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
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Those who believe the science is settled should act according to their views and reject as unnecessary any further funding of climate research.
….or vote them out of office ths November?
By the way, it’s disappointing that the 2010 Bray and von Storch paper is based on a 2008 survey. We can rest assured that things are quite different than they were two years ago.
As usual there seems to be a broad consenses between those riding on the gravy train that there needs to be more gravey. More studies and , oh yes….more grants.
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.”
I make that about 2013. Given that it’s late 2010, aren’t we about 1/2 way? So how about a graph of the monthly “Gore Consensus” of a 2008 to Zero trend compared with the actual 2008 to date trend? I’d like to see how the “consensus” is measuring up to reality?
E.M., it appears to be faring poorly. Should the trend sudden increase some 73 fold the ‘Gore Line’ will be back on track. See: http://i51.tinypic.com/67us8k.jpg
Once agian, with feeling this time: consensus isn’t science, it’s politics. Don’t seek consensus; seek facts.
janama says: September 25, 2010 at 6:45 pm
That’s the key to the whole survey. Sad that really the survey is fairly useless post-Climategate – UNLESS von Storch redid it to compare. Interesting questions were asked – but still, of little use unless tempered by janama’s insight.
Vidkun Quisling says: September 26, 2010 at 12:02 am
Very well spotted. But pleeeeeeeeeease change your handle. I’m only half Norwegian and that’s still enough.
You ARE a hopeful sort aren’t you Thomas. “If this survey does not educate them, nothing will.” I wouldn’t wait up for that to happen.
What this proves to me is that for whatever reason, and by however method, the wrong people are getting press while the rest are working in their labs and out in the field with little fanfare.
It bothers the hell out of me that people would do research of any kind for fame, fortune, votes OR press, and sad to say some do (I wonder what the percentage is?). But that would be my body, my food, my air, and my technology they’ld be fooling around with in the name of fame, fortune, votes or press, instead of altruistic purposes. Cutting corners, coming to premature conclusions, getting a paper in before someone else, is playing Russian roulette with MY life and MY money! And further more, any politician that jumps on that Russian roulette bandwagon, is doing the same thing!
Well, the consensus appears to be so far advanced amongst the Greens that our UK’s only Green MP thinks it’s a job for the army:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/let-mod-tackle-climate-says-lucas-2089975.html
‘Only if global warming is classified as an issue of “national survival”, like a military threat, will it be treated with the urgency it now needs, she told the Sustainable Planet conference in Lyon.’
Pamela, you sure got it right. I attempted to get a grant in New Zealand, with the advantage that our client was Maori. Could not get it. Seems our proposal involved actually doing something and achieving substantial results. They will only fund new studies, studies of previous studies, studies how to combat global warming, or reworking of old studies to get better answers.
Another thing that they did not like was that we refused to hand over our intellectual property rights for our proven technology. ( Green Organic and World Beating)
That we proposed to do something, shocked them. So it took them months to decline our grant.
Compare the questions on the actual climate science with ones concerning the prediction of problems in the future. The respondents are quite a bit more confident in the future disasters than in the science. Responses to science questions tend to be 4 or less. Responses to conclusion questions tend to be 4 or much greater 5,6.
Richie, you have GOT to be kidding! Your Green MP wants this to be the job of the ARMY? Good heavens. What worries me is the thought of one of OUR US politicians having beliefs like that. We already have such an Army of sorts (inspectors) but fortunately, the budget crunch has cut their numbers so severely that we no longer have them breathing down our necks when we slap a hamburger on the grill at the local tavern. At their peak, this Army closed the doors of many small businesses. With the advent of CO2 inspectors, we would all, in reality, be police states.
@Pamela
‘With the advent of CO2 inspectors, we would all, in reality, be police states.’
No problem – here in the UK/EU we pretty nearly are already. And I’m sure that there has to be at *least one US politician who believes much the same as Lucas.
All one needs to do is read the comments from the “true believers” to find the real meaning of “denial”.
I think this shows the power of this survey and, added to the fact that it was pre-ClimateGate, it should be widely distributed.
LazyTeenager says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:53 am
“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?”
========================================================
Maybe you should try to ascertain as to why neither scenario applies. In both scenarios mentioned, we had enough information (history) to make educated guesses about the events reoccurring. As to the WTC scenario, I don’t believe the WTC was a known target, but even if it were, the who, when, how wasn’t known. So, I’ll ask you the same question, what would you have done? Given the porous state of our borders, I can’t help but think Divine intervention has saved us from a re-occurrence. We can blame 9/11 on anyone we want, but in the end the fault lays at the feet of the terrorists and their supporters.
