying that "exceeding 2C is virtually certain." This is typical of the  Murdoch press as they continually put the best face on the climate science even if it means that publishing misinformation.

  2. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #21

    Toons are getting better and better!

    I thought the one from last weeek was hard to beat but this week is also excellent. And sadlyvery  realistic, as news popup about arctic drilling opportunities following receding ice.

  3. Has the rate of surface warming changed? 16 years revisited

    I agree with jdixon1980 and Dumb Scientist:  Why the heck do climate scientists refer almost exclusively to atmospheric temperature with the words "global temperature" in press releases, interviews, and even sometimes abstracts, without an emphasized disclaimer that atmospheric temperature is not even remotely close to the real global "temperature"--that is, total thermal content?  Often the scientists even say publicly that "global warming has slowed" or "paused" or is on "temporary hiatus" when they know perfectly well that it most certainly is not when you properly consider the total energy content.

    I asked that of James Hansen last week in his talk at NASA Ames Research Center, but I did not phrase the question clearly enough.  He answered that you do not even need to do that, because even surface atmospheric temperature has not paused in its increase; it has merely not been increasing as much as it was in the decades before, and that is entirely expected variability.  I think that retort is too technical for most of the public.  I think it is much easier for the public to understand that the "temperature" of the entire system must be what is monitored, and clearly it has not stopped increasing.  (By the way, Hansen's talk is available online on UStream.)

     

  4. It's not bad

    New NASA study accepted by Geophysical Research Letters (Lau et al.) quantifies that wet places will get wetter and dry places will get drier--more floods and drought.  Heavy rain will increase, light rain will increase slightly, but moderate rain will decrease and no rain will be more frequent.  There is a summary with video of global map of changes.

  5. Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist

    Needs a place on the page "Climate Misinformers"?

  6. Dumb Scientist at 02:27 AM on 27 May 2013
    The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years?

    I wanted to thank Dikran again for his contribution. It inspired my own simulation, which has better formatting here.

  7. ulisescervantes at 20:11 PM on 26 May 2013
    A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Excellent  article, thanks. Yet, I wanted to note something: arctic clouds during fall-winter-spring have a net heat-trap effect. At the same time, these periods of very negative AO, that happened in recent years between fall and spring, are synonymous of sustained high pressure (and correct me if I'm wrong, cloud-free skies) over the Arctic. It sems that negative AO, if associated with Arctic warming, tends to mitigate the (very strong) positive feedback of extra cloudiness. Any thoughts?

  8. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    What a cracking good article. It clerared up a lot of questions I had regarding this issue, especially due to living in Wales where the jet stream almost rules our lives.

  9. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    Anyone who has any doubt about the practical utility of Cook et al should consider that the Australian conservative opposition leader, Tony Abbott, has used ambiguity about a scientific consensus to publicly question the very existence of climate change.  Many of his senior (and junior) party members, and a number of high-profile conservative media commentators, are even now at least as inclined to use this stratagem to stir up public doubt.

    This action was one of several that were employed by conservatives and that led to a very significant delay of action in Australia in addressing the effects of human emissions.  It has in fact effectively tainted the political landscape of Australia since 2010, when its consequences amongst the general public contributed significantly to Kevin Rudd shying away from action and Julia Gillard grasping the reins from him.

    The next (and already evident) approach by the conservatives will be to acknowledge that climate change is happening, and that it was accepted by a consensus of scientists, but that it is not nearly as dangerous as scientists are warning.  It's just the next gambit in the list of denialist responses that many of us have been discussing for years.  A useful follow-up to Cook et al would be to conduct a similar survey investigating scientific understanding of and thoughts on the full spectrum of consequences and impacts of human-caused climate change.  Last year in an idle moment I even sketched an outline for such a survey, including questionaire design and methodological rationale and approaches such as stratification for professional and personal cofactors.

    Now that would be a study that would be of great interest to me, and no doubt to many others...

  10. The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    In reply to KR at post 83 and originally at post 14 on the Anderson et al 2012 paper: It was claimed by KR that this paper has ruled out the possibility of more than 10% of the observed warming as contributed by natural variability. I am delinquent in replying to this thread.

    Nothing of the sort--- that sets an upper limit of 10% as contributed by natural variability as claimed--- can be concluded from the model results.

    Unlike the papers of Meehl et al that I discussed in post 113, the models used in Anderson et al are atmosphere-only, and are incapable of generating internal variability involving ocean dynamics. Through clever experimental design, the authors were able to place some constraints on the magnitude of unknown internal variability, and showed consistency within models which simulated well the observed warming of the late 20th century as almost entirely forced. In the first simulation, the observed sea-surface temperature (SST) in 1950-2005 is specified but with no greenhouse gas forcing or any other atmospheric forcing. In the second simulation, known atmospheric forcing such as greenhouse gases, tropospheric sulfate aerosols, tropospheric ozone and solar variations are added to the first. In third simulation, there is no change in SST. The atmospheric radiative forcing is the same as the second simulation. Five ensemble members are run for each experimental setup. The top-of-the atmosphere radiative imbalance is assumed to be the same as what should have been going into the (missing) ocean as change in ocean heat content. This is a reasonable assumption. The second simulation should give the radiative imbalance produced by known radiative forcing agents and the observed historical SST. This imbalance was compared with the ocean heat content change and was found to be in good agreement. The ocean heat content change was estimated using Levitus et al’s data up to 2008, and down to about 700m. It was assumed that this is 70% of the total ocean heat content, as the latter was not in the data. Possible errors associated with this one assumption alone already could exceed 10%. (This is however not my main argument.) The rest of the paper went on to argue why there is no room for more than 10% contribution from other unknown radiative forcing agents.

    The model result should be viewed as a consistency test of the hypothesis proposed. As I mentioned in my previous posts, most CMIP3 models succeeded in simulating the observed warming in the second half of the 20th century as forced response using known radiative forcing agents with the magnitudes that they input into their models. If, as we argued in our paper and in part 1 of my post, the tropospheric aerosol cooling, which is uncertain, was underestimated, there would be a need for the presence of internal variability that warms during the second half of the 20th century. The authors acknowledged the possibility of two alternative hypotheses that were not tested by their work: My comments in bold below.

