A new paper by Dr. Richard Tol published today in ScienceDirect, journal of Energy Policy, shows that the Cook et al. paper claiming that there is a 97% consensus among scientists is not just impossible to reproduce (since Cook is withholding data) but a veritable statistical train wreck rife with bias, classification errors, poor data quality, and inconsistency in the ratings process. The full paper is available below.
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the literature: A re-analysis
Richard S.J. Tol dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.04.045
A claim has been that 97% of the scientific literature endorses anthropogenic climate change (Cook et al., 2013. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024). This claim, frequently repeated in debates about climate policy, does not stand. A trend in composition is mistaken for a trend in endorsement. Reported results are inconsistent and biased. The sample is not representative and contains many irrelevant papers. Overall, data quality is low. Cook׳s validation test shows that the data are invalid. Data disclosure is incomplete so that key results cannot be reproduced or tested.
Conclusion and policy implications
The conclusions of Cook et al. are thus unfounded. There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct. Cook et al., however, failed to demonstrate this. Instead, they gave further cause to those who believe that climate researchers are secretive (as data were held back) and incompetent (as the analysis is flawed).
It will take decades or longer to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero—the only way to stabilize its atmospheric concentration. During that time, electoral fortunes will turn. Climate policy will not succeed unless it has broad societal support, at levels comparable to other public policies such as universal education or old-age support. Well-publicized but faulty analyses like the one by Cook et al. only help to further polarize the climate debate.
Full paper available in plain text here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514002821
And a PDF here:
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I wonder if that University in Australia (Queensland?) is going to press charges on Tol for doing this?
rustneversleeps, aka Rust Never Sleeps, an album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse…best known for the line, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Ironically, rustneversleeps is fervently opposed to burn out.
RACook1978-
The Tol paper is, and will be, criticized and analyzed here in the exact same fashion that EVERY paper gets here. If it’s full of mistakes, assumptions, mischaracterization, and flawed logic-then it DESERVES to be torn to pieces, exposed for what it is, and discussed openly. JUST LIKE COOK ET AL.
I know some people cannot comprehend this, and never will, but that’s how people who are NOT hypocrites act. They behave in a CONSISTENT manner, whether they like or side with the author of the paper or not. Whether or not it “helps” or “hinders” their cause, or the one attributed to them by outsiders. It’s called knowing what is FACT vs what is OPINION and basing one’s judgements on the FACTS. If Tol’s paper turns out to be garbage-SO BE IT. If it’s not-SO BE IT. But he doesn’t get preferential treatment or kudos he hasn’t earned.
“Thus, four papers that SUPPORTED and CREATED the 97% fundamentalism from assumptions and from flawed evidence that WAS ITSELF flawed and distorted were immediately accepted, publicized and praised and funded and reproduced around the world. Ten thousand papers and speeches and papers and publicity releases by the government-paid universities and bureaucracies and laboratories that BENEFIT from the 97% fundamentalism creed are accepted as “truth” and used to support that Creed many tens of thousands times more in millions of classrooms.”
Your memory might be going. Or perhaps your ability to read. But those papers were NOT accepted by everyone, were NOT publicized, praised, funded or reproduced by everyone. All FOUR papers were criticized, shredded, and revealed to be garbage over and over again. In fact, no one I personally know has even HEARD of them, much less read and agreed with them. Neither one of my college graduate children, nor their spouses, have ever heard of them. Ouch huh?
Oh, and every single person I have directed to them has read them and responded with laughter and shock at how contrived they are. Maybe that’s why the majority of Americans doesn’t trust “science” or “scientists” anymore.
The issue is with the original paper: Is the data the papers or the raters? And where might the source of errors be in either case?
1. If the papers are the “data”: Are the papers a truly random sample? If the papers were indeed taken from a random collection of weather/climate papers, were they controlled for the growth of hot topic grants, climate journals, date/decade of publish, and gate keeping? If not, then there is a potentially huge source of error here in terms of the papers not being a random sample and indeed are a biased sample.
2. Are the raters the “data”: Are the samplers a random group? Was there a control group? A better design would have been known skeptics, AGW proponents, and a mixed random control group. Given that raters would have many variables, one would have to increase the number of raters in each group in order to tighten down the results. Given the extreme risk of human error if the raters are the “data”, Cook does not use enough raters to justify any kind of statistical analysis that would lead to significance. It appears to me that the list of raters have known biases such that I believe their conclusions are biased and not based on solid metrics designed specifically to remove bias and that are well calibrated among several (IE more than three) scientists.
