While the journal still has not released the Supplementary information (SI) file for the Harvey et al. paper, viewable here. I have a copy of the SI here that lists the blogs used (45 on each side of the issue) and the methodology. After some prodding on his blog and on Twitter, co-author Bart Verheggen released it.
I offer it here in full for analysis and commentary, without comment of my own. That will come later. A PDF of it is also available, see the bottom of this post – Anthony
Supplementary information (Harvey et al. 2017)
Blogs used for this study.
A total of 90 blogs discussing AGW, and both Arctic ice extent and polar bears were found on the internet using the Google search engine, although some were already known to the first author. The internal search engines of the found blogs and site-restricted Google searches were used to evaluate blog content and score their positions on six statements as described in the main manuscript. Citation of Susan Crockford was also recorded. Blogs were assigned ‘science-based’ and ‘denier’ categories on the basis of their positions taken relative to those drawn by the IPCC on global warming (e.g. whether it is warming or not and the anthropogenic contribution). The assignment was confirmed by creating a distance matrix from the scores using absolute distance (Manhattan distance) and performing a hierarchical cluster analysis on the result (Ward.D2 method from R 3.3.3, R Core Team, 2017). Both methods yielded two large clusters with identical content. Some blogs expressed positive responses to multiple questions (e.g. Arctic ice is declining but it is due to natural forcings) therefore the total number of hits for a statement can be larger than the total number of blogs in a category. Blog entries until June 20, 2017 were used.
AGW supporting science-based blogs used for Figures 1 and 2.
A Walk On The Natural Side (http://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.nl)
Advocacy for Animals (http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/)
Carbonbrief (http://www.carbonbrief.org/)
Churchill Polar Bears (http://churchillpolarbears.org/)
Climate Change: The Next Generation (http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.nl) Climate Feedback (http://blogs.nature.com/)
Climate Plus (http://www.climateplus.info/)
Climate Science Watch (http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/)
Cool Green Science (http://blog.nature.org/science/)
David Suzuki Foundation (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/)
Defenders of Wildlife (http://www.defenders.org/)
Discovery Kids (http://discoverykids.com/)
Deep Climate (http://deepclimate.org/)
Dot Earth (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/)
EcoInternet (http://ecointernet.org/)
Encounters Alaska (http://www.encountersnorth.org/index.htm)
Frontiersnorth (https://frontiersnorth.com/blog/)
Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/)
GO3 Project (http://www.go3project.com/)
Greendustries Blog (http://greendustriesblog.com/)
GreenFacts (https://www.greenfacts.org/)
Grist (http://grist.org/)
Heat is Online (http://www.heatisonline.org/)
National Wildlife Federation (http://www.nwf.org/)
Phys Org (http://phys.org/)
Planet 3.0 (http://planet3.org/)
PLoS Blogs (http://blogs.plos.org/models/)
Polar Bears International (http://www.polarbearsinternational.org)
Scholar and Rogues (https://scholarsandrogues.com/)
ScienceDaily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/)
Scientific American Blog (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/)
Skeptical Science: https://www.skepticalscience.com/
The Corkboard Blog (http://naturalexposures.com/)
The Frog That Jumped Out (http://thefrogthatjumpedout.blogspot.nl/)
TheGreenGrok (http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/)
The Way Things Break (https://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/) Thin Ice Blog (http://arctic.blogs.panda.org/)
Think Progress (http://thinkprogress.org/)
Tom Dispatch (http://www.tomdispatch.com/)
UMass Blog (https://www.umass.edu/it/blogs)
Wildscreen Arkive (http://www.arkive.org/)
World Wildlife Fund Canada (http://www.wwf.ca/)
Yale Climate Connections (http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/)
Yale Environment 360 (http://e360.yale.edu/)
York Blog (http://www.yorkblog.com/)
AGW denying blogs used for Figures 1 and 2.
Blog entries until February 3, 2017 were used (all accessed on 3 February, 2017 along with blog histories). Blogs marked with an asterisk refer to those primarily using the Polar Bear Science blog (of Dr. Susan Crockford) as their main supporting reference.