As to the flooding scenario, flooding occurs. An example………The local river around my area floods from time to time. (every 20-30 years) It was determined our levees needed reinforced. Eminent domain was invoked, farmers lost fertile ground and production, levees were reinforced and flooding occurred in areas that weren’t reinforced. Again, I’ll ask you the same question, what would you have done? We can blame the bureaucrats, engineers or politicians, but in the end of the day, it is apparent Nature will do what Nature does.
We could accept that life comes with certain inherent risks, or we can try to eliminate all risks to life and we end up with ridiculous quixotic outcomes such as drowning warning labels on 5 gallon buckets, caps on our CO2 emissions and the elimination of the most reliable and cheap energy sources available.
LazyTeenagers,
“For example if you surveyed physists about the “adequacy” of Newton’s Law of Gravity you might not get consensus there either.”
Very good effort at poisoning the well. If one did carry out the survey that you suggested above, you would not get a response of x% agreeing and y% disagreeing on the adequacy of Newton’s law at all. You would get 100% agreement – total consensus – that Newton’s Law of Gravity is valid within a particular domain of velocities. You would get 100% agreement that Newton’s Law of Gravity requires a Lorenz transformation of M = M0/sqrt(1 -v^2/c^2) if v becomes large. That is it. Nothing at all like the uncertainties of climate science, is it?
LazyTeenager,
“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.”
This is, of course, an example of the precautionary principle. I don’t think most people would have a problem with sprinkling fairy dust that would magically transform the world into a sustainable, efficient and carbon neutral source of energy. Heck, you would have to be crazy not to.
But what happens in reality is a sequence of events that start from alarm, leading to ill considered knee-jerk policy decisions that have no practical mitigation on the problem in hand, and come at a cripling economic cost to-boot. You have governments subsidising biofuels that are leading to rain forest destruction and food price rises while mitigating CO2 by insignificant amounts. You have governments rushing to divert billions of taxpayers money into building legions of wind farms that consume enormous quantities of steel, copper and concrete to build and erect – and then have to have fossil fuel powerstations built to back them up when the wind isn’t blowing at the correct speed, saving negative amounts of CO2 emissions. These policies are doing nothing to mitigate against climate change, even if it were a problem (which you admit is uncertain) and costing exponential increments of public money.
Using your analogy, can you explain why this is the correct action to take?
To Tom Fuller and JV:
“The mean score from all respondents was 3.924”
“For Henry. If you go back and look at the mean scores for the questions rather than looking at just the extreme ends of the scale it still doesn’t give the science a thumbs up.”
Can you use the Mean on a nonparametric scale?
brian says:
September 26, 2010 at 3:28 am
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.’
My comment is awaiting moderation over there. Thanks for the pointer.
Dominic
What astonished me about this survey, when I read the preliminary version of it released by Storch and Bray a year or so ago, was the response to Question 52: “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?” In other words, how willing are you, as a climate scientists, to mislead the public in order to advance a particular scientific view?
As Fuller notes, only about 5 per cent fully endorsed this dishonest strategy. However, assuming that a Likert reading of “4” means neutral (i.e., “I don’t necessarily agree with being dishonest, but I don’t object, either”) we find a full 27 per cent of scientists who answered the survey were not opposed to being dishonest with the public. 27 per cent. More than one-quarter of climate scientists (at least of those surveyed) support deception of the public. For the public’s own good, of course.
I can’t imagine any other scientific discipline having a quarter of its members willing to deceive the public. But, then, dishonesty, deception, and presentation of extreme (if unlikely) scenarios have been the modus operandi of alarmist climate science from the beginning.
Hank Hancock says:
September 25, 2010 at 10:57 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 25, 2010 at 6:32 pm
So it was an ONLINE survey, yes?
Well then, how do we know the TRUTH of the respondents?
How do we even know that only actual climate scientists responded to this ONLINE survey?
Were the responses validated in some way?
I would hope so, but this PDF does not go into those details.
Email verification AFTER completion of said survey?
Or reverse IP checking?
Who knows?
Who really knows?
You’re grabbing at straws now. Many objective studies and most opinion polls are done ONLINE today. Most of the issues you raise are easily controlled for by an experienced study developer. Irrespective, it’s an opinion poll, not a study or trial. The TRUTH of the respondent isn’t a quality control consideration as an opinion isn’t based on fact, value, or TRUTH. The study’s methodologies are reasonably acceptable for its intended purpose.
_____________________________________________________________
Strongly disagree.
I’ve posted links to the accuracy of these types of surveys, and we know a priori, that these types of surveys, targeted as a very select subset of “climate scientists” will not be as accurate, and that meaningfu statistics can’t be, and should never be, derived from such a priori biases going into these types of survers, we need a control group, where’s the control group?