If the null hypothesis was rejected (and it was) but due to bias or poor design we have a paper that is potentially leading us down an expensive prim rose path based on dubious results. There is high risk of that actually being the case here. From its design, I can see that there is a huge potential for such a result. Cook’s paper should have been rejected in order to conservatively prevent such weak papers from being taken at face value by both the science community and policy makers. Or worse, having someone like Tol trying to put lipstick on a pig.
So, now that the consensus has been bounded between 91 and 97% isn’t it time drop the pseudo-skepticism and talk about how to best reduce ghg emissions?
Cook, et al being striped of all legitimacy is a welcome and deserved conclusion to this sordid affair. He has been striped right? If not, why not?
RustNeverSleeps (but can be eradicated with a good dose of acid)
Maybe you missed the words under the title of this Blog. Maybe you failed to notice that Anthony’s blogroll lists PRO AGW blogs along with LUKEWARMERS right there along with wackos and idiot blogs. (Hint…it means he offers a buffet instead of canned Spam every meal)
But surely Tol’s paper falls under the umbrella of “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology and recent news” to me. And surely, uncritically posting things and letting readers join in is part of a healthy and active debate atmosphere. Maybe that’s why today Alexa shows WUWT ranked globally and in the US so MUCH HIGHER than sites like SKS, or…what was your blog called again….?
Of course the Cook paper is bullshit without a shred of real evidence to support its conclusions. That is obvious from Cook’s refusal to share his data – not sharing is an ironclad guarantee of the falsity, or lack, or both, of data.
Unfortunately, there are still enough other liars still stroking him that the Liar-In-Chief will continue to repeat the lie. Showing him the Petition Project statement didn’t deter him from doing that, so why would Tol’s paper?
Rob,
Striped? Like a skunk?
And I think you have to be GIVEN legitimacy before it can all be stipped (or striped) from you. He was never given any….so it’s not possible to stip or stripe it from him. Right?
Strip, not stip. But as far as I know, you can’t stip it from him either.
Chad….just the mental image of anyone stroking John Cook for any reason makes me queasy. I need to go boil my mind’s eye now….shudder.
rustneversleeps says:
June 4, 2014 at 3:15 pm
Anthony,
“Can we get you on record, Anthony” WE????
Who do you represent? Who is we? Is this a new handle? Haven’t seen it before but you say you are familiar with this blog. Do you normally just lurk? Why are you hiding? What are you hiding?
Why can’t you use your name? Or the group you are representing? A lot of people here use real names. You can find more about me than you care to know, along with a lot of other folks here using real names.
If you are afraid to use your real name, why? If you are afraid to say who “We” is, why? Or did you mean all the readers of this blog? If you did, you are very wrong.
Note how people can go back and look at posts from the past here. Can you do that where you live?
Shoot. I should know better than to feed a troll, but I am really curious about what seems to be rancour in your posts. Did you just have a bad day?
Given that this subject has been so widely discussed, I wonder why you (and me) are even bothering to post about it.
Have a good evening. Score in the hockey game is tied at 2 each. Is that relevant to CAGW at the moment? Might be. They are skating on ice. 😏
Thanks all those that provide critical comments on the subjects presented on this blog. You continue to educate and it is much appreciated. Also the fact that much of the discussion is multi-faceted with many differing views without censorship. The fact that “rustneversleeps” and others are allowed to question even the motives of the blog owner, in public, for all to see, shows everyone what a great blog this is.
Thank you AW.
Wayne Delbeke.
Felix says:
June 4, 2014 at 6:24 pm
So, now that the consensus has been bounded between 91 and 97% isn’t it time drop the pseudo-skepticism and talk about how to best reduce ghg emissions?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And that folks, right there, is why Tol’s paper is unfortunate. It doesn’t debunk Cook et al as much as it reinforces it as being mostly correct.
Worse, it distracts from the actual issue. How much warming and how much impact? Cost of mitigation versus adaptation. These are the issues we should be considering, and if papers were evaluated on those factors alone, not only would there be no consensus, even if the publication list was reduced to papers referenced by IPCC AR5, there still wouldn’t be a consensus.
AGW increased rate of warming theory depends on increased water vapor creating ever increasing downwelling trapped longwave infrared radiation. Right now, in the high desert area of NE Oregon we have 13% humidity with a cold front coming in by Monday bringing even dryer air. Good god! The air NOW is bone dry and the soil, plus whatever dried matter is poking out of it, is bone dry. And this with the advantage of having a coal fired electricity plant just outside of Hermiston and potato storage units pumping CO2 into the air.
What I want to know is just exactly when will this water vapor driven warming, that 97% of scientists agree on, begin? My nearly 58 year old face could use some fricken moisture!!!!!
rustneversleeps says:
June 4, 2014 at 3:52 pm
If you have criticisms of Tol’s math, why are you not stating them? We are here to offer arguments and to respond to arguments. If you offer no specific argument then you will get no response.
