Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have just published the findings of a survey conducted with practicing climate scientists. The survey was conducted in 2008 with 379 climate scientists who had published papers or were employed in climate research institutes and dealt with their confidence in models, the IPCC and a variety of other topics. The survey findings are here: http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/GKSS_2010_9.CLISCI.pdf
Most of the questions were asked using a Likert Scale, which most of you have probably used in filling out one of the numerous online surveys that are on almost any website. “A set of statements was presented to which the respondent was asked to indicate his or her level of agreement or disagreement, for example, 1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree.
The value of 4 can be considered as an expression of ambivalence or impartiality or, depending on the nature of the question posed, for example, in a question posed as a subjective rating such as “How much do you think climate scientists are aware of the information that policy makers incorporate into their decision making process?”, a value of 4 is no longer a measure of ambivalence, but rather a metric.”
The total number of respondents is large enough to make statistically significant statements about the population of similarly qualified climate scientists, and the response rate to the invitations is in line with surveys conducted among academics and professionals. What that means is that we can be fairly confident that if we conducted a census of all such scientists the answers would not be very different to what is found in the survey’s findings.
Typically in a commercial survey, analysts would group the top two responses and report on the percentages of respondents that ticked box 6 or 7 on this scale. Using that procedure here makes it clear that there are areas where scientists are not completely confident in what is being preached–and that they don’t like some of the preachers. In fact, let’s start with the opinion of climate scientists about those scientists, journalists and environmental activists who present extreme accounts of catastrophic impacts.
The survey’s question read, “Some scientists present extreme accounts of catastrophic impacts related to climate change in a popular format with the claim that it is their task to alert the public. How much do you agree with this practice?”
Less than 5% agreed strongly or very strongly with this practice. Actually 56% disagreed strongly or very strongly. Joe Romm, Tim Lambert, Michael Tobis–are you listening? The scientists don’t like what you are doing.
And not because they are skeptics–these scientists are very mainstream in their opinions about climate science and are strong supporters of the IPCC. Fifty-nine percent (59%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “The IPCC reports are of great use to the advancement of climate science.” Only 6% disagreed. And 86.5% agreed or strongly agreed that “climate change is occurring now” and 66.5% agreed or strongly agreed that future climate “will be a result of anthropogenic causes.”
Even so, there are areas of climate science that some people want to claim is settled, but where scientists don’t agree.
Only 12% agree or strongly agree that data availability for climate change analysis is adequate. More than 21% disagree or strongly disagree.
Only 25% agree or strongly agree that “Data collection efforts are currently adequate,” while 16% disagree or strongly disagree.
Perhaps most importantly, only 17.75% agree or strongly agree with the statement, “The state of theoretical understanding of climate change phenomena is adequate.” And equal percentage disagreed or strongly disagreed.
Only 22% think atmospheric models deal with hydrodynamics in a manner that is adequate or very adequate. Thirty percent (30%) feel that way about atmospheric models’ treatment of radiation, and only 9% feel that atmospheric models are adequate in their treatment of water vapor–and not one respondent felt that they were ‘very adequate.’
And only 1% felt that atmospheric models dealt well with clouds, while 46% felt they were inadequate or very inadequate. Only 2% felt the models dealt adequately with precipitation, and 3.5% felt that way about modeled treatment of atmospheric convection.
For ocean models, the lack of consensus continued. Only 20% felt ocean models dealt well with hydrodynamics, 11% felt that way about modeled treatment of heat transport in the ocean, 6.5% felt that way about oceanic convection, and only 12% felt that there exists an adequate ability to couple atmospheric and ocean models.
Only 7% agree or strongly agree that “The current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of turbulence,” and only 26% felt that way about surface albedo. Only 8% felt that way about land surface processes, and only 11% about sea ice.
And another shocker–only 32% agreed or strongly agreed that the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases emitted from anthropogenic sources.
As Judith Curry has been noting over at her weblog, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the building blocks of climate science. The scientists know this. The politicians, propagandists and the converted acolytes haven’t gotten the message. If this survey does not educate them, nothing will.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
After a couple of fine whiskeys, I feel compelled to observe – who really gives a rodent’s rectum about “surveys”? (Took a while to type this – apologies if it came out wrong!!!)