Specificity is critical here, if the goal of this survey was to capture the hard science types (and given the demographic choices and 78.13% self identifying with the first group “physics-modelers, demands that the hard science group be further divided with a more specific demographic subdivision question for the 78.13% of all who fall into said hard sciences group (e. g. I know that 78.13% are NOT numerical climate science modellers, so for this entire group to opine on said subject matter is not an accurate statistical measure of the opinions of those that have direct contact (either as developers or end users) with numerical climate science modelling (GCM’s)).
It’s akin to asking what’s your favorite color, than running the numbers, and claiming that since most people chose “green” then “green” is the de facto best color with a MOE of +/- 5.2% based on a sample size of 375.
James Sexton says:
September 25, 2010 at 11:34 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 25, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Did you just poke fun at Fox’s slant on news just after admitting to watching MSNBC? I guess that explains why you are so desperately trying to find fault with the survey. Junior, if you’ve ever taken one of those types of polls, then you’d know they don’t often have job descriptions that entirely match the person’s function. So they checked a box and went on. What does a climate scientist do if he/she isn’t involved in modeling, data acquisition or theory development?
Junior, its just a poll, it isn’t like we didn’t already know there wasn’t ever a consensus.
_____________________________________________________________
I snagged me a good one!
Yes you are correct, it is “just a poll” but just not a scientific poll that one could derive meaningful statistics from or conduct accurate statistical tests with this a priori biased dataset.
Hans von Storch has been polling climate scientists for several years now. After each poll he improves his methodology. I don’t know if his methodology is perfect (though his sample size of 379 seems plenty big enough) but it is most likely good enough to provide useful info on a very interesting subject.
What is surprising and puzzling is why it took two years to release these results.
Here is some interesting stuff from wikipedia about von Storch:
[von Storch said] “Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”[1]
He is also known for an article in Der Spiegel he co-wrote with Nico Stehr, which states that:
“Scientific research faces a crisis because its public figures are overselling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for newsworthy information.”[2]
“The alarmists think that climate change is something extremely dangerous, extremely bad and that overselling a little bit, if it serves a good purpose, is not that bad.”[3]
In December 2009, he expressed concern about the credibility of climate scientists and compared Global Warming alarmism to the German Waldsterben (Forest dieback) hype of the 1980s:[4]
Research about the forest die back in Germany may serve as an example at the other end of the spectrum. The science of forest damages was in the 1980s heavily politicized, and used as support for a specific preconceived “good” policy of environmental protection. The resulting overselling and dramatization broke down in the 1990s, and news about adverse developments in German forests is now a hard sell in Germany. An observer wrote in 2004: “The damage for the scientists is enormous. Nobody believes them any longer.” Of course, the damage was not only limited to the forest researchers, but also to other environmental scientists and politicians as well.”
@ur momisugly banjo says:
September 26, 2010 at 5:14 am
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-orde
——————————————————————–
From your link, the mention of Global Cooling is what James is all freaked out about.
The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.
I was planning on buying a ‘Vette, but now maybe I should buy a big diesel 4×4 dually. I’m sooooo confused. 😉
Steve Koch says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Hans von Storch has been polling climate scientists for several years now. After each poll he improves his methodology. I don’t know if his methodology is perfect (though his sample size of 379 seems plenty big enough) but it is most likely good enough to provide useful info on a very interesting subject.
What is surprising and puzzling is why it took two years to release these results.
_____________________________________________________________
I asked the same question to myself.
Since political polls are turned out within a few days, or even a day after the polls are taken.
The obvious answer?
Bray and von Storch got first dibs for publication purposes;
http://www.climatescienceandpolicy.eu/2010/08/how-do-scientists-assess-the-skill-of-climate-models/
At the bottom;
■Bray, D., 2010a: Consensus among climate scientists revisited. Env. Sci. Policy, in press.
■Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2009: ‘Prediction’ or ‘Projection’? The nomenclature of climate science. Sci. Comm. 30, 534-543, doi:10.1177/1075547009333698
■Bray, D., 2010c: Baltic Climate Scientists Assessment of Climate Change and Climate Science in the Baltic Sea Basin. BALTEX report, in press
I found the author’s copy of the first citation here;
http://dvsun3.gkss.de/journals/2010/Bray-envscipol.pdf
A 2009 version of the above report can be found here;
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/CliSci2008.pdf
And The BALTEX report can be found here;
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/surBACC report v3.pdf
As of yet, I have been unable to find a “free” copy of;
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2009: ‘Prediction’ or ‘Projection’? The nomenclature of climate science. Sci. Comm. 30, 534-543, doi:10.1177/1075547009333698
I guess I’ll email the authors to request a copy on Monday.