*American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/)
*Bishop Hill (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/)
Bjorn Lomborg (http://www.lomborg.com/)
*Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/)
*Climate Change Dispatch (http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/)
*Climate Depot (http://www.climatedepot.com/)
*C Fact (http://www.cfact.org/)
*Climategate (http://climategate.nl/)
*Climate Lessons (http://climatelessons.blogspot.nl/)
Climate Sanity (https://climatesanity.wordpress.com/)
*Climatism (https://climatism.wordpress.com/)
C02 coalition (http://co2coalition.org/)
*Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/)
*Fix This Nation (http://www.fixthisnation.com/)
*Friends of Science (http://www.friendsofscience.org/)
*Gateway Pundit (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/)
*Global Climate Science Scam (http://www.globalclimatescam.com/)
*Greenie Watch (http://antigreen.blogspot.nl/)
*GWPF (http://www.thegwpf.org/)
*Hockey Schtick (http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.nl/)
*Ice Age Now (https://www.iceagenow.com/)
*International Climate Science Coalition (http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/)
*Junkscience (http://junkscience.com/)
Jennifer Marohasy (http://jennifermarohasy.com/)
New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (http://www.climatescience.org.nz/)
*No Frakking Consensus (http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/)
*Not a lot of people know that (https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/)
*Notrickszone (http://notrickszone.com/)
*Polar Bear Science (http://polarbearscience.com/)
*Powerline (http://www.powerlineblog.com/)
*Principia Scientific (http://www.principia-scientific.org/)
*Quixotes Last Stand (https://quixoteslaststand.com/)
Real Science (https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/)
Resilient Earth (http://theresilientearth.com/)
Scottish Sceptic (http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/)
Skeptic’s Corner: http://jer-skepticscorner.blogspot.nl/)
*SPPI (http://sppiblog.org/)
*Tall Bloke (https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/)
*The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/
The Rational Optimist (http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/)
* The View From Here (https://hro001.wordpress.com/)
*Tom Nelson (http://tomnelson.blogspot.nl/)
*Tom Remington (http://tomremington.com/)
*Watts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/)
World Climate Report (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/)
Methods for the Principal component analysis (PCA, Figure 2)
A broad keyword search on the internet and the ISI Web of Science database yielded 90 blogs (described above) and 92 peer reviewed papers reporting on both Polar bears and arctic ice. Author’s positions in papers were scored in in same “position space” defined by binary answers to the six statements formulated in the main papers and citation of Dr. Susan Crockford as an expert. Missing values were replaced by zero after scaling and centering to minimize the influence of the replacement. The final data matrix contained the sources in the rows and the scores in the columns. The PCA was conducted using the prcomp routine from R
3.3.3 (R Core Team, 2017). Papers were classified as controversial when they evoked critical comments and discussion in the peer reviewed literature., blogs were colour coded using the results of a hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward.D2 method from R 3.3.3, R Core Team, 2017). Datapoint were slightly jittered to improve visibility of overlapping points.
R Core Team (2017). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.
References used to generate the PCA.
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Amstrup SC, DeWeaver ET, Douglas DC, Marcot BG, Durner GM, Bitz CM, Bailey DA.
2010. Greenhouse gas mitigation can reduce sea-ice loss and increase polar bear persistence. Nature 468: 955-958.
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Andersen M, Aars J. 2016. Barents Sea polar bears (Ursus maritimus): population biology and anthropogenic threats. Polar Research 35 (art. 26029).
Armstrong JS, Green KC, Soon W. 2008. Polar bear population forecasts: A public-policy forecasting audit. Interfaces 38: 382-405.
Atwood TC, Marcot BG, Douglas DC, Amstrup SC, Rode KD, Durner GM, Bromaghin JF. 2016. Forecasting the relative influence of environmental and anthropogenic stressors on polar bears. Ecosphere 7: e01370.
Bajzak C, Bernhardt W, Mosnier A, Hammill M, Stirling I. 2013. Habitat use by harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) in a seasonally ice-covered region, the western Hudson Bay. Polar Biology 36: 477-491.
Bromaghin JF, McDonald TL, Stirling I, Derocher AE, Richardson ES, Regehr EV, Douglas DC, Durner GM, Atwood T, Amstrup SC. 2015. Polar bear population dynamics in the southern Beaufort Sea during a period of sea ice decline. Ecological Applications 25:634- 651.
Castro de la Guardia L, Derocher AE, Myers PG, Terwisscha van Scheltinga AD, Lunn NJ. 2013. Future sea ice conditions in Western Hudson Bay and consequences for polar bears in the 21st century. Global Change Biology 19:2675-2687.
Chambellant M, Stirling I, Ferguson SH. 2013. Temporal variation in western Hudson Bay ringed seal Phoca hispida diet in relation to environment. Marine Ecology Progress Series 481: 269-287.