    It should be noted that….there are two alternate, untested hypotheses. One is that the known change in total radiative forcing over the last half of the twentieth century … is systematically overestimated by the models (yes, that is our hypothesis) and that the long-term observed changes in global-mean temperatures are instead being driven by an unknown radiative-forcing agent(the unknown agent is the additional tropospheric sulfate aerosol cooling). The second hypothesis is that the global-scale radiative response of the system … is systematically underestimated by the models (equivalently the climate sensitivity is systematically overestimated) (I do not intend to argue that the climate sensitivity should be lower than used by the models, and so this is not the hypothesis that we pursued)…. However, for either of these two alternate hypotheses to supplant the current one (i.e., that known historical changes in total radiative forcing produced the observed evolution of global-mean SSTs and ocean heat content), the unknown forcing agent would need to be identified(we have identified it), changes in its magnitude would need to be quantified (we have not done it yet but showed what it needed to be), and it would have to be demonstrated that either (i) changes in the magnitude of known forcing agents in the model systems are systematically over-estimated by almost exactly the same amount or (ii) the radiative responses in the model systems are systematically underestimated by almost exactly the same amount. (Perhaps the word "exactly" should not be used in this context). However, testing either of these two hypotheses given the current model systems is not feasible until a candidate unknown forcing agent is identified and its magnitude is quantified.

  11. Help close the consensus gap using social media

    Actually, it does very much matter why.  If we know why, then we know what to expect in general.  We know the trend isn't going to go into long-term reverse -- not for a very long time.

  12. Dumb Scientist at 12:52 PM on 26 May 2013
    The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    In my original post, I claimed that regressing global temperatures against the linearly-detrended Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) to determine anthropogenic global warming (AGW) assumes that AGW is linear. Thus, even if AGW actually were faster after 1950, Dr. Tung's method would conclude that AGW is linear anyway.

    Dr. Tung dismissed Dikran Marsupial's MATLAB simulation because its conclusion is "obvious" and suggested coming up with a better example without technical problems. I disagree with this criticism and would like to again thank Dikran for his contribution, which inspired this open-source analysis written in the "R" programming language.

    Can regressing against the linearly-detrended AMO detect nonlinear AGW?

    Imagine that AGW is very nonlinear, such that the total human influence on surface temperatures (not the radiative forcing) is a 5th power polynomial from 1856-2011:

    t = 1856:2011
    human = (t-t[1])^5
    human = 0.8*human/human[length(t)]

    Its value in 2011 is 0.8°C, to match Tung and Zhou 2013's claim that 0.8°C of AGW has occurred since 1910. The exponent of "5" was chosen such that the linear trend after 1979 is 0.17°C/decade, to match Foster and Rahmstorf 2011.

    Tung and Zhou 2013 describes an AMO with an amplitude of 0.2°C and a period of 70 years which peaks around the year 2000:

    nature = 0.2*cos(2*pi*(t-2000)/70)

     
    Fig 1
     

    Global surface temperatures are caused by both, along with weather noise described by a gaussian with standard deviation 0.2°C for simplicity:

    global = human + nature + rnorm(t,mean=0,sd=0.2)

    N. Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST) are a subset of global surface temperatures, with added regional noise with standard deviation 0.1°C:

    n_atlantic = global + rnorm(t,mean=0,sd=0.1)

     
    Fig 2
     

    Compare these simulated time series to the actual time series. The AMO is linearly-detrended N. Atlantic SST:

    n_atlantic_trend = lm(n_atlantic~t)
    amo = n_atlantic - coef(summary(n_atlantic_trend))[2,1]*(t-t[1])

     
    Fig 3
     

    Regress global surface temperatures against this AMO index and the exact human influence, after subtracting means to insure that the intercept handles any non-zero bias:

    human_p = human - mean(human)
    amo_p = amo - mean(amo)
    regression = lm(global~human_p+amo_p)

    Will Dr. Tung's method detect this nonlinear AGW? Here are the residuals:

     
    Fig 4
     

    Let's add the residuals back as Dr. Tung does, then calculate the trends after 1979 for the true and estimated human influences:

     
    Fig 5
     

    Note that the absolute values are meaningless. A Monte Carlo simulation of 1000 runs was performed, and the estimated human trends since 1979 are shown here:

     
    Fig 6
     

    Notice that even though we know that the true AGW trend after 1979 is 0.17°C/decade, Dr. Tung's method insists that it's about 0.07°C/decade. That's similar to the result in Tung and Zhou 2013, even though we know it's an underestimate here.

    The linearity of the estimated human influence was measured by fitting linear and quadratic terms over 1856-2011 to the same 1000 runs. The same procedure applied to the true human influence yields a quadratic term of 5.965E-05°C/year^2.

     
    Fig 7
     

    Even though we know that the true quadratic term is 5.965E-05°C/year^2, the average quadratic term from Dr. Tung's method is less than half that. The true nonlinearity of this AGW term is 5th order, so this is a drastic understatement.

    Conclusion: Tung and Zhou 2013 is indeed a circular argument. By subtracting the linearly-detrended AMO from global temperatures, their conclusion of nearly-linear AGW is guaranteed, which also underestimates AGW after ~1950.

  13. Help close the consensus gap using social media

    My earlier post got deleted.

     

    I am trying to point out why it doesnt really matter what is causing the climate to change.

    Instead we need to focus on methods to turn it around if the dire predictions are correct.

     

  14. Renewable energy is too expensive

    let me try again.

    Alternative energy is expensive bottom line it doesnt matter what is or isnt accounted for in the price. When I whip out my wallet I dont care how the price got to where it is at. At this moment in time if i come to the counter for a box of solar or a box of fossil fuels especially natural gas at the moment  the cost of gas is far cheaper , no way around it.

    I would like to link to an article that does a better job of making the point Energy policy and Environment

  15. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    The point of the paper is that the state of the current scientific literature reflects an overwhelming working assumption by relevant scientists that AGW is real and happening; and that, unfortunately, the impression of most Americans (for example) is that the scientific community is in a state of conflict about the matter.

  16. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    Correction to para 3 of my comment above - "Whilst this effort to examine the consensus amongst scientists is important and valuable..."

  17. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    Good comments! Definitely worth drawing attention to the strength of agreement amongst scientists but it does sound like careful consideration of the language used is necessary, so better call it something other than a scientific consensus!

    Is it of any value to put the 3% under the scope -or would that simply give them a platform in which the "stick to the facts and don't leave out the provisos" scientists will face opponents that have impose no such restrictions or boundaries on their rhetoric? Against the experienced debater, who can argue as effectively that black is white and that 2+2=5 as argue the contrary, we need experienced debaters who can enter the fray, boots and all.

