You have to wonder how somebody can write (let alone read) the claims made here in the press release by Cook with a straight face. It gives a window into the sort of things we can expect from his borked survey he recently foisted on climate websites which seems destined to either fail, or get spun into even stranger claims. For example, compare these two passages of the press release:
Exhibit 1:
From the 11 994 papers, 32.6 per cent endorsed AGW, 66.4 per cent stated no position on AGW, 0.7 per cent rejected AGW and in 0.3 per cent of papers, the authors said the cause of global warming was uncertain.
Exhibit 2:
“Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary.”
And from that he gets a consensus? What is he smoking? Try getting a quorum or winning an election with those numbers. About that 0.7 percent, this might be a good time to remind everyone of this Climategate moment.
In July 2004, referring to Climate Research having published a paper by “MM”, thought to be Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels, and another paper by Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai, Phil Jones emailed his colleagues saying:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [TRENBERTH] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
This below comes from a pre-press release, published first by Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com. It isn’t on the IOP website yet, nor is Cook’s paper. It seems both are scheduled for May 16th. Since there is no embargo time listed that I’m aware of, and it is in the wild now, it is fair game.
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Study reveals scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change
A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.
The study is the most comprehensive yet and identified 4000 summaries, otherwise known as abstracts, from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 per cent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW)
Led by John Cook at the University of Queensland, the study has been published today, Thursday 16 May, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters.
The study went one step further, asking the authors of these papers to rate their entire paper using the same criteria. Over 2000 papers were rated and among those that discussed the cause of recent global warming, 97 per cent endorsed the consensus that it is caused by humans.
The findings are in stark contrast to the public’s position on global warming; a 2012 poll* revealed that more than half of Americans either disagree, or are unaware, that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is warming because of human activity.
John Cook said: “Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary.
“There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception. It’s staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.
“This is significant because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they’re more likely to support policies that take action on it.”
In March 2012, the researchers used the ISI Web of Science database to search for peer-reviewed academic articles published between 1991 and 2011 using two topic searches: “global warming” and “global climate change”.
After limiting the selection to peer-reviewed climate science, the study considered 11 994 papers written by 29 083 authors in 1980 different scientific journals.
The abstracts from these papers were randomly distributed between a team of 24 volunteers recruited through the “myth-busting” website skepticalscience.com, who used set criteria to determine the level to which the abstracts endorsed that humans are the primary cause of global warming. Each abstract was analyzed by two independent, anonymous raters.
From the 11 994 papers, 32.6 per cent endorsed AGW, 66.4 per cent stated no position on AGW, 0.7 per cent rejected AGW and in 0.3 per cent of papers, the authors said the cause of global warming was uncertain.
Co-author of the study Mark Richardson, from the University of Reading, said: “We want our scientists to answer questions for us, and there are lots of exciting questions in climate science. One of them is: are we causing global warming? We found over 4000 studies written by 10 000 scientists that stated a position on this, and 97 per cent said that recent warming is mostly man made.”
Visitors to the skepticalscience.com website also raised the funds required to allow the study to be accessible to the public.
Daniel Kammen, editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Research Letters, said: “”This paper demonstrates the power of the Environmental Research Letters open access model of operation in that authors working to advance our knowledge of climate science and to engage in a public discourse can guarantee all interested parties have the opportunity to review the same data and findings.”
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* http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/04/02/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/
From Thursday 16 May, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
People are pretty stupid…they may just buy into this ridiculaous scam. I mean, look who’ve we’ve elected to lead this nation, after all.
Let’s face it. Cook is an obsessive about ‘consensus’ This is another dreadful paper, almost irrelevant to anything about ‘climate change’. What really upset me about it was that the ABC ran it is a major news story on its radio news. See http://donaitkin.com/shock-horror-its-true-there-is-consensus-on-global-warming/
Its worse than we thought. Check http://theconsensusproject.com/
The website is the product of a community of scientists and other volunteers scattered across the globe, united in their dedication to communicate climate science. Using peer-reviewed science, it plays an active role in debunking climate misinformation published across the spectrum of media, including TV, online, and print. In 2011, Skeptical Science won the Australian Museum’s Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge.
Cook is let loose today at The Conversation, that vanguard journal of Australian academia that allows 50/50 publication of papers and opinions. /sarc
https://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+17+May+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+17+May+2013+CID_12ac64e3cf1067c9c5dc806ffc729c49&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Its%20true%2097%20of%20research%20papers%20say%20climate%20change%20is%20happening
Cook points to his new website, The Consensus Project, which Niff references above … http://www.theconsensusproject.com/ … proudly headlined THE DEBATE IS OVER.
This site partly explains its Mission by highlighting the outrageous fact that “34% of US media coverage gives sceptics a voice”, which “gives the very small number of sceptics a disproportionate amount of media attention” – that very small number apparently being the 55% of the public “who think the science is unsettled or don’t know” – aka sceptical.
The 34% US media coverage cites a 2007-10 paper (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044005/pdf/1748-9326_7_4_044005.pdf) that found in the six countries surveyed, a whopping 12% of media articles during 2009/10 contained “a sceptical voice”.
OMG, the objective media is flooding us with denial! It’s true that among the thousands of published and unpublished papers on WUWT and all other sceptical websites over the past couple of years, two or maybe three have scored a story or some other reference in my local media. With the MSM exception of Andrew Bolt, Australia’s media is already overwhelmingly biased toward AGW belief, including the ABC/BoM’s landmark “Sceptics are Idiots so Ignore Them” extravaganza last year.
The attempt to shut down all debate also ignores the fact that most sceptics agree there has probably been some CO2 contribution to global temperatures, their debate primarily over what degree, its continuity and whether it matters a fig if nights are a bit warmer than they used to be.
It’s apparently beyond Cook that the very small 55% of people might have done their research and concluded that the science most definitely isn’t settled. If THE DEBATE IS OVER isn’t referring to the 55% (more like 30-40%, unfortunately) as “the very small number of sceptics”, it is presumably referencing evil people like Anthony Watts who publish dissenting facts and opinions that have caused around half the world’s population to be “confused and misinformed”.
A search for “climate change” at The Conversation comes up with 94 articles published since 2011, none of them containing sceptical views. The Conversation topic link points to 486 “climate change” items, none containing sceptical views, and 63 “climate change scepticism” items, all scorning sceptics. This is presumably the end game ratio sought by Cook and fellow academics … the utter silencing of science and opinion with which they disagree, and that’s getting a bit too left/right/whatever wing for my comfort.
Wow! 32,6% of the alchemists believe it is possible to make gold from non-noble metals. What a shock! I would believe more then 97% did. What a blow for this really progressive scientific newcomer. – 15th century king.