Brandon Shollenberger writes: I’ve been mulling over an idea I had, and I wanted to get some public feedback. What would you think of a public re-analysis of the Cook et al data set?
A key criticism of the Cook et al paper is they didn’t define the “consensus” they were looking for. There’s a lot of confusion as to whether that “consensus” position is weak (e.g. the greenhouse effect is real) or strong (e.g. humans are the primary culprits). The reason for that is Cook et al tried to combine both definitions into one rating, meaning they had no real definition.
You can see a discussion of that here.
I think it’d be interesting to examine the same data with sensible definitions. Instead of saying there’s a “97% consensus,” we could say “X% believe in global warming, Y% say humans are responsible for Z% of it.” That’d be far more informative. It’d also let us see if rating abstracts is even a plausibly useful approach for measuring a consensus.
My current thinking is to create a web site where people will be able to create accounts, log in and rate a particular subsample of the Cook et al data. I’m thinking 100 “Endorse AGW” abstracts to start with should be enough. After enough ratings have been submitted (or enough time has passed), I’ll break off the ratings, post results and start ratings on another set of abstracts.
The results would allow us to see tallies of how each abstract was rated (contrasted with the Cook et al ratings). I’m thinking I’d also allow raters to leave comments on abstracts to explain themselves, and these would be displayed as well. Finally, individual raters’ ratings could be viewed on a page to look for systematic differences in views.
What do you guys think? Would you be interested in something like this? Do you have things you’d like added or removed from it? Most importantly, do you think it’d be worth the effort? I’d be happy to create it, but it would take a fair amount of time and effort. It’d also take some money for hosting costs. I’d like to have an idea of if it’d be worth it.
An added bonus to doing it would be I could move my blog to that site as well. Self-hosting WordPress takes more effort than using WordPress.com, but it allows for far more customization. I’d love that.
So, thoughts? Questions? Concerns?
By the way, don’t hesitate to tell me I’m a fool if you think I’m spending too much time on the Cook et al issue. I’ve been telling myself that for the last two weeks.
Source: http://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/a-re-analysis-of-the-consensus/
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My opinion is that given the vast number of people interested in this at WUWT, we could likely crowd-source this work much more accurately and quickly than Cook did, without having to fall back on a small cadre of “like minded friends”. Both sides of the aisle can participate.
I don’t know what the result will be of such an analysis proposed by Brandon, but I do know that we can get far more participants from a much broader venue (since WUWT has almost an order of magnitude more reach than “Skeptical Science”) and that Brandon’s attention to detail will be an asset.
We already know many of the mistakes made in Cook’s work, so a re-do has the advantage out of the gate. This disadvantage may be that the gatekeepers at IOP may refuse to publish it, and University of Queensland may publish yet another bogus legal threat, since they seem tickled that Cooks 97% is the subject of worldwide gossip – Anthony
Since this is at the bottom of a long post it probably is irrelevant … but my opinion is:
“Asking the wrong question over again will not solve anything.” The question is a poor question to start with. It is like asking “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Has the earth warmed since 1850? Is that even a relevant question anymore looking at the many studies of long term climate?
It seems to me after studying weather and climate for a large part of my life as both a part of my profession and my avocations; after 50 years I have come to the conclusion that it is “50 Shades of Grey”, to steal a phrase. In my part of the world (Western Canada), I regularly experienced highs of around 40 degrees C as a child, floods, drought, 55 degrees below weather, and as and adult, repeat and stir gently all through the next 60 years. Is it warming? Yeah; in some places. Is it cooling? Yes; in some places. Is it caused by humans activities? Yes, in cities, industrial developments, and in some places with certain types of agricultural and deforestation/reforestation practices. Is the human contribution large or small – I think everyone is guessing – it is like the measurement problem. What are we measuring? Are we measuring the right thing? How good are the measurement tools? What are the biases? How accurate are the measurements? (They may be precise, but how accurate are they and as for the averages – we are comparing ever changing modern technology with old thermometers and all with siting issues.)
I am not quite 70 but I have verbal and written family history from the 1850’s from the time of my great grandfathers. Other than having transformed the surface of the earth north of 49 from a very harsh, difficult place to live in to a place that is pretty comfortable and liveable, I don’t know how much humans affected temperature relative to natural variability. It many be that the weather patterns are less severe than in my great grand parent’s day, but it is hard to tell because even my grandmother’s ranch house had frost and ice on the inside of the log walls winter mornings when I was a child. Now, I live in a heavily insulated farmhouse with a water to water heat pump and a temp cast wood fireplace that keeps things at plus 20 degrees C or more when it is 40 degrees C below 0 outside. I conclude that I MUST be adding heat to the atmosphere along with my livestock or I would die and they would die.