@Theo
“If you have criticisms of Tol’s math, why are you not stating them? We are here to offer arguments and to respond to arguments. If you offer no specific argument then you will get no response.”
Well that’s not how the game is played. I have some friends who believe very strange things. One is an animal rights advocate. It’s futile to ask for rational discourse. I.e., why is wool bad? Why is it wrong to own pets? Even asking such questions is insulting to them. It’s a moral issue, not a rational one.
Apparently Dr. Tol will assist Mark Steyn and his lawyers in attempting to take down Michael Mann?
Steny writes,
“so it seems to me this is an excellent time to get on with the broader campaign against the climate mullahs. Aside from the best free-speech legal team in the land, we’ve now taken on someone to direct this side of the investigation against Mann. He’s already working full-time on the case – he was in Washington yesterday for the Congressional hearings on the IPCC, and meeting with climate scientists and others. He’ll also be heading to Penn State and other places hither and yon.”
http://www.steynonline.com/6384/the-climate-of-fear
Wayne Delbeke says:
June 4, 2014 at 7:06 pm
rustneversleeps says:
June 4, 2014 at 3:15 pm
Anthony,
“Can we get you on record, Anthony” WE????
The Royal ‘WE’. As in ‘WE’ are not amused. 😉
rustneversleeps says:
June 4, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Have a good evening, all. I am going to watch the New York Rangers – L.A. Kings game, but may find time to visit.
You will have to ban that sort of activity to achieve your anthropogenic CO2 emissions reduction target. At least you are not flying there, I presume.
I got the paper through my alumni. A lot of this earlier paper is similar.
http://www.realsceptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/consensus5.pdf?22283a
The Intro is different now, and it has tons of links to the papers referenced:
Jake, Pamela… I didn’t have any paywall issues, and I never visited the journal before. Might have something to do with the link Tol provided in Twitter being different, and it unlocked it for me. But can’t find it now. And, at home on different machine, I’m now blocked from reading the full paper.
So, must have been Tol’s link that had some unlock code on it, because I read the entire thing.
I completely smpathize with your predicament, having beaten more than a few calluses into my forehead over the years when trying to figure out some obscure computer fustercluck.
I disagree with the only way to stabilize CO2’s atmospheric concentration to zero being reducing emissions to 0. It will find its own balance, just as it did in the past. I don’t know what the mechanism was, but the planet apparently has one.
@rustynuts
Peer reviewed papers are given a grace period before full analysis, no? Thousands of peer reviewed papers have been written about in the press as soon as they’re published – never heard anyone saying, ‘hold on let’s check the math before we give this legitimacy’..
Maybe, I am unique in having read 40 of Cook’s papers, deliberately chosen at random and wasting several hours of my life.
None of these papers came close to endorsing the idea that global warming/climate change were caused by the activities of man.
However, just over half – presumably to get research funding – made comments like “if global warming occurs, then the habitat of the rare spotted blue moth could be in peril”. Otherwise the references to global warming/climate change were obscure or non-existent.
I am quite happy to say, and without a moment’s hesitation, that the findings and conclusions of Cook’s paper are complete and utter BS.
What’s the point? In addition to the fact that AGW is defined by AGW-scam researchers as an increase in CO2 200 years after a temperature increase, glaciers that started melting around 1900, etc, there’s the big smelly elephant in the room that non-AGW-scam supporters aren’t getting grants and aren’t getting published, and have been increasingly censored for years, so their numbers have been intentionally reduced by AGW-scammers. It seems to me that censorship of non-AGW papers could even skew the results produced by volunteer AGW-scam volunteers reading abstracts that don’t include the fact that the temperature increased 200 years before CO2, since negative feedback is science, secondary to political-correctness..
Why is PR-man Cook involved in climate science – is the fact that it needs to be sold another elephant?
Consensus has no place in physical science. Physical science that predicts results that have no correlation with observations isn’t science – its garbage.
The sole major survey of the opinions of physical scientists on AGW is the Petition Project, and if 97% of the signatures were invalid, it would still represent 2X the number of Cook’s cherry-picked abstracts supposedly supporting AGW.
If Cook wanted a survey of scientists, rather than propaganda, why not contact the physical scientists whose names are scrolling on the Petition Project website to verify their identify, videotape their responses, and post the videos on Youtube – even without soliciting additional signatures.
We’ve been playing this game for nearly a quarter century, with no appreciable change in policy other than increasingly falsified data, increased secrecy and destruction of records, claims fincreasingly disconnected from reality, increased geo-engineering, and increased censorship.
Rothschilds own geoengineering corporations and the Weather Channel.
Can we call it game over and maybe start studying real environmental issues?