By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow, First Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel
Carl Parker, On Camera Meteorologist at the once watchable Weather Channel blogged a response dated March 3 to skeptic criticism of a recent post in which he tries to explain that virtually all scientists agree with him and the network on global warming quotes a survey to support that claim. I guess the ghost of Heidi Cullen continues to haunt the halls. We had hoped with her departure, sanity or at least some balance would return.
In his post a defensive Parker writes:
Consensus
Now, a couple of you objected to my use of the word consensus, so I looked it up and found this:
a : general agreement
b : the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned
It is I think by any reasonable standard fair to say that if 90% of more than 3100 earth scientists agree on something, that fits the definition of consensus.
….Man’s Culpability
As to the question of what most scientists are saying about man’s culpability, we can return to the University of Illinois study and see that 82% of the respondents agreed that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.”
Again, this was 3146 scientists, specializing in climatology, meteorology, geochemistry, geophysics, oceanography, geology, hydrology/hydrogeology and paleontology. Of the climatologists, a staggering 97% agreed to the same question…
It’s very difficult for me to understand the disdain for science that exists today. Though we see unequivocal results in surveys, and though this consensus is backed by nearly every major scientific organization, some still see scientists as nefarious and engaged in conspiracy.
Recall, ICECAP, SPPI and Lawrence Solomon posted on this survey. The facts are very different than Parker claims.
The 97% number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.
The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.
To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response – just 3146, or 30.7%, answered the two questions on the survey:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
The questions were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims that the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think that humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming -quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say that human are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.
Surprisingly, just 90% of those who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen – I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.
As for the second question, 82% of the earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe that human activity been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a 10% or 15% or 35% increase to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.
In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus – almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming – so they looked for subsets that would yield a higher percentage. They found it – almost – in those whose recent published peer-reviewed research fell primarily in the climate change field. But the percentage still fell short of the researchers’ ideal. So they made another cut, allowing only the research conducted by those earth scientists who identified themselves as climate scientists.
Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers were then satisfied with their findings. Are you?
I would have answered yes to both questions. Sure we have warmed since the Little Ice Age and man plays a role in changing climate locally through land use and urbanization. The survey was a joke. The Weather channel blog using it to support their advocacy more proof how low the old network and weather.com has fallen.
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Around the bend, once again.
Concensus? I guess the Earth does not move. That was universally held oh, about 400 years ago. It was believed, it was solemn doctrine, one could be burned at the stake for denying that the Earth stands still. It was proved in Scripture. Just ask Giordano Bruno.
A stationary Earth is not consistent with our understanding of the Universe. Galileo’s problem is that the aberration of light had not yet been discovered, nor can it be detected by unaided human vision. But the theory has to be used if the telescope is to be pointed accurately.
There is only one problem with AGW. The evidence is not there. There is extensive evidence that the weather changes, from day to day, and year to year. There is evidence that humans affect local weather (the heat island effect).
There is no evidence that we can measure Global temperature.
I know that the statement above is harsh. It is nevertheless true. The error bars are too large, the satellites are too new, the data is too scant.
To concede is to give up before the game is finished. If this is scientific consensus, I want no part of it.
I am still waiting for the long-term thermometer investigations: how well does the device remain calibrated over 100 years? Or even over 20 years?
I am also waiting for the proxy to be revealed which accurately reflects the recorded temperatures over the past 150 years!
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Noelle’s question of whether people believe that the 97 climate scientist are liars employs exactly the same type of deceptive tactic that the original survey employed.
It reminds me very much of an old Yes Minister episode.
Anyone with any understanding of the climate change debate would instantly recognise the deceptiveness of this survey. But go right ahead and keep on pulling this sort of crap. Every time you do it you shoot another hole into the AGW movements credibility which is getting lower on a daily basis.
Your problem is Noelle, that a large portion of the public have now come to the conclusion that anything coming out of the pro-AGW camp needs to be treated with a healthy degree of suspicion. People’s “spin” detectors these days are very finely tuned and if you try and “spin” them too much like the AGW movement has done they won’t believe a word you say.
So Noelle, the answer is “no”. I wouldn’t call all of the 97 scientists a liar. The questions in the survey were worded in such a way that would allow the 97 to provide a “yes” answer irrespective of whether they believed human CO2 emissions had caused most of the global warming during the past 30 years.
