Dr. Richard Tol has been tweeting a statistical destruction of the “97% consensus” study, Cook et al. (2013) by educating co-author Dana Nuccitelli as to why his “sample” is not representative.
“In his defense, [Dana] has had limited exposure to stats at uni” – Richard Tol
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| Including “global” before “climate change”, Cook et al. dropped 75% of papers and changed disciplinary distribution. |
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| Including “global” before “climate change”, Cook et al. dropped many papers by eminent climate researchers. |
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| Including “global” before “climate change”, Cook et al. dropped 33 of the 50 most cited papers. |
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| Choosing exclusive WoS over inclusive Scopus, Cook et al. dropped 35% of papers and changed disciplinary distribution. |
As Dr. Tol so eloquently put it,
“[Dana] I think your sampling strategy is a load of nonsense.” – Richard Tol
CV of Dr. Richard Tol:
M.Sc. Econometrics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands (1992); Ph.D. Economics (Thesis: “A decision-analytic treatise of the enhanced greenhouse effect“), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands (1997); Researcher, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands (1992-2008); Visiting Researcher, Canadian Centre for Climate Research, University of Victoria, Canada (1994); Visiting researcher, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, University College London, United Kingdom (1995); Acting Programme Manager Quantitative Environmental Economics, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1998-1999); Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (1998-2000); Board Member, Centre for Marine and Climate Research, Hamburg University (2000-2006); Lead Author, IPCC (2001); Contributing Author and Expert Reviewer, IPCC (2001, 2007); Associate Editor, Environmental and Resource Economics Journal (2001-2006); Adjunct Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (2000-2008); Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change, Department of Geosciences and Department of Economics, Hamburg University, Germany (2000-2006); Editor, Energy Economics Journal (2003-Present); Visiting Research Scholar, Princeton Environmental Institute and Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Princeton University (2005-2006); Research Professor, Economic and Social Research Institute, Ireland (2006-Present); Research Fellow, Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University (2007-2010); Associate Editor, Economics E-Journal (2007-Present); Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, Trinity College, Ireland (2010-2011); Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, Institute for Environmental Studies and Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands (2008-Present); Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Falmer, United Kingdom (2012-Present)
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We have issued two news releases on the Cook study via PRWeb:
“Only 65 Scientists of 12,000 Make up Alleged 97% on Climate Change”
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=657 and,
“Friends of Science Challenge the Cook Study for Bandwagon Fear Mongering on Climate Change”
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=655
The IPCC and climate alarmists claim that 90% to 100% of the recent warming (since 1975) was caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
Only 0.54% (65 of the 12,000 abstracts rated) suggest that humans are responsible for more than 50% of the global warming up to 2001, contrary to the alleged 97% consensus amongst scientists in the Cook et al study.
The Cook et al study data base has seven categories of rated abstracts.
1. 65 explicit endorse, >50% warming caused by man (See link in first news release)
2. 934 explicit endorse
3. 2933 implicit endorse
4. 8261 no position
5. 53 implicit reject
6. 15 explicit reject
7. 10 explicit reject, <50% warming caused by man
We can't even say that 65 abstracts in the "explicit endorse" category, or 0.54% of 12,000 abstracts, supports the IPCC consensus as many climate skeptics believe the humans (via black soot, UHI, GHG) may cause 50 to 80% of the warming, but strongly disagree that man-made greenhouse gases have caused more that 90% of the 20th century warming. There has been no warming for 16 years, a fact that strongly supports the skeptics case.
I would like to have those ‘scientists’ view this chart, and then answer the questions.
The self-destruction of climatology now has momentum, first Mann supporting a truly defective hockey stick that has no hockey stick in the input data as if it validated his complex black boxes, and now the original 97% claim is being officially propped up by fraud of such grade school level of basic fibbing that it suddenly no longer requires trusted statisticians to fully explain it all to casual readers, and the next cycle of popular books and documentaries promise to inspire an utterly massive backlash not just against rogue science but the whole Left Wing, all because they dug their own graves this fine season.
Jack Savage says: June 1, 2013 at 7:56 am
“I think if you are going to print out Dr.Tol’s qualifications and CV it is only fair that you should do the same with Dana’s….”
There is a 97% consensus that the dog ate his resume.
“In his defense, [Dana] has had limited exposure to stats at uni”
I bet That left a mark !!
No CV online, but there is a bio:
Dana Nuccitelli is an environmental scientist at a private environmental consulting firm in the Sacramento, California area. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in astrophysics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master’s Degree in physics from the University of California at Davis. He has been researching climate science, economics, and solutions as a hobby since 2006, and has contributed to Skeptical Science since September, 2010.
Scopus lists 1 paper: Comment on Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts, Physics Letters A, 2012
Richard Tol (@RichardTol )
@dana1981 Indeed you are. If your sample is not representative (which it isn’t) your conclusions are worthless.
In his defense, even if [Dana’s] sample is representative (which it isn’t), his conclusions are worthless.
Should Cook et al have searched for “Warming” instead of “Global Warming” as well? 😉
Dr. Tol, I wonder whether you (perhaps together with others) will dig up enough information to attempt to get the paper retracted? That would be more globally helpful than the debate with Nucitelli, since could be used, for example, to counter the presidential tweet.
Appreciate your work on this.
Regards
@Rud
Dan Kammen, the editor in chief, featured in the press release.
:dbstealy said
Why not just use the full MSU data set?
It’s gross incompetence to have not searched all three. With modern word processing it’s just more evidence of a stunt by a liberal to lie since he perceives all life as a lie since there are inequities intrinsic to existence.