    Whilst this effort to examine the consensus amongst scientists, I think what I would like to see is more effort along a different tack - a greater focus on our peak science bodies and on the role they have played in providing independent expert assessment of climate science, it's methodology and results.

    I'd like to see a starting from scratch rerun of that process, but with as much televised fanfare as possible - a look at the Royal Societies and Nation Academies, what and who they are and what they do, who picks the panels/committees and on what basis, a look at the members of those panels - both to highlight their credentials and how they've distinguished themselves - and to humanise them. And to show that these are people who have no personal axe to grind, are above any kind of group think and who will not be swayed by anything but the evidence at hand.

    Whilst that might be another way to persuade the public of climate science's bona fides, I think the most important audience has to be those who hold positions of public trust - our elected and appointed representatives. ie the ones who have been recipients of government commissioned scientific reports and advice but have been choosing to dismiss and ignore:-

     Whilst the public has some right to their own opinions, those representative do not. Even if it's populism without responsibility that puts them there, once they are, they do have a greater and wider responsibility - to the entire community, not just those who backed their election. For them to endanger our future by wilfully ignoring government commissioned expert advice is a betrayal of that wider trust and responsibility.

    Too many of our office holders have been lending climate science denial an air of respectability it has not earned and for those interests who want to obstruct strong climate policy, that high level support from skilled and persuasive speakers in positions of influence is (IMO) a more powerful influence over the scope and the tone of the public debate; 97% won't persuade the public if that 97% can't persuade a clear majority of those who hold positions of trust and responsibility on the public's behalf.

  18. To frack or not to frack?

    some answers and analyses appeared on Climate Central here.

  19. Dikran Marsupial at 03:53 AM on 26 May 2013
    The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    Prof. Tung wrote:

    The observation now appears to be below the 95% variability bar of the CMIP3 model projections made in 2000

    I have already presented an analysis showing that this statement is simply incorrect.

    Do you stand by this statement, yes or no?  If yes, please explain the error in the analysis.

  20. Dikran Marsupial at 03:42 AM on 26 May 2013
    The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    Prof. Tung wrote:

    "However, the technical arguments concerning MLR are probably beside the point."

    No, the validity of MLR is providing evidence for your argument is central to the point. 

    "As I said in an earlier post, the technical analysis related to MLR should not stand on its own: ... "

    As I pointed out, the MLR analysis is the central topic of the JAS paper, so it is important to investigate whether it is valid or not.

    "... it merely tests the consequence of an assumption of one variable on another. "

    My thought experiment demonstrates that the MLR method is unable to perform this test for the reasons stated in my earlier post.

    "The technical problem is that the AMO that you defined is 40% of one regressor and 60% of another regressor, and so you ran into a serious problem of collinearity. I think your point could be made without this distraction."

    It is not a distraction.  The colinearity is the extreme case of correlation between anthropogenic and AMO signals.  It is common in thought experiments to investigate the boundary cases.  For the MLR method to be a valid test it must work whether or not the AMO actually affects global mean surface temperatures or not, and it needs to be valid whether the AMO is heavily correlated with anthropogenic forcings or not.  My analysis shows that it isn't valid as it misattributes anthropogenic influences to the AMO, which undermines the conclusion drawn in the JAS paper.

    In my previous post I asked:

    "It is very important that you provide me with a direct answer to this question, so we can focuss in on the area of disagreement quickly: Ignoring for the moment whether the hypothetical scenario is appropriate, is there an error in my implementation of the MLR method? "Yes" or "No", if "Yes", please explain."

    It is rather dissapointing that you did not give a direct answer to this simple question and instead commented only on the scenario.  Please can you answer this question in order to avoid further miscommunication?

  21. The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    In reply to post 113 by Dikran: The MLR analysis was used in our paper to investigate the impact on the deduced anthropogenic trend of a mostly natural AMO, with the latter being related to the classically defined AMO index by Enfield. As I said in an earlier post, the technical analysis related to MLR should not stand on its own: it merely tests the consequence of an assumption of one variable on another. Even in Zhou and Tung (2013, JAS), which is a more technical paper dealing with a comparison of the MLR analysis by three groups, there was a whole section, section 4, justifying introducing the AMO index as a regressor. (And the part of the Abstract that you quoted is out of context.)

    Nevertheless I still think your exercise is useful in helping to think through the consequences of different scenarios. You should probably come up with a better example because the one you used has a technical problem which may mar the point you were trying to make. The point you were trying to make is apparently important to this group of readers and so I would encourage that you fix that technical problem. The technical problem is that the AMO that you defined is 40% of one regressor and 60% of another regressor, and so you ran into a serious problem of collinearity. I think your point could be made without this distraction.

    There are several scenarios/assumptions that one could come up with. These, when fully developed, can each stand on its own as a competing theory. I had in many occasions mentioned that there are competing theories to ours and referenced the ones that appeared in the literature that I knew of. I accepted these as valid competing theories explaining the same phenomenon of the observed climate variability. One fully developed competing theory is that of Booth et al arguing that the entire AMO-like variability is forced by anthropogenic aerosols varying in like fashion. One could also come up with one that says that 50% of this observed variability is forced by anthropogenic aerosol. A third one that says only 20% is caused by anthropogenic aerosol forcing. The first two scenarios could probably be checked by the subsurface ocean data of Zhang et al (2013). The available observational data with their short subsurface measurements and uncertainty are probably not able to discriminate the third scenario from the one that assumes that the AMO is natural.

    We can in our thought experiment move closer to the ones that you may be thinking. Consider the scenario where the two cycles in the AMO index, classically defined, in the global mean data is natural but the most recent half cycle starting in 1980 is anthropogenically forced. Therefore the accelerated warming in the latter part of the 20th century is entirely anthropogenically forced. This is a fully developed competing theory, in fact the standard theory. It is fully developed because it has been simulated by almost all CMIP3 models (compare AR4 figure 9.5 a and b). There is no need for internal variability to explain the accelerated warming between 1980 and 2005; the accelerated warming is attributed to accelerated net radiative forcing driven by the exponentially (or super-exponentially) increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. If we assume that this scenario is true, it would contradict our assumption that the AMO is mostly natural . If you perform a MLR and remove the AMO as natural, the deduced anthropogenic trend would be wrong. In this case it would be an underestimate of the true anthropogenic trend. Putting it in your language of linear vs nonlinear detrending, this scenario is equivalent to the assumption that the anthropogenic warming trend is highly nonlinear and bends rapidly up after 1980. And the wrong (by definition) assumption of a natural AMO can also be viewed as the procedure of linear detrending being wrong. I have said it previously you do not need a Matlab code to reach that conclusion. It is obvious.