When I cut hay in my fields cleared from trees in the boreal forest, I am adding heat to the atmosphere. But if I wasn’t cutting hay, and modern man wasn’t here, then thousands of hectares of forest would burn every year. How do I compare the two amounts of heat? Man is adding heat to the planet, but what is the amount relative to what the earth would produce naturally all on it’s own.
So now when you ask a young scientists who has been educated in the last 30 years with all the hype surrounding the evils of global warming, I think you can guess his answer. Ask some one like me who has watched cattle dying from cold and suffocating in snow drifts while standing up against drift fences, in trees and draws; and starving in droughts with grasshoppers eating more feed than the livestock could; and having watched at least three cycles like that I am not worrying a lot about “Global Warming” of a fraction of a degree. The WEATHER is different every year and we experience weather.
We don’t “experience” climate. The random selection of 30 year periods to describe “climate” in a zone is a CONSTRUCT.
As an engineer, I would NEVER rely on the 30 year “averages” of climate provided by Environment Canada. Since you can get 60 to 100 years of data (possibly “adjusted”) even in relatively recently developed Western Canada, I would want to use the best available data, AND if possible do a site reconnaissance before designing anything since 100 years of data may be inadequate if there is geotechnical, geological or other information that suggests “weather” has been more extreme in the recent past than the current 30 year climate story tells you.
If I am designing something that may last 50 to 100 years, it is not appropriate to use a 30 year segment of averages. Even some engineering associations caution that longer series of records and projections must be considered.
As for sea level rise – having designed water side facilities on both salt and fresh water where the daily or annual variation in water level may be measured in terms of several metres, I have trouble with worrying about a couple of centimetres.
I just came back from skiing on the disappearing snow in the Rockies last week, and went to a two day 100 mile horse endurance ride event last weekend. Three or four climate zones, 300 km. It finally broke 20 degrees C this week where I live. Weather forecasters made a big deal of it since it took until mid May for Spring to start – Summer is now 30 days away and the twilight is already lasting past 11:00 PM at this latitude. The trees finally started getting green this past weekend and four days later are nearly in full leaf. Weather and nature are amazing. Man’s understanding – not so much.
But that is weather.
Is the climate getting warmer? Are humans the cause? Human activity has an impact but how much? What is the likely amount that the AVERAGE world temperature changed in the last 150 years and how much was due to humans?
Does anyone think it matters to someone who lives in an area of the world that can see the temperature change by 80 degrees+ C in one season; by 40 degrees C in a day; by 25 degrees C in a few minutes.
Seems to be a question that should be left to a few good academics as it really is not significant from a practical perspective in so far as the effects of climate change, assuming they are in the plus direction, are relatively slow and not relevant to most people’s life times. Some people try to tell us that it is going to be, but for older folks like me, I think we might be better off working on stopping the killing in Syria, or finding a cure for cancer and a host of other social and medical problems. Weather is weather and I don’t care if climatologists say 30 years defines climate. I would not build on an obvious flood plain just because it hasn’t flooded in 30 years when I can see with my own eyes that it has flooded in the “recent” past and undoubtedly will again. I would not want to build on a sinking river delta in an earthquake zone like people all over the world do and expect to be immune from the disaster that will eventually occur, even though it may not be in my lifetime as no one actually knows when the thousand year flood or the next unconsolidated silt shaker is going to come along.
The question of reviewing the Cook et al. paper to me, is irrelevant and meaningless as you are asking people who are so focused on a particular ideology, that they don’t see the forest.
Didn’t mean for this to turn into the rant that it did; but I just can’t get worried about a fraction of a degree or even a degree in the next 100 years; especially when natural variability might wipe it out and go a great deal in the other direction.
Regional changes are important and the fact that some regions are warming or cooling or gaining or losing ice/snow is something we need to pay attention to – though that again is mostly weather. In the mountains to the west of me, we have a whole lot more snow than last year so people are walking on pins and needles waiting to see what the freshet will bring. I should worry about a fraction of a degree increase in global temperature per decade that was already supposed to have wiped out the ski resorts ( several of which had record snowfall events this year – must have been AGW).
in summary, I don’t think redoing a survey that asked irrelevant questions will provide much useful information. People who dig holes, are experts in digging holes so they keep digging. That still may not tell you a great deal about holes if they haven’t measured anything relevant while they were digging.
Wayne Delbeke, P.Eng. (long retired from Engineering to farming and retiring again)
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Rapid Temperature Changes:
From: http://www.mountainnature.com/Climate/Chinook.htm
“An Introduction to Chinooks
Along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, the Chinook wind provides a welcome respite from the long winter chill. Few people spend very much time along the eastern slopes without experiencing these wonderful warm winds. The change can be dramatic. On Jan. 11, 1983, the temperature in Calgary rose 30°C (from –17°C to 13°C) in 4 hours, and on February 7, 1964, the temperature rose 28°C (51°F°), and the humidity dropped by 43 percent.”