Facts are facts, whether we like them or not. The main difficulty seems to be that sometimes we don’t know what the “facts” are until well after we’ve made up our mind.
I love chaos theory, I love what I think is called “the law of unintended consequences . . .” Apologies if this wraps in the wrong place!!
If I recall properly, there was something like “100 authors/experts/scientists say Einstein is wrong”, a long time ago. Who cares?? He either was or he wasn’t. I believe he responded “If I am wrong, one is enough.”
There are obviously too many people with too much time to waste. Notwithstanding, to Anthony and crew – more power to your elbow, keep it up!!
Live well and prosper – if I don’t wake up tomorrow, that’s life! ROFL.
Thomas Fuller,
I don’t think you should get carried away interpreting this survey. Scientists are perfectionists and your “adequate” is quite likely to be different from your or Joe Bloggs “adequate”.
For example if you surveyed physists about the “adequacy” of Newton’s Law of Gravity you might not get consensus there either.
The whole “science is settled ‘NOT” meme was bogus from the start. The IPCC was pretty explicit about the uncertainty in it’s conclusions. So it did not think the science was settled. The scientists did not stop studying climate and find another career. So they did not think all uncertaintly was removed.
“The science is settled” phrase is short for the “the science is sufficiently settled to start making political decisions”. This is distinct from the alternative position “we need to understand the climate perfectly before we make a decision”. The latter is equivalent to “do nothing until it’s too late, then blame people for not warning us”.
Maybe people here should ask themselves how they would decide in the following 2 scenarios:
1. The Army Corp of Engineers recommends that the missisipi levees need to be reinforced, just in case we get a hurricane, but we are unsure if this us ever going to happen.
2. The CIA reckons some Muslim nutter has tried to blow to blow up the WTC before and there is reason to believe he is going to try again, but we are not 100% sure.
In each case I am going to suggest someone produced a report recommending action. And some bureaucrat denied it.
What would you do?
The time to worry is when they start talking about a “Social Consensus”, then you really know they don’t intend to listen to anyone outside their clique.
So the consensus among climate scientists is largely the climate is changing, human activities impact it, the impact could be bad, we don’t know enough about it, give us money so we can learn more.
The consensus among profiteers in alternative energy and carbon reducing technologies is rate and increase of fossil fuel consumption is unsustainable and wreaking the environment, send us money so we can fix it.
The consensus among politicians is that there’s a huge opportunity to exert more control over the plebs and increase tax revenues by taking over how energy is produced and consumed.
I think that about wraps it up. The common denominator is money. Follow the money. It never fails.
Given that the sample is not statistically significant and given that your calculation are correct, this is another example of just how bad a scientist climate scientists are. How on earth can “Only 25% agree or strongly agree that “Data collection efforts are currently adequate,” while 16% disagree or strongly disagree” ie 59% don’t know and yet “And 86.5% agreed or strongly agreed that “climate change is occurring now”. Assuming “climate change” means Anth global warming or AC disruption.
I expect that “climate scientists” are almost all environmentalists. Asking environmentalists whether there is good evidence that humans are causing great damage to the environment is like asking Democrats if Barack Obama is a good president. Scientists who don’t think the evidence for AGW is solid are probably not going to be “climate scientists”. A consensus of climate scientists is not a scientific consensus.
Last evening I watched some TV. Three shows on BBC , two called Atom and one about Gravity which were naturally all about physics and seemed very well done to me. I got the sensation of good science done by great scientists and each step leads on to the next big moments of understanding. The bit about Feynman colliding with a room full of “big beasts” and how he turned the informed consensus to accept his views was very telling.
I then watched a Nat Geo documentary about climate and ice and such. No gradual layering of progress. No “aha” moments , no debate between differing opinions. Just a relentless “this is how awful it is” kind of fear.