    Most would have been satisfied with the standard theory, except for what happened during the last decade or so. Although the year 2012 was the warmest on record for the contiguous US, according to NOAA’s National Climate Data Center, it was only the 9th or 10th warmest globally, depending on which dataset is used. The warmest global mean year was either 1998 (according to HadCRU) or 2005 (according to GISS). The year 2010 effectively tied with 2005. The warming in 1998 was rather spikey, and could be attributed to a “super” El Niño in 1997/1998, while the peak near 2005 was broader, indicating a top in the multidecadal variability sometime between 2005 and 2010. Under reasonable emission scenarios the projected warming by the IPCC models continues to rise rapidly after 2005. The observation now appears to be below the 95% variability bar of the CMIP3 model projections made in 2000 and on the lower edge of the 90% bar of CMIP5 projections made in 2005. Explaining this hiatus is one of the current challenges. Some of us proposed that it would be explained by a multidecadal variability, while I readily accepted the fact that there are other competing explanations.

    If you have a competing theory, I would encourage you to develop it further. The example you used, with a quadratic trend in anthropogenic warming, does not appear to be consistent with observation, although I understand that you did not intend it to be used that way. The point I am trying to make is that one can come up with a dozen scenarios. When each is developed enough for publication it is open for critical examination by all. However, the technical arguments concerning MLR are probably beside the point.

  22. Help close the consensus gap using social media

    user6244,

    1. Why is it important?  The problem can be mitigated by personal and public action.  

    2. Scientists won't do anything other than their research that points out the problem and their own carbon choices.  Engineers will do something, if the political will demands that they do so.

    3. Not liking one possible method of making people more responsible is not a good reason to discard the science that's pointing out the problem.

    4. Humans not causing the increase?  Possible, but not probable.  There are threads on this site that are more appropriate, but the short version is this: our emissions are a fact, not an opinion.  No matter what mechanism you come up with for the increase in atmospheric CO2, it must account for human emissions and no observed increase in volcanic activity.  At any rate, such conjecture is not a good reason for inaction.  The cancer analogy is useful: you have $300k in your bank account.  Life is sweet right now.  You get a terminal cancer diagnosis. You get a total of ten opinions.  Nine say terminal cancer.  One says indigestion.  You say: "well, it could be indigestion.  If I accept the cancer diagnosis, then my whole life will be screwed up.  I'll want to enjoy the six months I have left, so I'll quit my job and drain my bank account.  I think it's indigestion."  Wise?  By the time the cancer becomes obvious, it will be too late to enjoy the remining time.  Not a perfect analogy, of course, because AGW is not terminal.  It's like what happens to someone who kicks Moose Molloy in the groin.  Moose might accidentally kill the person, but most likely he'll slap the person upside the head for about three weeks.

     

  23. Help close the consensus gap using social media

    Why is it important to convince people of scientific consensus?

    Also just what do scientist intend to do to reverse the earths thremostat? Convince world governments to implement taxation so the brunt of the co2 reduction is aimed at the population that can least afford it? Or preventing less advanced countries from increased living standards?  Mybe go to war with countries that refuse to limit co2 output?

    suppose for a moment that the earth is warming at an alarming rate but turns out that it is not humans causing the increase or we are not the primary driver.

    Will we just throw up our hands and walk away?

  24. The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years?

    I continue my game of cosmological Where's Wally by crossing the Atlantic. The US Eastern seaboard stretches 1,500 miles so can provide a regional temperature by averaging a set of State data from NCDC, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, N Carolina & Florida being chosen. They have a very similar temperature record as shown in the tiny inset graphic. (The anomaly base 1895-1945 is probably the reason for the particularly close match during those years.)
    The contiguious ocean SST from nomad3 were taken as 25-45N, 70-80W. (This isn't the most representitive part of the Atlantic SST-wise, lacking signs of warming 1981-date.) AMO is after Enfield.
    The first graph shows the land & adjacent ocean temperatures 1981-date do have certain similarities but with warming only evident on land. Also, if the larger wobbles match up, they appear a month or so earlier on land, which is not good for any theory of AMO as a driver of land temperature.
    The second graph attempts to compare those US temperature records with AMO over a 120 year period. I see there no evidence of AMO warming the Eastern coast of the USA over that period.
    So where is Amo hiding?

    AMO3

    Link for above image

    AMO4

    Link for above image

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Added links to the images themselves, as they will not display directly due to limitations in how Google stores them.

  25. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    I'm wryly amused by this little spat, because all the protagonists seem to be operating in the famously closed world of academia - a gentle accusation that is characterised by the comment that the study "doesn’t meaningfully enlarge knowledge of the state of scientific opinion on climate change". My rebuttal to that point is that for those who do climate science, or study it from a lay perspective (e.g. me), scientific opinion is irrelevant to the actual science. There are no planks to my own arguments with contrarians that depend on opinion (wheras nearly all contrarian arguments are not only opinionated, but usually stated as fact). 

    My arguments depend in their entirity on published papers, the experiments designed to test them, and the evidence that supports them (plus the consilience of climate science with other disciplines, and with the foundational science on which it rests, and with which it must conform). 

    Yet this study is really important in my view, and to support that view I need to ask that we step out of the scientific community, and into the wider world. On arrival, we might find something disconcerting: while it would be nice to think that the issues we're discussing are about science, in fact the issue is something else entirely, something grubby and distasteful, something that I have found scientists and activists are very reluctant to engage with, and that is propaganda.

    We are at war. We didn't want it, but it was forced on us, by those who cannot or will not embrace the implications of the science, and by those whose interests are threatened by those implications i.e. fossil fuel companies. Since the demagogues have no science to back up their arguments, it is necessary to find other weapons with which to wage war, and these weapons are stamped out of molds all too familiar: attacks on credibility and probity, insinuation, misrepresentation, demonisation, conspiracy, and implied or asserted furthering of vested interest. These are the weapons of the ideologue, and what this study does is put an equivalent weapon in my hand - one I have no hesitation in pointing at the enemy, because I recognise that there is good propaganda as well as bad, and what little I contribute is, I hope, of the former kind. It certainly isn't science.