And from: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070730193034AAA4YM0
“The greatest temperature change in 24 hours occurred in Loma on January 15, 1972. The temperature rose exactly 103 degrees, from -54 degrees Fahrenheit to 49 degrees. This is the world record for a 24—hour temperature change.
The greatest temperature change in 12 hours happened on December 14, 1924. The temperature at Fairfield, Montana, dropped from 63 degrees Fahrenheit to -21 degrees at midnight. This 84-degree change in 12 hours stands as the greatest 12-hour temperature change recorded in the United States.
The temperature at the Great Falls International Airport on January 11, 1980, rose from -32 degrees Fahrenheit to 15 degrees in seven minutes when Chinook winds eroded an Arctic airmass. The temperature rose from 47 degrees in just seven minutes, making it the record for the most rapid temperature change registered in the United States.”
@Brandon Shollenberger at 10:04 am
I think you are still massively underestimating the problem with the statement:
“X% believe in global warming
It is meaningless without the parameters:
How MUCH global warming?
Over what TIME FRAME is the warming?
What is the uncertainty in warming?
and the mechanism of the warming.?
I can “believe in global warming” and even more so believe in “the greenhouse effect” and simultaneously believe that global temperatures have been cooling over the past 15 years. The Greenhouse Effect keeps this planet from freezing. The Greenhouse Effect still operates even as glaciers and continental ice sheets advance during indisputable Global Cooling.
The fundamental subterfuge of the original Doran 97%, was more or less forced agreement to a trivial question without the ability to answer with subtlety and uncertainty. If you ask the same poorly framed question, it will be no surprise to get a similar result.
The Engineer says:
May 21, 2014 at 9:23 am
…
There is NO such thing as a climate scientist – officially, only physicists, metereologists, geologists and astro-physicists.
Spelling ‘meteorologists’ is beyond the enjinearing skill set? 😀
Brian – the standard engineering graduation joke is: “Last week I couldn’t even spell engingear, now I are one.” Course that wasn’t totally true as we were required to take writing and humanities to broaden our experience to match our foreheads. 😁😁😁
From an old engingear that studied meteorology in environmental studies, good for understanding a lot of things in engineering design.
I am not going to offer an opinion on whether to do this, other than to reiterate what has already been said: We already know that there was a concerted effort to prevent papers from being published if they did not support the CAGW theory. That, in itself, taints the results of a study of published papers.
I have been wondering for some time why we keep using the warmists’ 97% figures. Why don’t we use the actual numbers? They’re much clearer and, I think, more convincing. Rather than trying to explain to the average Joe why “97% of climate scientists” is bogus, why not just say, “Yeah, 97%–that’s 75 scientists”? And, rather than debunking “97% of papers,” say, “97% means 41 (or 64 or whatever the actual number really is).”
A) All scientists on the planet have never been polled to their position on climate change.
B) There is no way to properly measure such a thing because there is no way to determine the actual size of the relevant literature. Every bibliographic database is incomplete and any choice of search terms may exclude relevant literature.
“…and that Brandon’s attention to detail will be an asset.”
ROFLMAO. The last people you want doing such a “study” is Brandon and Mosher, didn’t you learn anything from the Muller debacle?
REPLY: Brandon had nothing to do with Muller or BEST. He lives in Illinois. – Anthony
Wayne Delbeke says:
Brian – the standard engineering graduation joke is: “Last week I couldn’t even spell engingear, now I are one.” Course that wasn’t totally true as we were required to take writing and humanities to broaden our experience to match our foreheads. 😁😁😁
From an old engingear that studied meteorology in environmental studies, good for understanding a lot of things in engineering design.
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Engineers of the world, look and laugh_
Found it. Here is the official “consensus” position that late 20th century warming was mostly caused by human increments to CO2, as asserted in AR5 (Summary for Policymakers p.17):
Fifty years of some of the highest solar activity levels in the geologic record, dozens of studies showing strong correlations between solar activity and temperature, and their “best estimate” is that ALL of the modest amount of warming over this period was due to fossil fuel burning.
Suggests two “consensus” questions to ask climate scientists and other participants:
1) How likely do you think it is that more than half of planetary warming since 1950 has been human caused? (extremely unlikely, unlikely, likely, extremely likely)
2) What is you best estimate (or maximum likelihood estimate) of the amount of post-50s warming that was caused by human activity? (0-25%, 25-50%, 50-75%, 75-100%)
@Alec Rawls at 9:45 am
Neither of the 2 questions quantify how much warming is there. Nor do they provide any breakdown as to source:
CO2, Other Carbon Compounds, Solar, Ocean Cycles, Volcanic aerosols, air pollution soot, other.