Let me ask you a question Noelle. Do you think this survey demonstrates that nearly all scientists (lets say 90%) believe that human induced CO2 emission are responsible for much of the warming that has occurred in the satellite era (since 1979) and does it show their is a scientific consensus on this point?
If you answer “yes” to this question Noelle then I am calling you a liar.
Wow.
Let’s clarify a few things and ask a few questions about this
1) It’s not the University of Illinois; it’s the University of Illinois, Chicago.
2) This is originally based on a Master’s thesis by Margaret R. K. Zimmerman with Doran as her adviser:
https://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/uic/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&v1=1&BBRecID=2145399
3) The 3,146 respondents were cherry picked to get to either 79 or 77 of “those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change” (79 for question 1; 77 for question 2).
Why aren’t the numbers the same for both questions?
4) The Eos article states: “Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists, and 8.5% of the respondents indicated that more than 50% of their peer-reviewed publications in the past 5 years have been on the subject of climate change.”
5) I say cherry picked because 5% of 3,146 is approximately 157; 8.5% of 3,146 is approximately 267. How did Doran and Zimmerman get from either of these numbers to 79 or 77?
6) The Eos article also notes: “The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103) and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36).” And “Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1 and 82% answered yes to question 2.”
Why aren’t these numbers more significant than the 79 or 77? Can 79 or 77 people really be a consensus?
7) Doran was also the lead author on a paper in Nature (Doran et al. 2002) that noted Antarctic cooling. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6871/abs/nature710.html
8) When the results from Doran et al. 2002 were cited as evidence against global warming, Doran published an article in the New York Times in 2006 (not peer reviewed).
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/opinion/27doran.html?_r=1
9) In this 2006 New York Times article Doran states:
“Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet.”
So 58 % cooled and the rest (42%) warmed? No area stayed the same? The article in Nature indicated 58% cooled. It is not clear what evidence Doran had to state that the “rest of the continent was warming”.
But that’s okay because some unspecified models have “suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole”.
10) Since then, Pope et al. 2007 have questioned the chemistry underlying ozone depletion: Francis D. Pope, Jaron C. Hansen, Kyle D. Bayes, Randall R. Friedl, and Stanley P. Sander, Ultraviolet Absorption Spectrum of Chlorine Peroxide, ClOOCl. J. Phys. Chem. A, 2007, 111 (20), pp 4322–4332
So it is unclear if these unspecified models are even valid.
Steve E
The Pope has declared that biological evolution is a real process. Most of the catholic bishops will fall into line with this. So your analogy is poor.
SteveE Going back the to catholic analogue, if you ask the question do you think that man evolved from apes the priests would say no.
What makes you think so? The Catholic position on evolution is generally positive, except for the insistence that “ensoulment” was not the result of evolution, and that all humans have a common origin.
Where is SteveE? Where is Noelle? I’d sure like to read their responses to Taphonomic and others here.
This fake ‘poll’ is a prime example of how to do a poll as badly as possible. They are lying with statistics. It is a push-poll that was intended to show something that doesn’t exist. Any poll that purports to show that 97% of respondents agree on something is a bogus poll. These so-called researchers are simply propagandists in disguise.
[snip] It certainly makes sense to put special weight on the opinions of climate scientists who study a climate. The same poll shows that 64% of meteorologists agree with the 97% of climate scientists.
The poll run by Doran et. al. is not the only evidence that exists that climate scientists support AGW.
There is another poll, run by Roger Pielke and James Annan, who found that a majority of climate scientists believe that the IPCC AR4 report either got things about right, or understated the problem of global warming.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/is-there-agreement-amongst-climate-scientists-on-the-ipcc-ar4-wg1-by-brown-et-al-2008/
Their question about the nature of global warming was more specific. Here is what they found.
Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.
That number again 97%. Is that an unlikely coincidence resulting from random numbers, or an indication of a real consensus.
In addition there is a poll by Harris Interactive which was originally run in 1991 by Gallup, which shows that acceptance of human caused global warming has increased substantially among the group of scientists surveyed.
http://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/04/23/survey-tracks-scientists-growing-climate-concern
Of the 489 Earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed by Harris Interactive, 97 percent said that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that “currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human-induced greenhouse warming.” The findings mark a significant increase in concern over climate change since 1991, when a Gallup survey of the same universe of scientists showed only 60 percent agreed that temperatures were up and 41 percent believed that evidence pointed to human activity as the cause.