    It is also important to understand where this battle is being fought. It is taking place in the media; the paper itself demonstrates that it isn't taking place within the climate science community. And it isn't scientists waging this war - at best, I think scientists feel co-opted, as if they've been caught up in a bar brawl when they were just trying to get a glass of water. Reading Kahan's remarks, there is a sense of frustration and annoyance which he acknowledges, but frames in terms of some putative failure on his part, or on the part of those trying to improve the communication of science. This misses the boat: science will never, ever, convince the public to support political and economic measures to mitigate or adapt to climate change. They don't get it, don't get the compelling probabilities, don't get the causal chain, don't get the timescales or the rapid development, which often appears contradictory or equivocal.

    What the public do get is propaganda. They may not recognise it as such, but so powerful is the effect of the constant repetition that the public discourse is blighted and twisted out of shape, where black really can be made to appear white, where there is no nuance and no shades of grey, and where there is no such thing as a fact. And in this petty war, one of the facts most open to attack is the consensual nature of climate science, for the 'unsettled' science is, as John points out, not only Luntz's weapon, but that of the tobacco industry before it, and perhaps more emotively, the principle tool of the National Socialists in the 1930s. I won't repeat Goebbel's aphorism about propaganda, but I will point out the consistency between his application of it, and that of all ideologues who followed, of which Luntz is just one more professional liar.

    This is a very old debate: when does the means justify the ends? Previously, I've identified the problem as the 'Bomber Harris' paradox. Harris ran the RAF's Bomber Command and is held responsible for either shortening the war by firebombing German cities, or for destroying the moral credibility of the Allied forces by being as inhuman and evil as the Nazis. This debate carries echoes of the same issue: the denial brigade lie all the time, so we find it incumbent to be truthful. Deniers never admit mistakes, so we have to (as SkS did, bravely, this week - and of course got pilloried for it - was this honesty successful if success is measured in propaganda terms?).

    So there's the paradox: while science continues on its quiet course through the long days of number crunching and patient gathering of information, there is a dirty war raging outside. Scientists don't want to be like Harris, don't want to tool up and start burning stuff, and good job too. Leave the dirty work to the soldiers, but don't think this war will be won by science, by evidence, or by banging on about the consensus, for this paper is nothing more than our missile shield, our Patriots, our counter-intelligence. It's purpose is to sabotage the enemy's propaganda, and for that I'm thankful because I'm very short of effective weapons when science and evidence don't work. 

  26. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    William Haas, scientific consensus of the sort that Cook has done is not evidence for the theory of anthropogenic global warming.  Rather it is an index of the scientific support that the theory has.  That index is used by people who don't have the time, energy, training, means, and/or motivation to engage the published science effectively.  That would be most people.  Like it or not, most people rely on opinion-makers for their opinions.  They're forced to.

    Question for you, William: do you understand my point?

  27. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    jdixon, I rarely post intentionally on my wall.  Occasionally, I'll be on a thread somewhere and it will show up on my wall.  I want to be very careful with the friends and family I've allowed on my FB.  The best opportunities are when a friend of a friend makes an unscientific comment and I see it on the home stream.  I feel no resistance to correcting the person, and it keeps the friend in observer mode.  If the friend wants to discuss it, no problem.  I look for situations where I can start conversations.  It's very difficult, though, to keep the baseball bat that is the published science in my back pocket.  However, I sober up when I think about how insulated my friends are.  Most have not had a liberal education that has allowed them to stand back from it all for several years.  For most of my friends, I can read their opinions in the content of CNN and FOX.  That's not an insult; it's a reality.  FB is a liberalizing force, though.  The more contact we have with each other's brains and cultural situations, the better.  It is easy to de-friend, though, and that's why I walk softly, most of the time.

    The family is another matter.  My family (up-tree) is small and dying.  My in-laws are large and growing.  And stereotypically Southern (US) for the most part. Some will say one thing in conversation and then whisper something else behind the back.  It's very annoying to someone who likes and encourages transparency of thought.  I've had my sit-downs on climate with a few of them, the mother-in-law in particular.  Again, though, anger is of no use.  It often takes years for evidence to begin to change belief.  Fortunately, my sister-in-law is heavy into sustainable living and community development.  They think she's flaky, but she's cute and funny so they tolerate her "wierd side."  We do occasionally do FB team-ups with family members when they get too obnoxious.

  28. Glenn Tamblyn at 10:11 AM on 25 May 2013
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    William Haas

    All science requires consensus. The oft used claim is that it is about evidence not consensus, which is actually a very confused statement.


    Of course it is about the evidence for something. Does the evidence support the hypothesis or not? To determine this one has to evaluate the evidence and form a conclusion, an opinion, about whether the evidence supports the hypothesis or not. And each individual forms their own opinion on this. You and I might look at the same evidence and form different opinions about whether that evidence supports the hypothesis. So whose opinion should we accept, yours or mine?

    All knowledge is a consensus of the opinions of many people about the significance of evidence. If a large number of people share the same opinion that the evidence supports the hypothesis, we tend to accept that it does.

    Was the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem a few years back a valid proof? Yes, because that was the consensus of the many mathematicians who evaluated the proof.

  29. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    William Haas, you should read the post "Is There a Scientific Consensus on Global Warming?" to understand what is meant by "consensus."  To make your example from mathematics applicable, you must address mathematicians' consensus on whether that single counterexample really does invalidate a theorem.  If you believe that all mathematical counterexamples are correct, you are living in a fantasy world.

  30. William Haas at 09:36 AM on 25 May 2013
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    The case for AGW must be really shaky if a "scientific consensus" is required to substantiate it.  "Scientific consensus" is really an oxymoron because true science does not require a consensus.  The idea of voting on scientific truths seems totally alien to me.  It is just like the political entity that voted to change the value of pi.  In mathematics it takes only one counterexample to invalidate a theorem.

  31. John Russell at 09:20 AM on 25 May 2013
    On the value of consensus in climate communication

    One only needs to see how often the consensus is brought up as an arguing point by those in denial to know that this new paper has great value when it comes to the politics of climate change.

    But clearly it's neither here or there when it comes to the work of climate scientists trying to pin down the likely outcomes of steadily raising the planet's atmopheric CO2.     

