LA Times Tony Barboza gets caught fear mongering the IPCC report, becomes first victim of facts that don't agree with claims

A new study in PNAS may also help rebut alarm about climate change and corn. The abstract is available here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/24/1320008111.abstract?sid=6ce3996f-779e-48aa-8acb-175d7b3f8a6e.
The study is about satellite monitoring of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) to measure the gross primary production (GPP) of food crops. It shows that the U.S. corn belt in the summer is the most productive region on Earth: “Our SIF-based crop GPP estimates are 50–75% higher than results from state-of-the-art carbon cycle models over, for example, the US Corn Belt and the Indo-Gangetic Plain, implying that current models severely underestimate the role of management.”
The authors say their study is significant because, “Our results show that chlorophyll fluorescence data can be used as a unique benchmark to improve our global models, thus providing more reliable projections of agricultural productivity and climate impact on crop yields.”
I suspect the study is also significant because it shows that, despite alarms about climate change depressing corn yields, the U.S. corn belt is the most bio-productive region on Earth!
PNAS does not seem to have an option to purchase individual articles online. If anyone has a subscription, I would be most grateful to receive a PDF of the full study. My email is marlo.lewis@cei.org.

Sister Michelle says:
April 2, 2014 at 8:58 am
I was disappointed to discover today that the host of this page is a paid, ($44k Heartland Institute) . . .

This claim was refuted in another thread yesterday. See these comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/01/claim-nsidc-nasa-say-arctic-melt-season-lengthening-ocean-rapidly-warming/#comment-1603367
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/01/claim-nsidc-nasa-say-arctic-melt-season-lengthening-ocean-rapidly-warming/#comment-1603386
Similar refutations have been regularly posted on WUWT for years in response to comments like yours. Nevertheless, the sources of those false claims—on which you rely—continue to make them.

. . . retired weatherman, not a climate scientist. I thought this was an authentic scientifically based discussion forum, but obviously the commitment here is anti-science:

Watts wasn’t only a weatherman. He was and is also a computer whiz who has made and sold widely accepted advanced electronics products to broadcasters around the country. His IQ, by inference from that, and from the coherence of his comments, is high. It’s not impossible—as you imply—for a smart, technically oriented retiree to get up to speed on climatology if he focuses on it—as he has. From his head posts, it is apparent that he is not out of his league when it comes to reading and interpreting scientific papers.
Going beyond that, he has already authored one peer-reviewed paper, and he has another one in the works. He’s not an ignoramus opining from a cracker barrel throne.
The “not a climatologist” argument is double edged. How many climatologists are qualified meteorologists? Some don’t seem to know much about the basics. They mightn’t be able to pass the meteorology exams that Watts has.
Some of these climatologists had their noses so high in the air that they couldn’t smell the coffee. They were so above it all that they were unaware of or unworried about the decrepit state of the US weather-monitoring network. It was Watt’s hands-on, lower-level focus that brought attention and reform to the situation, via his surface stations project. (I’m reminded of how a mere clockmaker, Harrison, solved the longitude prolem for Brtitish shipping, although the experts derided him as unqualified for not being an astronomer.)
I presume the source where you made your “discovery” (without reading any of his material or seeking another source of information) didn’t see fit to tell you the rest of the story. That impugns their overall trustworthiness.

Clipped from eco-watch page:
Except that’s not what the study concludes at all. Rather, Doran and Zimmerman found a 96-97 percent consensus among specialized scientists that took part in the survey who agree that the earth’s temperature is rising and humans are the cause.

Not exactly. Not THE cause. It asked (IIRC) only if mankind had “contributed” to the rise in temperatures since the 1700s. It made no mention of greenhouse gasses, so the contribution could have been from land-use changes.

The end of the paper specifically points out the greater understanding of climate change by scientists who took part in the survey and those without scientific expertise:
“It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

That statement implies that the 97% were all or mostly physicists and chemists who had published on the “attribution” (climate science) aspect of climate change, not environmentalists and economists who had published on the “impact” and “responses” aspects of climate change.
I hadn’t realized this was the case. I thought that the only criteria used in the study were that they were the most frequently published authors in the field (over 50 papers, I think) and that they described themselves as specializing in a study of the climate. That would seem to allow in many outspoken and activist-type biologists, environmentalists and economists.
Regarding two “97%” surveys that warmists more often cite, here is a summary of most of their flaws, by WUWT-commenter Robin Guenier:

“The flaws in the Doran paper are well known: (A) it used a hopelessly inadequate sample size (79 respondents) and demographic (nearly all from N America) and (B) in any case, most sceptics would agree with both its propositions: (1) that the world has warmed since the 1700s and (2) that mankind contributed. It made no mention of GHG emissions.
“Anderegg is more sophisticated than the hopeless Doran. But there’s a basic problem: it’s concerned with whether or not respondents agree that “anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for “most [i.e. more than 50%] of the “unequivocal” warming of the Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century”. The only scientists qualified to evaluate that are those engaged in detection and attribution (both difficult and uncertain). Yet the research was not confined to such scientists.
“And, in any case, the research itself is flawed. First, the total number of “climate researchers” who accepted the above statement was, according to the paper, 903 and the total that did not was 472. In other words, 66% – not the much-claimed 97%. The researchers got their 97% by restricting their findings to researchers “most actively publishing in the field” – in other words, the paper’s findings do not cover all “climate scientists”. Further, it wasn’t an opinion survey at all, but an analysis of scientists who signed pro/anti statements – not the most useful documents. And, again, it was essentially confined to North America and was not concerned with whether or not the warming was dangerous. For these reasons, it’s valueless as a measure of climate scientists’ opinion about the dangers of AGW.”

This George Mason poll http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html surveyed 489 randomly selected members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union. It did not cherry pick the respondants who gave them the answer they wanted, and it asked more sophisticated questions, below:
Under its “Major Findings” are these paragraphs:
“Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
“Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest [11%] are unsure.
“Scientists still debate the dangers. A slight majority (54%) believe the warming measured over the last 100 years is NOT “within the range of natural temperature fluctuation.”
“A slight majority (56%) see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years. (The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites this increase as the point beyond which additional warming would produce major environmental disruptions.)
“Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.”
IOW, 59% doubt the “catastrophic” potential of AGW. I suspect that number would be higher now, after six more flat years.

Maybe he’s just too lazy to check facts like this? Or, is it belief mixed with incompetence?
The good old Nuremburg defence, “only doing his job” would my guess.