That’s half the point : in many senses it EPITOMIZES the eco-waco/rebellion-as-yardstick ‘siyunts’
Standard physics believes in conservation of energy.
The word conservative is nearly in that, so eco-wackos are against it: and sure enough there’s Trenberth with his “More light out, than went in” energy budget – that he’s got his idiot friends in Academia endorsing.
It’s past pathetic; it’s crime really.
Teaching a generation that because there’s no policeman to imprison one for lying to get funds
it’s crime.
====
Reich.Eschhaus says:
June 1, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Should Cook et al have searched for “Warming” instead of “Global Warming” as well? 😉
Even if it’s not a fracture of statute; which – it is and always was.
“[Dana] I think your sampling strategy is a load of nonsense.” – Richard Tol
We should give Dana some credit here: He may have worked very hard to find the search phrase that gave him exactly what he was looking for. 🙂
Forgive my ignorance, but is ERL a peer reviewed journal? If so, does the word “peer” now mean “another person who does not know statistics”?
James Smyth says:
“Why not just use the full MSU data set?”
There is no established “full data set”. Your chart is arbitrary. I used the chart that I posted to show that the warming trend has been broken, beginning around 16 years ago. Since then, the planet has been cooling, even as CO2 continues to rise.
But we can go farther back if you like, to the beginning of consistent and unbroken thermometer records. The ‘full data set’ for the CET is shown here.
Note that there has been NO acceleration in [natural] global warming. The recent ≈40% rise in CO2 has NOT resulted in ANY accelertation in global warming. What is being observed now has happened before — when CO2 was much lower.
Conclusion: CO2 does not cause any measurable global warming. Therefore, the entire “carbon” scare is deconstructed. The conjecture claiming that CO2 = AGW has no scientific evidence to support it.
This is not to say that CO2 has no effect on temperature. It only points out that if there is any effect, it is so minuscule that it cannot be measured. Therefore, no additional public funds should be expended on something that is too small to measure.
But Dr. Tol is a denier! Nuccy told us so!
I guess there is still some integrity in the AGW camp. When it came time to promote the talking points or stick to science, some manage to maintain their integrity and stuck with science.
When one considers that Dr. Tol is saying that Cook, et. al. DO NOT UNDERSTAND the bell shaped curve of a “normal distribution” we then can come to a classic conclusion.
So it’s obvious that we need to say to Cook:
“Ask not for whom the TOL “bells”, the TOL BELLS FOR THEE!” (Apologies to John Donne)
To settle this matter I think sceptics need to produce a study then a paper based on a survey of say 200 climate scientists. It seems to me you can’t just ask one question as there will be shades of view. For example.
Q1) Has man-made co2 been responsible for most of the recent warming?
Q2) Has man-made co2 been responsible for all of the recent warming?
Q3) Has man-made co2 been responsible for less than half of the recent warming?
Q4) Has man-made co2 not had any effect at all on the recent warming?
Q5) Don’t know?
Is this suggestion sensible? Anyway, it certainly would not be 97%
See the
The Paradox of Consensus [wUWT]
“Theories that can be easily tested should have a high degree of consensus among researchers. Those involving chaotic and less testable questions – climate change or economic growth, physiology or financial markets – ought to have a greater level of scientific disagreement. Yet this is hardly the case for climate science. In the Paradox of Consensus, we illustrate that the greater the level of consensus for certain classes of hypotheses (those that are difficult to test) the less truth we should assign to them.”
Q6) Has man-made co2 been responsible for more than all of the recent warming (because otherwise it would have cooled down)?
Would some published papers use “temperature rise” / “rise in global mean temperature” instead of “climate change” or “global warming”?
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says:
June 1, 2013 at 8:31 am
Thank you for the honor of your time, and the effort of your responses here.
Reich.Eschhaus says:
“Q6) Has man-made co2 been responsible for more than all of the recent warming (because otherwise it would have cooled down)?”
You need to be reminded that there is no measurable evidence showing that CO2 causes any global warming. If you believe that is wrong, present your testable, empirical evidence.
Jimbo:
Probably there will be some that are missed, but that’s why it’s important to do some data quality control. For example, use authors like James Hansen who have listed all of their climate-change related pubs for validation of your search protocol. See how many you are missing and tune your search accordingly.
You shouldn’t be just getting 25% of all of Hansen’s papers or miss 33 of the 50 most cited papers for example.
If you look at the abstracts Cook used, some of them actually counter skeptical sciences claim that 97% of scientists feel CO2 is causing global climate changes and the consequences could be catatstrophic.
“Atmospheric Methane – Its Contribution To Global Warming,Applied Energy,Badr| O; Probert| Sd; Ocallaghan| Pw,2,2”
Used as proof of AGW, but counters the CO2 theory, as methane is the problem.
“1991,Buying Environmental Insurance – Prospects For Trading Of Global Climate-protection Services,Climatic Change,Swisher| Jn; Masters| Gm,3,2”
“1991,Buying Greenhouse Insurance,Energy Policy,Manne| As; Richels| Rg,3,3”
Two on buying insurance ( biased maybe)
“Global Warming And The Growth Of Ice Sheets,Climate Dynamics,Ledley| Ts; Chu| Sp,2,3”
Ice sheets growing, counters the catatastrophic consequences claim.
“Varying Boreal Forest Response To Arctic Environmental Change At The Firth River| Alaska,Environmental Research Letters,Andreu-hayles| L; D’arrigo| R; Anchukaitis| Kj; Beck| Psa; Frank| D; Goetz| S,2,”
Evergreen trees at the edge of Alaska’s tundra are growing faster, suggesting that at least some forests may be adapting to a rapidly warming climate, says a new study, counters the catastrophic theory.
This is just a random look…