It is quite reasonable to point out differing production values of the two production houses but what struck me most forcibly was how totally at odds the two scientific approaches are. It looked to me as if the climate science was so fuzzy that it would be impossible to argue for any of it with just facts while the physics of atoms and gravity was nothing but hard facts and disprovable theories.
One was portrayed as science the other was shown as political science. Consensus in physics was meaningless, while in climatology it was the only thing gluing it all together.
wws says:
September 25, 2010 at 4:22 pm
“’Consensus’ is a purely political word – it has no place in science at all.”
I ‘strongly agree’ with wws’ statement. I’d like to add that the expression “settled science” is a shibboleth for recognizing the scientifically illiterate, including His Goreness. Real scientists do not use that particular buzz-phrase, because real science is seldom settled.
Example. A minority of physicists have been sniping at General Relativity for many years. Some non-scientists take a jaundiced view of the sniping. But to me, the sniping is evidence for the robustness of the scientific approach to gaining knowledge.
Even after all of these years, you can get your hands dirty, improve upon existing measurement techniques, retest GR, and get published in a peer-reviewed physics journal. And that’s true even if you don’t demolish GR. Being able to say that GR is consistent with your measurements, within a smaller-than-ever-before experimental error, is good enough. GR is a very strong theory. But it would be grossly inaccurate to describe it as “settled science”.
Sometimes it’s very easy for scientists to recognize BS about science in the popular press. For example, when the author demonstrates that he has zero understanding of the concepts behind the technical terms that he uses in his writing. Heretical views are not necessarily evidence that justifies the classification of an idea as junk science, or that justifies the classification of an individual as a ‘denier’.
True Believers are the ones who engage in hate speech against heretics, blacklist heretics, and burn heretics at the stake. True Believers and real scientists are mutually exclusive categories of people.
Nonstandard thinking (NT) has an important and ‘settled’ place within real science. Without NT, we’d still be living in mud huts, and sacrificing virgins to the volcano gods whenever the weather isn’t to our liking.
“a value of 4 is no longer a measure of ambivalence, but rather a metric.”
What does metric mean here, please?
September 26, 2010 at 12:53 am LazyTeenager says:
“The science is settled” phrase is short for the “the science is sufficiently settled to start making political decisions”. This is distinct from the alternative position “we need to understand the climate perfectly before we make a decision”. The latter is equivalent to “do nothing until it’s too late, then blame people for not warning us”.
Maybe people here should ask themselves how they would decide in the following 2 scenarios:
1. The Army Corp of Engineers recommends that the missisipi levees need to be reinforced, just in case we get a hurricane, but we are unsure if this us ever going to happen.
2. The CIA reckons some Muslim nutter has tried to blow to blow up the WTC before and there is reason to believe he is going to try again, but we are not 100% sure.
In each case I am going to suggest someone produced a report recommending action. And some bureaucrat denied it.
What would you do?
——-
I’d say that you’ve got your examples backwards. Our present global response to AGW is the panicky gut reaction to a perceived but poorly understood threat #2. What we should be doing is sensible spade work for a potential problem, forming sensible plans, doing win, win activities and putting money aside for a rainy day #1.
Much of the public backlash against CO2 reduction schemes is because they make no sense. Corruption has already set in. Scientific arguments have been more about political egos than actual knowledge. The lies and half truths told about AGW have damaged its credibility. The hypocrisy and pocket lining from key proponents is sickening. Large amounts of money and public good will have been frittered away.
Much of this could have been avoided if a more measured approach had been taken.
Oh and LazyTeenager, that bit you said –
Scientists are perfectionists and [their] “adequate” is quite likely to be different from your or Joe Bloggs “adequate”.
You might want to remind yourself about the whole Phil Jones, Climategate, losing data thing. There wasn’t much perfectionism amongst that sorry lot.
‘E.M.Smith says:
September 25, 2010 at 8:55 pm
In 2008 Al Gore said “the entire north polar ice cap will be completely gone in five years.”’
You refer to an interview on German TV that had to be removed from YouTube:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/14/gore-entire-north-polar-ice-cap-will-be-gone-in-5-years/
Rick Sharp (Dec 14, 2008, 5:56 pm) commented then that he had seen him saying the same thing in 2007. So “the arctic is expected to be ice free in 2012”.