  32. Dikran Marsupial at 08:33 AM on 25 May 2013
    It's cosmic rays

    JRT256: Firstly sun-spot numbers are correlated with total solar irradiance (TSI) as well as cosmic rays.  So a correllation between sunspot numbers and climate does not necessarily involve cosmic rays as the causal mechanism.

    Secondly, a link was provided to the "body of scientific research has determined that GCRs are actually not very effective at seeding clouds."  (i.e. the advanced version of the article).  The cosmic ray theory is not unlikely to be correct because it doesn't explain all warming, but because of the scientific research that has been performed has identified several problems with the causal mechanism,  If you want to discuss the details of any of the papers mentioned, I'm sure there will be plenty of contributors willing to discuss them with you.

    "it is more reasonable from a scientific point of view to try to figure out why the correlation broke than to use this fact to try to prove that the hypothesis is false."

    Actually, the most plausible theory is that there is more than one forcing that affects climate; changes in total solar irradiance and the rise in greenhouse gasses explains the breakdown in the correlation pretty well.  However, proving hypotheses to be incorrect is a fundamental part of scientific method.  Ruling out hypotheses is a good a way of finding out why the correllation broke down as any.

    Lastly, as a word of advice, if you want to have a discussion of science, starting by using phrases such as "That is both unscientific and fallacious reasoning." when you yourself obviously have not understand the argument put forward in the article is unlikely to be conducive to constructive dialogue.  Note I have taken pains to reply in a rather more civil manner.

  33. It's cosmic rays

    IIUC, you are denying the scientific hypothesis that there is a correlation between sunspot numbers and climate on earth.  Your argument appears to be that because this hypothesis doesn't account for all global warming, that it doesn't account for any global warming.  That is both unscientific and fallacious reasoning.

    We have history that provides strong evidence that this hypothesis is correct.  The Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age being most significant.  Still, it is true that we do not completely understand the action mechiism.

    You are correct to point out that this correlation broke in the second half of the 20th century.  However, since it has been so strong historically, it is more reasonable from a scientific point of view to try to figure out why the correlation broke than to use this fact to try to prove that the hypothesis is false.

    Might I suggest one possible cause which is CFCs.  It is now belived that CFCs had a stronger effect on global warming than was once thought and their concentration in the atmosphere, taken as a factor (possibly with a delay in time) allong with the sunspot number as a proxy for solar activity in factor analysis might yield a reasonable answer to the question.

  34. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Chemasan, the methodology of Levitus et al. (2012) includes Argo data.  Go here to see the results.  If you choose Jan-Mar on any of the 3-month sets, you'll get up to 2013.  I strongly suggest using the 0-2000m set.  Here's global 0-2000m for all months:

    2005-3 8.972987
    2005-6 9.391529
    2005-9 9.681848
    2005-12 12.636982
    2006-3 11.932278
    2006-6 12.998004
    2006-9 12.264493
    2006-12 13.356965
    2007-3 13.49815
    2007-6 11.382808
    2007-9 12.277043
    2007-12 12.418795
    2008-3 13.305184
    2008-6 14.606297
    2008-9 13.024848
    2008-12 12.090649
    2009-3 12.614719
    2009-6 12.241169
    2009-9 13.816815
    2009-12 15.052814
    2010-3 15.881298
    2010-6 13.484779
    2010-9 13.959781
    2010-12 14.823184
    2011-3 15.215552
    2011-6 14.630487
    2011-9 16.870249
    2011-12 14.859973
    2012-3 17.308126
    2012-6 15.461417
    2012-9 15.34632
    2012-12 16.630146
    2013-3 19.332438

    The annual running average produces a linear trend of +1.74*10^21 joules added per year.  

  35. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    For #40 and #50. Have you check Argo Project? It seems NO. Argo project the most serious study of the T and sea levels didn't observe increase in the T. It's true that it a new project (since 2005) but data is more accuracy.

    Moderator Response:

    (Rob P) You can use the search function to find a response to most climate-related questions. For example on the observed warming of the oceans:

    1. Ocean Cooling Corrected, Again

    2. Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans

    3. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues

    4. Observed Warming of the Ocean and Atmosphere is Incompatible with Natural Variation

    5. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

  36. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    William,

    That rising air and positive AO mght indeed happen (especially in the warmer months), in which case we might get more storms like the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 (early August 2012, to be exact).  These storms not only bring up warmer water from depth, but also draw in more energy to the Arctic via the atmosphere as the strong low pressure pulls in wamer air from lower latitudes. 

    But there is another huge dynamic that I mentioned in my post #12 that must not be forgotten-- and that's the effects of SSW's on the AO.  These events, happening mainly from late November through February, begin high above the Arctic, and with the warm descending air, turn the AO very negative, and push the colder air out of the Arctic and we ususally see warmer than normal temps in the Arctic proper.  Most importantly, the causes of these events begins at lower latitudes, and are related to large-scale planetary waves whereby we can see the same SSW event having simultaneous (though opposite) effects over the pole and over the equator, 9000km away.

  37. Rob Honeycutt at 04:54 AM on 25 May 2013
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Thanks Tom.  I'm actually less stuck on the specific 97.1% figure that it may seem.  The fact that all this research, taken collectively, and taking the fact that Cook13 is such a large sampling of research, should tell people how robust the conclusions actually are.

    Again, I would challege any other group to perform a similar research project, using their own wording, and see if they can come up with appreciably different results.  The point being, Barry, Lucia, Schollenberg and others can quibble until the cows come home, but until they do their own research (and get it published) they have little ground to stand on.

  38. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Very briefly, all participants in this debate would do well to read Bray and Von Storch 2010 (particularly question 21, which shows that in 2008, 83.51% of climate scientists where significantly convinced that "most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes").  Note that this is not inconsistent with Cook et al 2013 because (a), climate scientists "convinced by the evidence" publish approximately twice as many papers on climate science on average relative to those unconvinced by the evidence (Anderegg et al, 2010), and (b), those not significantly convinced may well not be convinced for reasons other than the weight of evidence, and hence lag in proportion the balance of evidence as seen in the literature.  It should place a constraint on the over interpretations and the absurd underinterpretations of Cook et al 2013.

  39. Matt Ridley's misguided climate change policy

    Lomborg is a slippery guy. He hardly claims anything, while conveying the unmistakable message that fossil fuels are all we need, and the environment is doing fine, and why do we have to conserve biodiversity after all?

    He does not say we shouldn't stop deforesting, but he claims that worries about deforesting are grossly exaggerated, and even misrepresents the FAO report to prove it once and for all.

