Larry Bell writes in his weekly Forbes column about that oft repeated but less than truthy “98% of all scientists” statistic. Supposedly, this was such an easy and quick to do survey, it was a no-brainer according to the two University of Illinois researchers who conducted it:
To maximize the response rate, the survey was designed to take less than 2 minutes to complete, and it was administered by a professional online survey site ( www.questionpro.com ) that allowed one-time participation by those who received the invitation.
I think it is hilarious that so few people who cite this survey as “proof” of consensus actually look into the survey and the puny response numbers involved. So, I decided to graph the data to give some much needed perspective. Apparently, the majority of AGU members polled didn’t think this poll on climate change consensus was worth returning. – Anthony
That Scientific Global Warming Consensus…Not! – Forbes
By Larry Bell
So where did that famous “consensus” claim that “98% of all scientists believe in global warming” come from? It originated from an endlessly reported 2009 American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of an intentionally brief two-minute, two question online survey sent to 10,257 earth scientists by two researchers at the University of Illinois. Of the about 3.000 who responded, 82% answered “yes” to the second question, which like the first, most people I know would also have agreed with.
Then of those, only a small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “98% all scientists” referred to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes”.
That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions. The first: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the middle 19th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago.)
The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation?
Read the whole article: That Scientific Global Warming Consensus…Not! – Forbes
Here’s the survey as it appeared in EOS:
EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 90, NO. 3, PAGE 22, 2009 doi:10.1029/2009EO030002
BRIEF REPORT
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Peter T. Doran, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago
Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago
Fifty-two percent of Americans think most climate scientists agree that the Earth has been warming in recent years, and 47% think climate scientists agree (i.e., that there is a scientific consensus) that human activities are a major cause of that warming, according to recent polling (see http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm). However, attempts to quantify the scientific consensus on anthropogenic warming have met with criticism. For instance, Oreskes [2004] reviewed 928 abstracts from peer-reviewed research papers and found that more than 75% either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities. Yet Oreskes’s approach has been criticized for overstating the level of consensus acceptance within the examined abstracts [Peiser, 2005] and for not capturing the full diversity of scientific opinion [Pielke, 2005]. A review of previous attempts at quantifying the consensus and criticisms is provided by Kendall Zimmerman [2008]. The objective of our study presented here is to assess the scientific consensus on climate change through an unbiased survey of a large and broad group of Earth scientists.
…and the paper with the data: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
UPDATE: The original Larry Bell article referenced 98%, but the actual calculated number is 97.4%. On the web, 97 and 98% values are both referred to individually in articles, as well as a range of 97-98% I’ve amended the title to use the range – Anthony
Mason P Wilson, Jr, Ph.D retired professor of Thermodynamics and a weatherman in service says: @ur momisugly July 18, 2012 at 10:34 am
I have come to the conclusion that climatologists that believe in man-made global warming,are not truly scientists. True scientists always question…
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As a professor of Thermodynamics and a weather person could you please write an article for WUWT on the subject of Earth’s long wave radiation vs the sun’s short, high energy radiation, CO2 and the amount of energy absorbed and returned to earth by CO2 vs the variability in solar energy and TSI and more importantly the short, high energy solar radiation that is absorbed by the world’s oceans.
We are told by climatologists the variability in total solar energy is very small > 0.1% (the changes in the mix of wavelengths is left out) but it is always given as a PERCENT and not in total energy. It is also not compared to the amount of energy supposedly returned to the earth by CO2. It would seem that a change of up to 6% in the high energy EUV and UV wavelengths absorbed by the oceans at depth would have a heck of a lot more impact on the climate over time compared to the puny low energy wavelengths returned by man’s 4% contribution to the 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2.
I am afraid that thermo was not one of my better subjects in college so I do not dare attempt to do this myself. However the orders of magnitude involved makes me think we have been treated to a pile of mushroom fertilizer so I would really like to see someone with a good background take a look see. Thanks
Thanks for the invite and you are right on..I’ll take a look at it but it seems to me that I would have to make a number of assumptions concerning the absorption of the high energy wavelengths in the sea, since the opacity of the sea vs depth I believe is dependant on the pllankton…if so it would make a big difference as to the energy being absorbed close to the surface and reraidiated at a higher rate than if absorption occured at lower depth. If this is so my assumptions could sway the outcome as much as the global warming buffs. While the analysis might prove interesting I think I would rather wait and gather the information to make informative assumptions than make a claim that can’t hold up under the scutiny of other scientists…thanks again…mason
This whole notion of “consensus of scientists” reminds me of a two question survey
a senior staff physicist once put out on the network at a lab where I was working; he
called it the “Scientist Test”. The two questions were 1. Do you consider yourself
to be an expert in your field of research? 2. Do you disagree with everyone else
who is considered to be an expert in your field of research?
If you answered “yes” to both questions, you must be a scientist.
Their whole point was to have something they could claim was factual (if looked at the “right” way, of course) and convince the general public that their consensus was mighty. No one was supposed to look at it too closely. Good on Larry Bell and Forbes for publishing this. Well done. 🙂
Can these two questions be any more vague?
For question 1, define relatively. If we’re measuring in degree Kelvin, how much of a change have we really seen? You can easily argue the temperatures have been relatively stable. But with a starting point in the Little Ice Age, the answer was largely predetermined. Other possible answers such as “I don’t know” or “indeterminate” weren’t on the menu, either.