Of course Gore today still uses the phrase “in 5 years” or even “in 5 to 7 years”, thus continuously moving the goal posts.
This survey does expose the in-breeding of the climate science community in that they seem to be more confident in their climate models than they are in their climate data. ROTFLMAO!!
You should read the open-ended comments and you get a sense of the understanding these folks have for political economy and world affairs. Pretty scary when connected to their so-called scientific expertise.
Over-population and its impact on resources seems to be dominant. Yet, other comments suggest this group, based on comments, does not seem to understand that the data are overwhelming in showing that development leads to reduction in population growth. Development leads to substituting new (man-made) resources for ones we used to simple “get from” the environment. Thus, the answer to the problem they see is more development, not less.
Yes, there are poor people in the world living in horrible conditions. I’ve worked in 40+ countries (mostly in Africa, the sub-Continent, East Asia) and it’s pretty obvious the biggest reason for poverty is despotic leadership that rapes the people they control. The perfect case study is what has happened in China (and other countries): when leadership has a sensible understanding of what people need to get out of poverty and uses their power to make that happen, all sorts of living conditions improve. Population growth levels off. Environmental degradation reverses (unless you consider CO2 environmental degradation!). Everything we in the West would want for ourselves and for others happens.
Yet, I saw only two comments (199, 256) out of 307 in response to “We would like to ask you what you think is the most pressing issue facing humanity today” that said something to the effect of, “Get rid of despotic regimes in underdeveloped countries” or “Give people true economic freedom” etc.
Maybe popular understanding of what physical science shows to be real has progressed in the last 500 years, but we are still in the Dark Ages of policitcal/ economic science. And, most climate scientists show their ignorance of both in this survey.
I disagree that the results MUST be statistically correct for all practicing scientists. They may be, but it’s not certain either. The reason I say this is that, in political opinion polling for elections, the samples are always accurate when the result is in little doubt, but often inaccurate or set up to be misleading when the result is unclear.
Why is this?
Well, for media moguls who want one result, biasing opinion polls can create a momentum shift which will become self-fulfilling. Any self-respecting ‘market maker’ on Wall Street does the same to create shifts in share prices.
For the public, though, things depend often on whether your life prospects will be altered by stating your opinions openly and honestly. If they will be, a lot of folks won’t say what they think…….and I think in climate science today, that position is undoubtedly the case……….
The difference between the scientists who answered and those who didn’t is clear: the ones who answered felt it sufficiently important to answer, whereas the rest didn’t. So in no way can the sample be stated to be unbiased. It is biased in the direction of those who care enough to fill it in.
I’m not saying the answers are wrong, I’m just saying that extrapolation is one of the black arts rather than a science sometimes and the assumptions used for extrapolation need to be carefully considered against background factors which are often harder to quantify than you might think……….
Sorry O/T.
Away match at http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/09/time-to-shift-the-climate-debate-on-to-renewables/.
Bring your best arguments.
There once was claimed that the so called MWP (Medieval Warm Period) is not even a Northern hemispheric phenomenon. I startet a blog on this question, interviewed 8 scientists until yet and talked/mailed with 20 others. The tenor was, there seems to be no real dissence that the “temperatures in High Medieval time were warmer than during the subsequent Little Ice Age” (Bradley et al.: Climate in Medieval Time, in: Science, Vol 302, 405) or in other words “that mean temperatures during this interval were warmer than the subsequent Little Ice Age” (Crowley and Lowery: How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period?, in: Ambio Vol. 29, No. 1, 2000, 54) at least for the Northern Hemisphere. As there is now evidence for a global LIA it seems to be very clear that the time before the LIA must have been warmer in all areas. For me the construct of a MWP – the concept of a MCA is not functionally adequate for several reasons – seems to be adequate for the NH and the SH – in spite of that there is less data available -, linked to the appearance of a LIA in this area, varying in extend and time.