    He does not say global warming is a hoax, but he knows of a climate model that miscalculated how much stratospheric warming there would be and, you know, that's what really matters.

    He does not say we should not manage water resources properly, but he assures us that dessalinization is a definite safety net to dismiss any claims that people would ever endure water shortage.

  40. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    This debate is getting irritating beyond belief, so I'll take advantage of a moments insomnia to stick my oar in.

    Barry, you have shown that it is possible that authors used a more relaxed rating system than did the Consensus Project raters.  You have not shown that using the more relaxed rating system significantly increases the number of  papers rated as affirming the concensus, nor even that a significant number of authors used the more relaxed rating system.  Even if half of papers self rated as affirming the consensus are given a neutral rating, the support for the consensus from self rated papers remains at 94.5% of all relevant papers.  That shows how robust the results of the paper are; and that you must not just show the mere possibility of but the actuality of a difference in rating >>50% of affirmations if you wish to call the results into question.  To my knowledge, no critic of the paper has even attempted to do so.  At most they have argued for the mere possibility a less robust definition of "affirms agw" and then assumed that therefore >>50% of rated affirmations should have been rated neutrals.

    Rob (and others), the near match in percentage of abstract rated and self rated papers rated as affirming the consensus (from relevant papers) is a product of a 1.9 fold increase by percentage of papers rated as affirming the consensus, a 2.6 fold increase by percentage of papers rejecting the consensus, the lack of a category for papers uncertain of the consensus, and an increased rate of return on recent papers (more likely to affirm the consensus) than older papers (which are less likely to affirm the consensus, particularly prior to 1995).  Given that, it should largely be considered coincidental.  What is robust about this result is not the 97%, but the 95%+ of papers which is difficult to eliminate by varying the data to account for potential biases.

    I look forward with interest to further developments in this debate, and to when I have sufficient time to actively participate again.

  41. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    DSL, I noticed you mentioned FB - do you post a lot about AGW on your own timeline?  If so, what has been your experience with the result of it?  

    In my case, I have been posting something about AGW impacts, green tech/policy developments on my timeline just about every weekday for the past several months (sometimes reposts from here, sometimes from David Roberts at Grist, sometimes from RenewEconomy, etc.).  I think it results in some of my closer friends who are not "skeptics," but just aren't as independently interested in the subject as I am, reading more about AGW than they otherwise would because they see on their "news feed" that I posted something.  Another effect is that a couple of my FB friends who are "skeptics" or "lukewarm skeptics" occasionally comment on my posts or even post their own links on my timeline, leading to discussions that my other friends often follow and chime in on.  I don't think I've made a tremendous impact on the "skeptics."  The closest thing to progress from a "skeptic" friend of mine was when he first posted (in his own WordPress blog) a reference to global warming as a "specious concept," and then in a later post of his musings on the theme of devoting our attention to the problems of the day, stated that for example he could donate to a global warming awareness organization, but he is "not convinced that climate change is a legitimate issue."  

    Going from proclaiming AGW as a "specious concept" to being "not convinced" is arguably some movement.  But what mainly motivates me to post on FB is to use my timeline as a kind of "information hub" for the benefit of my friends and for my own benefit as well - I have a kind of half-baked organization scheme where I sometimes post related articles in the comments to a a previous article, for later reference...  

  42. Rob Honeycutt at 01:27 AM on 25 May 2013
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    HJones @209...  But I believe with such a large data set, if there were a weakness it would have presented itself as pretty obvious.  The big difference you see between the SkS raters and the self-ratings is that there are far fewer neutral papers.  And that makes sense because the SkS raters were not reading the full papers.  

    The fact that the consensus figures for the SkS raters and the self-ratings are nearly identical suggests a high level of robustness in the results.

  43. Rob Honeycutt at 01:20 AM on 25 May 2013
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Barry @208...

    You are presenting a subjective analysis of what you believe about the survey which is going to reflect your personal biases.  This is why science doesn't rely on any one piece of research to be the definitive answer on any question.  We are all subject to our personal biases.  

    What makes Cook13 important is the fact that the conclusions independently confirm the previous research of Doran, Oreskes, Anderegg and others.  Cook13 was also sufficiently blinded so that it would have been impossible for the raters to inadvertantly bias the ratings to come up with the same figures of previous research.  And the data set is sufficiently large enough to also prevent biasing. 

    Then, on top of that, Cook13 took the added step of being self-skeptical by asking scientists to self-rate their own research based on the definitions used in the study.  And the results there came out nearly identical with a 97.1% vs 97.2% consensus.

    Could all these pieces of the puzzle falling exactly into place be completely happenstance?  Highly unlikely! 

    Beyond that, it would be up to you, Barry, to come up with what you determined to be  less ambiguous phrasing and then test your results.  Based on how consistent these results have been I would guess any data you could compile would not be sufficiently different that those of any of these studies.

  44. On the value of consensus in climate communication

    I think this statement by DSL @1 is thought-provoking, and so I am going to take the liberty of plucking it out and repeating it, lest it get lost. It's only human to quickly skim through a multi-paragraph comment and maybe miss a gem like this:  

    "More powerful than ideology is the need to remain valuable, and that need is amplified when the discussion is public. No one wants to be dismissed out of hand--to be categorized, labeled, boxed, stamped as innocuous."

  45. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    barry & John Hartz,

    If enough respondants had a different ratings criteria to others, then the apparent corroboration between the 2 groups is undermined, weakening the results.

    Another factor that can weaken the results is the fact that the authors were rating their papers, while the raters were rating the abstracts.  Unless someone were to go through and re-evaluate some papers and check against the abstract rating, this level of weakenning will remain unknown.

  46. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    John Hartz,

    I have posted my thoughts on the paper upthread.

    I think that the survey definitons are ambiguous, such that the criterion for rating the papers may have been different between the authors of the study (Cook et al), and the original Authors (the ~1200 that responded to the email and self-rated their papers).

    The close match in ratings between the authors and the original Authors is a centrepiece of the corroboration of the results. If enough respondants had a different ratings criteria to others, then the apparent corroboration between the 2 groups is undermined, weakening the results.

     

  47. Dikran Marsupial at 20:12 PM on 24 May 2013
    The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    Prof Tung, regarding your most recent post:  As I said, I think SkS readers are familiar with the idea of internal variability and would readily agree that internal variability is most likely the cause of the apparent hiatus.  However, the abstract of your paper in JAS makes the claim that:

    When the AMO index is included as a regressor (i.e., explanatory variable), the deduced multidecadal anthropogenic global warming trend is so impacted that previously deduced anthropogenic warming rates need to be substantially revised.