As for number 2, how many different human activities are there which may influence the climate and have nothing to do with CO2 or GHG emissions? What level is significant? Is 10% significant, or does it have to be 50% or more to qualify.
With these questions, what other results could they get? The significant thing about this survey is the number of people who chose not to respond.
The “scientific consensus” does not include this 1000 peer reviewed papers and their authors that caution against significance of AGW.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Nor does the consensus include the 31,000 scientists who have signed this petition against the alarmism of global warming.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
more soylent green! says:
“I think whomever coined the phrase “green” to describe the environmentalist movement was colorblind. They’re all reds when you look at them closely.”
We are correct. We all need to be careful here as 20% of males have a degree of Red/Green Colorblindness.
My apologies Mr. Green my post should have started.
“You” are correct.
Otter, Dave Burton:
This may be the latest attempt to claim 97-98%:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107
“The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?”
If the “mean global temperature” is that meaningless metric which is calculated by CRU , GISS etc from land station data.. then the answer has to be “Yes”..
UHI, data adjustments, loss of cold station data.. its all due to man.
more soylent green! says:
July 18, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Can these two questions be any more vague?….
With these questions, what other results could they get? The significant thing about this survey is the number of people who chose not to respond.
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Or whose responses were not printable in a family blog…
Michael Moon says:
July 18, 2012 at 10:31 am
I lived in Chicago when this came out, and talked to Doran. The written responses to the questions were hilarious, along the lines of “Pre-1800′S? Temperatures have been far higher and far lower, just how far Pre are we talking about here?”
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Is there anywhere on the net to find the responses by the actual scientists who took the survey. (“The 77”) I have heard that they were very telling ……. or did I imagine that.
More than 2/3rds of scientists asked to respond to the questionairre didn’t find it worthwhile to do so.
No matter how many times this myth is busted – it arises again. It is just another zombie belief held and trumpeted, by the AGW religion. It will not… cannot die… die … die. GK
My understanding, collected from recent polls,is that the more educated an individual is the less they believe in CAGW.
Don’t these findings just agree with that consensus? Climate scientists are less educated than other scientists!
Dave, Juan, thank you both very much!
I’ve given up on this particular piece of climate krap. Nowadays, when I see or hear someone quote the 97% number I just shale my head. I’ve found it only wastes my time explaining the specifics behind that number. They don’t care. It is the provibial leading of the horse to water – except for the fact it’s actually a jackass, if you look closely.
Otter says:
July 18, 2012 at 11:51 am
“Serious question time, guys:
I had been told somewhere, that there were at least three other studies done, which came to same conclusion: 97%
Now, I find that to be total bull (and unfortunately, I have never been able to find my way back to that list the person presented).
Here’s my question(s):
1. Are any of you aware of these other studies?”
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Here’s another one of the 97%ers:
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full
“Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC (anthropogenic climate change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
This is akin to using an extensive dataset of the most active pot smokers to determine whether we should legalize marijuana.
Hmmm… These “earth” scientists… I’m not a native Francophone, but if “merde” is loosely translated as “earth”, are these earth scientists really merde scientists?
(Apologies to geologists, solid earth geophysicists, etc.)
I swear I read an article about this survey right here a couple years ago – but I’ve been through the archives and can’t find it. It went through the exact same breakdown. Does anyone else remember anything similar?
TonyG:
Look here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/expert-embarrassment-in-climate-change/
Also here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/24/global-warmings-stephen-schneider-the-light-that-failed/
As Bill Tuttle posted here on WUWT a week ago in reference to another survey:
Therefore, as a “yardstick” to the respondents’ objectivity, future surveys should ask their opinion of the Inconvenient Truth film.
TonyG: here are more threads on these surveys (not necessarily different surveys):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/02/scientific-consensus-on-global-warming-sample-size-79/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/04/lawrence-solomon-on-consensus-statistics/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/25/where-consensus-fails/
more soylent green! says:
July 18, 2012 at 11:10 am
I think whomever coined the phrase “green” to describe the environmentalist movement was colorblind. They’re all reds when you look at them closely.
Not necessarily. Dictionary.com provides a useful list of possible definitions for green, when used as an adjective. Among them are:-
Not fully developed or perfected in growth or condition; unripe; not properly aged: This peach is still green;
Unseasoned; not dried or cured: green lumber;
Immature in age or judgement; untrained; inexperienced: a green worker;
Simple; unsophisticated; gullible; easily fooled;
Fresh, recent, or new: an insult still green in his mind; or
Having a sickly appearance; pale; wan: green with fear; green with envy.
I would like to see the raw data and assess the filtering used to the dataset to ensure that it did not bias the results. Could anyone get it to me?
well, i’m tired of being called a ‘denier’, like i was a holocaust denier or something. how about we ‘up the ante’ on the AGW ‘alarmists’ and just call them what they really are, ‘extremists’. just like religious terrorists distort their religion for their own goals its seems comparable to me to call AGW the same as they so readily distort, change or exaggerate the facts to further their ‘religion’.
man once did believe the earth was flat, that our planet was the centre of the universe, you could call that a consensus on both, didnt mean it was right.
they attempt to terrorise the public with their extreme views, those nasty Extremist AGW Terrorists.