I had to think carefully about your #1 and #2. They don’t quite ask the same thing. #1 is asking about the upper 50% tail of the distribution.
#2 is asking the “Best Estimate”, which is of dubious utility since the Best Estimate of a probability distribution could occur below the P90 or above the P10. One should never assume Best Estimate to be anywhere near the P50 or mean. So, I’d avoid the term Best Estimate and chose Median or 50% above and below middle.
Your #2 will confound these two cases into the same response.
I believe human activity has caused 75-100% of the warming (and I believe warming is about 0.5 deg C)
I believe human activity has caused 25-50% of the warming (which I believe the total warming is 2.0 deg C)
I point out that it is possible for someone to believe that human activities have added 1.5 deg C to Global Temperatures, and simultaneously hold that the total warming is only 0.7 deg C. I.e. were it not for human activity, we would have experienced a significant cooling from natural variability. The questions that are asked should not preclude this possibility.
Strictly speaking, I would avoid the term “warming” in the questions asking about changes in Global temperature. It is a blatant bias in the question. After 30 years of indoctrination, we are no longer aware if the bias any more.
So, I reject both of your questions.
Ask instead something that nails down absolute size of the temperature change from which you can deduce a human component.
#1) How much total Global Temperature Change has the world experienced since 1950 (in deg. C)? Give a P90, P50, P10 (80 % confidence) three point estimate range.
#2) How much total Global Temperature Change since 1950 is the result of human activity (in deg C)? Give a P90, P50, P10 (80 % confidence) three point estimate range.
OK, but let us continue further, and reject even those questions. But keep that train of thought.
Sequence 1. Is the earth warming in today’s climate?
Question 1) How much has the earth warmed between 1650 and today?
Question 2) How much has the earth changed between 1200 and today?
Question 3) How much has the earth warmed between 1945 and today?
Question 4) How much has the earth warmed between 1974 and today?
Question 5) How much has the earth warmed between 1996 and today?
Sequence 2.
Question 1. Of all of the warming between 1650 and today, how much do you attribute to Man’s release of CO2?
A. Less than 1/3 of the change in temperature.
B. Between 1/3 and 2/3 of the change in temperature.
C. More than 2/3 of the change in temperature.
Question 2. Of all the warming measured between 1945 and today, how much do you attribute to Man’s release of CO2?
A. Less than 1/3 of the change in temperature.
B. Between 1/3 and 2/3 of the change in temperature.
C. More than 2/3 of the change in temperature.
Question 3. If Man’s release of CO2 were stopped (if CO2 levels were to be stopped from increasing past today’s 400 ppm) would the climate in 2100 be
A. Less than today’s average global temperature.
B. Not significantly affected by any change in CO2 from Man’s activities.
C. Significantly higher than today’s average due to lags in the forcing.
D. Unknown, the climate that far away cannot be predicted with today’s technology and resources.
RACookPE1978, Your question 3, response C, you probably had in mind “climate commitment” or “lags in warming due to the thermal capacity of the oceans”, rather than “lags in the forcing”. These would occur with constant or even reduced forcing. Of course, the climate would be significantly higher, only in the statistically significant sense.
Any statements on warming or cooling require a clear time period:
Have global temperatures been warming:
Since the Little Ice Age
Since 1900
Since 1950
Since ~1998 or 2000
Have global temperatures been cooling:
Since the Holocene Optimum
Since the Roman Warm Period
Since the Medieval Warm Period
Since about 2005
Is part of the global warming attributed to human/anthropogenic causes?
What portion of global warming is due to human/anthropogenic causes?
Unstated
Statistically insignificant e.g. ~5%
Minor ~15% to 50%
Most > 50%
Dominant > ~80% or ~90%
Is part of the global warming attributed to natural causes?
Unstated
Statistically insignificant e.g. ~5%
Minor ~15% to 50%
Most > 50%
Dominant > ~80% or >~90%
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I see these are similar to RACook’s comments.
1/3, 2/3 boundaries are simpler. However IPCC uses “Most” which is > 50% and now uses 95% confidence etc.
How best to ask on distinguishing between statistically significant, vs minor, vs most, vs major.
The major problem with “climate change” or “global warming” “is happening” its use as an equivocation for “catastrophic majority anthropogenic global warming”.
Suggest questions to clarify. e.g.:
What does “climate change” mean?
Global warming or cooling for periods longer than 30 years.
Humans are increasing global temperatures.
Both.
Brandon,
Perhaps consider an alternate project:
A database of scientist’s and their views on the global warming debate. As others have suggested, specific questions that can be quantified, and that cover ALL of the issues in the debate, with links/references to the actual papers/research that has provided their position.
The key to making this work, is what the others here have suggested, very carefully worded questions that allow a scientist to specifically and quantitatively express their position.