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
i have worked in construction and logistics my entire working life and been a member of a couple of different unions, i have always previously voted ‘left’, labour party here in australia. i will not be voting left the next election because of the worlds highest carbon tax ( 6 times higher than the EU’s scheme), ‘there will be no carbon tax under the government i lead’, ‘the science is settled’ (juliar gillard, prime minister), introduced at the beginning of this month. all for a temperature reduction, best case scenario, of just 0.0038 of a degree celsius by the end of this century………. yeah truth. that comes from the IPCC itself. Lord Monkton was not so generous – 0.00005 of a degree celsius. they really did it even though the science and maths says its pointless. could it be the tax dollars?
growing up i remember many times hearing that if the government could find a way to tax the air we breath they would. i thought it was a joke. obviously they finally found a way. they wont get away with it though, its political suicide according to the polls. as it truely deserves.
time magazine cover from 1977- ‘How to survive the coming ice age- 51 things you can do to make a difference.’ anyone old enough to remember this? i bet the science was ‘settled’ and their was a consensus too. dont be fooled all over again. its here-
http://state-of-the-nation.com/2828/time-magazine-april-1977-survive-coming-ice-age-global-warming/time_iceage1/
Juan – thanks for the links. They weren’t what I was looking for but I’m going to read them over anyways 🙂
Roger – your first link was the one I was trying to find – thanks!
If 98% of scientists believe in global warming then all the papers produced by them and peer reviewed by them are biassed!
This is exactly the sort of science they do.
Filter..cherry-pick..hit enter..print..ring up liberal-progressive media mate!
Since there are around 6.1 billion people now, and the average heat output from the human body is around 28 watts, then there is a constant heat source of 170 billion watts running 24/7/365. No wonder the world has heated up a tiny tiny bit. Better depopulate quick, lets start with all the greenies.
I would have to answer as follows:
Since “mean global temperature” is a meaningless construct, your first question is invalid. Since the second question relies on the premise laid down in the first, the second question is also meaningless.
Soo.. what was the result of the survey you graphed. Those 3K odd returned surveys don’t give me a % of opinion….
It is notable that no commenter above has noticed that she filtered her responses through a “Do you work for the government agency (or government-paid institution) whose future budget will rely on the 1.3 trillion dollars per year of CAGW income that will come from your research?”
Only those 78 CAGW-funded government-paid eco-theists whose funding requires a CAGW case be built up from their imaginations and their fabricated research were counted.
Hu McCulloch SAID(being statistically inclined) “I would be surprised if human CO2 emissions haven’t had some statistically significant contribution to warming since 1800, however small, so I would have to answer yes”.
So – you don’t know. would have said yes despite thinking it was not true. So – logically we should not trust the statistically inclined because they’re inclined to lie.
Any intelligent scientist reading the survey questions would throw it aside, seeing how pre-cooked and irrelevant it was. Therefore the ones who returned it were the stupidest and/or most biased in favor of its obvious intent. Thus the survey conclusion should be, “98% of the stupidest and most biased scientists agree with AGW.”
Blackberries are green when they’re red.
I would answer yes, the earth has warmed over the last century, and yes, yes, humans have had a significant effect on the warming- and I’m a CAGW cynic. Seeing those questions in a SURVEY, I’d immediately jump to the conclusion that this was a propaganda poll, with no validity, and throw it away. A more reasonable conclusion would be 1 – (3146/10,257)= 69.3 % of scientists think that pushing CAGW is a scam and a waste of their valuable time.
I never did see a number telling me how many of the 7,000+ who did not return the survey were climate scientists. For me that is also telling. Seven thousand scientists of the type they wanted on their roll call just trashed the survey. Perhaps a one third response is a reasonable amount for any survey of this type. What is also telling is that they disregarded the responses of the respondents who weren’t defined as climate scientists. So why then did they poll them?
I’m glad to see that was explained here on this site because I’ve been saying the same thing on the NewsVine Science forum for maybe the past 2+ years.
“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.”
…well, that says it all right there!! We are on our THIRD U of I President in less than 3 years, with numerous other scandals and problems. Poor UI, we’ve seen better days….but at least we ain’t Penn State!