The point about the absence of solar scientists made by D’Aleo is nonsense. Solar scientists know that the sun’s irradience reached a peak around 1950, and has been on a decline since. The recent era of global warming started in the mid to late 1970’s. There is no reason to expect that the sun is responsible for the most recent global warming trend. Solar scientist’s expertise under these circumstances would not be likely to add any intelligence to the question of a scientific consensus, and don’t represent a great loss.
The polls by Doran et al. (2009) and by Brown, Pielke & Annan (2008) broadly agree, so you can’t blame the results on one poll, particular question wording or the authors’ biases. Supporting evidence comes from the fact that all the main U.S. scientists’ organizations, including the huge AAAS (100,000+ members) and AGU (50,000+), have made clear statements on the reality of ACC. Still more evidence comes from other scientists’ organizations worldwide. Or at a more elite level, from the national science academies. Or at a more focused level, from broad interdisciplinary reviews like the IPCC.
All these separate strands of evidence confirm that there is a very broad consensus among scientists.. D’Aleo and WUWT regulars can imagine that tens of thousands of scientists know less about climate than they do, or must all be dishonest. If those claims seem unbelievable I guess you need to attack the reality of consensus.
Scientists have expressed their views clearly across many different venues. Poll results are just one sign, but they agree with all the others.
From Carl Parker’s Facebook wall:
Couple of things about this quote from Joe D”Aleo: first of all, 3146 scientists responded to the survey, not over 10,000. It just so happens that 77 of those 3146 were the climatologists. But 90% of the 3146 say that the planet it warming,… and 82% say that humans are “significantly contributing”. Much larger numbers. Now D”Aleo has a problem with these results because for him it’s a matter of degree. That’s fine, and I’ll respond to that later, but please remember the context of my post, which was that of responding to peope who believe none of it.
Don’t recall having a post denied/deleted before. Must have done something bad.
Since when do polls determine facts?
This survey is just like all the rest from the CAGW alarmist cabal:
It dishonestly attempts to conflate agreement on some degree of human contribution to warming with an agreement on the (alleged) need to regulate CO2. The one question you will NEVER see asked in ANY survey from this CAGW cabal is the following:
Do you favor government regulation of CO2?
In the end, that is the ONLY survey question that matters. And, the CAGW cabal KNOWS that one will NEVER come down in their favor.
Click here for more quantitative data on the abject fraud of the alleged consensus.
P.S.) There is a glaring conflict of interest in soliciting the opinions of those with a direct financial incentive to propagate the CAGW fraud. Scientists who do NOT have such a financial incentive are the ONLY ones qualified to render an objective opinion (I am one such scientist).
Click here to further examine this topic.
I wonder if Mr. Parker is aware that only 24% of his peers share his views on AGW.
Click here and examine the facts.
Some “consensus” — NOT!
Parker is now resorting to using this site to defend himself
http://www.logicalscience.com/
I would say Yes to #1 and default the second. I simply don’t know.
From my conversations with Chris Essex, award-winning author and mathematician well-known for his work in dynamical systems and numerical analysis (and who spent some of his professional career working on climate models), I believe he would say No to #1, and that the question was nonsense. Nonsense because it does not make sense to speak of “the temperature” of the earth except in terms of averaging and it does not make sense to speak of “average temperature” of a system that is not in thermodynamic equilibrium (I don’t want to misrepresent him — I believe this is a gross oversimplification of his objection, but it’s the part that I understand). Earth’s atmospheric system is about as far as it could be from such a state. Averages, particularly of the type derived by NOAA, CRU and so on, are next to meaningless.
I think Chris has a point, but I still grant that, in some “vague sense” that is roughly revealed by the numbers, there has been a general qualitative trend which could be described as warming, though quantifying it is probably nonsense. It makes much more sense to speak of local temperature trends. The ice cores, for example, assuming their value as proxies are as good as we currently believe, are reasonably good records of local long-term temperature trends. We infer conclusions about global trends, but such inferences must be taken with a big grain of salt.