    This is advancing a much stronger claim than that the hiatus is mot likely due to internal variability, but that some of the action of AMO has been misattributed to anthropogenic forcing.  The only quantative support for this assertion seems to come from the regression model.  In my example on the other thread I have shown that this regression model is flawed, and if AMO actually doesn't affect global mean surface temperatures (in your notation, the correct value of the regression coefficient D is precisely zero), then the regression method can misattribute some of the effects of anthropogenic forcing to the AMO.

    In an earlier post, Prof. Tung wrote:

    "The MLR analysis cannot stand on its own as evidence."

    The MLR analysis is clearly the key element of the paper in JAS entitled "Deducing Multidecadal Anthropogenic Global Warming Trends Using Multiple Regression Analysis".  For that paper to be sound, it is incumbent on you to be able to refute the counter example I have provided that shows the method is unreliable.

    "I also mentioned in part 2 of my post that one could legitimately claim that use of either the Enfield AMO index or the Trenberth and Shea index is ciruclar, if that is the entirety of the evidence that you presented."

    Enfield and Trenberth & Shea would only be circular if they used their detrended AMO indices to deduce the anthropogenic influence on global temperatures.  There is nothing circular about detrending AMO to remove anthropogenic influence, the circularity is introduced by assuming a model of anthropogenic warming to detrend AMO and then using that detrended AMO to deduce the anthropogenic warming.

    "Similarly, as you have done here, you assume the hypothetical case that the AMO is anthropogenically forced, but you do a MLR assuming it is instead mostly natural and remove it."

    No, this is clearly not the case.  In my example the AMO signal is a mixture of anthropogenic and natural.  The point is that the detrending procedure, whether lienar or quadratic affects both the anthropogenic and natural components of the AMO signal.  As a result the detrended AMO can still act as a proxy for anthropogenic warming, either because the detrending model was incorrect (in the case of lienar detrending) or becase the natural component is correlated with the anthropogenic signal (in the case of quadratic detrending).

    "You can then demonstrate that the resulting anthropogenic response is wrong. That is, it is different than you originally assumed to be true."

    The whole purpose of using a synthetic example is that I know that the resulting anthropogenic response is wrong as I know what the correct answer is by construction.  The MLR method gives the wrong answer unless the AMO is detrended to remove the anthropogenic signal exactly, which can't be done unless you know what the anthropogenic signal is a-priori.

    Conversely, if you consider the hypothetical case that the AMO is mostly natural, but you do not remove it, you would also get a wrong anthropogenic response in the end. This you could have known even before you do the Matlab calculation.

    The AMO signal in my example is mostly natural.  If the MLR method is sound, it needs to work whether the AMO is strongly affected by anthropogenic factors or not, and whether AMO affects global surface tempertures or not. 

    It is very important that you provide me with a direct answer to this question, so we can focuss in on the area of disagreement quickly:  Ignoring for the moment whether the hypothetical scenario is appropriate, is there an error in my implementation of the MLR method?  "Yes" or "No", if "Yes", please explain.

  48. The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.

    KK Tung @111.

    Thank you for pointing out the mention of the 'hiatus' in T&Zh13. It had passed me by. The actual quote is:-


    "Recently, there have been debates about the slowing of the warming rates since 2005, with explanations (44–46) ranging from increases in stratospheric water vapor and background aerosol to increased coal burning in the emergent economy of China of the past 20 y. If one accepts the conclusion that the AMO is recurrent, and because this period coincides with the start of the descending phase of the AMO, one can suggest that the AMO is a more likely explanation."


    In the first post here at SkSci, there was also the statement that the residuals following MLR with QCO2(t) function showed "a minor negative trend in the last decade" ie during this same  'hiatus' period'. Indeed, is this "minor negative trend" as shown in fig 3 of the first post not the 'hiatus' iself that remains unexplained by T&Zh13 when the actual AMO is used (although explained with a theoretical "recurrent" AMO.)?

  49. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    s_gordon_b,

    Rob, again, based on my reading of the paper (please correct me if I'm wrong), your statement that the paper indicates that "97% of the research supports AGW" is the right conclusion. But that's not how the study is being (forgive me) spun.

    Perhaps it would be easier to understand your point if you could point us to some examples of where the study is being spun?

    Regarding the authors, again, they were asked to state whether each specific paper endorsed the proposition that anthropogenic GHGs are causing global warming, rejected the proposition that anthropogenic GHGs are causing global warming, or was neutral. If the author of the paper felt that their paper implied humans were having a minimal impact on global warming (e.g. by proposing an alternative as the main cause of global warming), or stated that human impact was minimal or non-existent, or stated that humans were causing less then half of global warming, then they would have categorised their own papers as rejecting the proposition.

    I'm fairly confident that anyone who rejected the consensus view would have made damn sure their paper was counted as a rejection if it was at all possible to do so! And let's not forget that the authors of any papers who feel their paper should have been counted as a rejection are free to search for their paper in the results and alert us to the miscategorisation.

    Anyway, the bottom line is that the authors of 97.2% of the papers that took a position stated that their papers endorsed the proposition that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are causing global warming. That's it.

    *I've looked everywhere, but I can't find where the numbers of abstracts assigned to each of the original Table 2 categories is or the category assignments by the study authors. Could you point me to that data?

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=search

    Perhaps you should spend some time reading the earlier comments to avoid rehashing the same points over and over again.

    For a summary of the category assignments extracted from the database, see my earlier comment. The bottom line is that, ignoring neutral papers, the percentage of papers that endorse the consensus in each category are:

    Papers that quantify the human contribution to global warming (i.e. level 1 vs level 7): 88%

    Papers that make explicit statements about causation without quantification (2 vs 6): 98.4%

    Papers that imply the impact that humans are having (3 vs 5): 98.2%

    If we ignore all papers with implicit statements about the impact humans are having and only include those that make explicit statements about causation with and without quantification then we get 97.6%.

    No matter which way you cut it, the results keep coming up the same.

  50. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    s_gordon_b:

    As stated above, my interpretation of the meaning of the consensus is:

    "Not that the human contribution is necessarily greater than 50%, but rather that it is important enough that we should be seriously thinking hard about whether we want to change what we are doing, on a global scale."

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