Why do I wince when I see statements like
LazyTeenager says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:53 am
““The science is settled” phrase is short for the “the science is sufficiently settled to start making political decisions”. This is distinct from the alternative position “we need to understand the climate perfectly before we make a decision”
So let us take the evidence we have and decide if we can make a decision. Has the troposphere warmed as modeled?
“What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979?¬«” This paper states that no it hasn’t.
But the stratosphere has cooled right? Just like modeled? “Ozone and temperature trends in the upper stratosphere at five stations of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change ” states that no, that hasn’t happened either.
We can at least point to the oceans and state with certainty that they are warming according to models and there is a huge energy imbalance right? “Recent energy balance of Eartht” states no we can’t.
But ARGO is a new system and not reliable and we need to rely on sea levels as measured by GRACE? “Uncertainty in ocean mass trends from GRACE” this paper does not put the accuracy of GRACE in a particularily good light. And even if it did the sea level attributions are imcomplete with major contributors ignored.
I don’t think most intelligent people would expect a complete and perfect understanding of the climate before we make a decision. I do think that people should be able to expect at least one major line of evidence to be clearly supportive of catastrophic warming. As of right now the only evidence I have seen is that we are warming. This warming is occuring consistant with a climate sensitivity of 1.1C as stated in “Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?”.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/
Give the data to Michael Mann.
I am sure he will prove that there is 100% confidence .
Consensus indeed, Anthony has a wonderful scientific site here and the science is not even close to settled on climate.
Consensus and a closed shop is also rampant in both particle physics i.e. the gnomes underground at Cern and the standard model of all things universal.
” The time has come the Walrus said to speak of many things”, perhaps it is time for the many talented people visiting this site to start to question some of the other protected species of scientists. They also have cost the public purse billions and given us charm, spin and probabilities.
The big bang has come to nothing, only improbabilities, the entire universe only works because of fairies, hiding behind dark matter and dark energy. The god particle, now that is special, if you smash energy into energy, chances are you are going to get broken pieces of energy that are unstable and tend to not live very long.
It is fairly easy to follow the trail of those who wish to condemn us to a lesser life through control of energy and the scam that is AGW.
It is not so easy to break the money trail that flows to those who follow the standard model. The wonderful century of failure, with no answers only fairies and well paid gnomes.
Interesting that the answers to Q27 “The potential that climate change may have some positive effects for the country where you live and other parts of the world” is pretty balanced whereas to Q28 “How much do you think the potential impact of climate change is one of the leading problems for eco-systems and for humanity” there is a far more positive agreement.
This seems to indicate that a majority of scientists see positive effects as a problem! Its nice to know they care about us.
The statement: “Where Consensus Fails – The Science Cannot Be Called ‘Settled’” assumes that where consensus occurs – the science can be called ‘settled’. This title makes an invalid point. Science is never ‘settled’, it is either strongly supported by evidence and not falsified or not. Many consensus positions have been later falsified, so using that as a basis of ‘settled’ is not science. If the supporting evidence is strong enough and alternate hypothesis are not able to be advanced, the issue is accepted as a working theory, and over time may even be accepted as a law, but it is always open to later falsification and rejection. Settled is a political term, not science. A well established theory may be well accepted, but not ‘settled’, which implies not able to be falsified.
Lazy Teenager, that CO2 has radiative properties does not prove that man’s release of an ‘unnatural’ aliquot has modified climate. It’s just that simple.
Ben D. @ur momisugly 7:43 PM yesterday. Say it again. Louder. Louder.
JP Miller @ur momisugly 3:07 AM. Yes, you point out the fundamental political problem.
And thanks, banjo @ur momisugly 5:14 AM for the Delingpole link. The globe is cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know. And apparently the Bilderbergers don’t either.
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” If this survey does not educate them, nothing will. ”
****************************************************
I choose answer 7: “Nothing will”
There is something that we cannot loose sight of. It’s not about science, it’s about money and power. And the only thing that will “educate them” is to cut off their funding and their access to power.
Just as they have done to those in the scientific community that dared to disagree with them. How about “war crimes” trials for them? Or demand that they loose their accreditations?
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)