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Derocher AE, Andersen M, Wiig Ø, Aars J, Hansen E, Biuw M. 2011. Sea ice and polar bear den ecology at Hopen Island, Svalbard. Marine Ecology Progress Series 441: 273-279.
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Fischbach AS, Amstrup SC, Douglas DC. 2007. Landward and eastward shift of Alaskan polar bear denning associated with recent sea ice changes. Polar Biology 30: 1395-1405.
Galicia MP, Thiemann GW, Dyck MG, Ferguson SH, Higdon JW. 2016. Dietary habits of polar bears in Foxe Basin, Canada: possible evidence of a trophic regime shift mediated by a new top predator. Ecology and Evolution 6: 6005-6018.
Gormezano LJ, Rockwell RF. 2013. What to eat now? Shifts in polar bear diet during the ice-‐free season in western Hudson Bay. Ecology and Evolution 3: 3509-3523.
Hamilton SG, Castro de la Guardia L, Derocher AE, Sahanatien V, Tremblay B, Huard D.
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Hobson KA, Stirling I, Andriashek DS. 2009. Isotopic homogeneity of breath CO2 from fasting and berry-eating polar bears: implications for tracing reliance on terrestrial foods in a changing Arctic. Canadian Journal of Zoology 87: 50-55.
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Laidre KL, Born EW, Heagerty P, Wiig Ø, Stern H, Dietz R, Aars J, Andersen M. 2015.
Shifts in female polar bear (Ursus maritimus) habitat use in East Greenland. Polar Biology 38: 879–893.
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A PDF of this SI: harvey-et-al-bioscience-2017-supplementary-information
UPDATE: Dr. Richard Tol advises in comments that the data from Harvey et al. is now available, here: http://datadryad.org/resource/doi:10.5061/dryad.v652r
Also, some formatting corrections were made to this post, to fix double spaces and line doubling in the list of websites, which were artifacts of the PDF to HTML conversion. – Anthony
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As many have pointed out, the lack of actual science and extremely obvious bias in this paper is obvious evidence of the lengths the CAGW ™ cabal will go to in order to discredit any view that challenges their beloved consensus.
What I think it’s more telling, however, is the almost revered acceptance of papers like this and the various ‘consensus’ papers (97%, anyone?) by anyone holding a left-leaning political view. I have seen almost no critical thinking of analysis from even well-educated and intelligent people. I’m sure the MSM is partly, or possible mainly, to blame, but this is my main observation and the cause of my deep worry about the whole CAGW ™ fiasco.
I despair for humanity if this continues. Global Governance will likely ensure, and humanity will be damned to be ruled by idiots like the authors, reviewers and publishers of papers like these.
This has got to hurt, no wonder the crescendo is increasing.
Delingpole: #Winning – Grant Applications for ‘Climate Change’ down 40 Percent
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/05/delingpole-winning-grant-applications-for-climate-change-down-40-percent/
I spent about one month on gregladen,com, debating
Professor Jeff Harvey and his fellow radical, Enviro bots.
They had a number of common traits.
1) you were always wrong
2) profanity
3) ad hominem attacks
4) your references are racists and hatemongers
5) the academic credential were insufficient to dispute AGW
6) you are a denier
7) attack your religiosity
8) disdain for free enterprise and Conservatives
Comments then can under moderation and links were
censored and removed by site owner, Greg Laden.
Just denounce their deity, Al “I want to be something” Gore
and they will hate and despise, until the end time.
When you ask them for a solution (yes, there is AGW how
do we fix it) it fell on deaf ears.
They are full of themselves, especially Professor Harvey, a
bonafide elitist of the first order.
They are doomers; no joy in their hearts; bitter to the
core; lacking any sense of humor and arrogant to
the point of contempt.
It is no wonder, that public opinion has turned
on this Enviro tribe.
Over on Twitter, Lonny Eachus spotted this:
“Author’s positions in papers were scored in in same “position space” defined by binary answers to the six statements formulated in the main papers and citation of Dr. Susan Crockford as an expert.”
This is backed-up by the data: Citing Crockford is indeed a perfect predictor of being labelled with the D-word.
Circular logic. The paper assumes that C implies D, and concludes that D implies C.
More generally, the “consensus” tends to cite only a subset of all the facts. Those doubtful or suspicious of the consensus tend to cite the “unhelpful” facts. It ain’t rocket science.
“Circular logic. The paper assumes that C implies D, and concludes that D implies C.”
That’s actually what’s called “affirming the consequent” or “modus ponens”.
Hear, hear!
The data reveal another problem. There are not 6 statements. There are only 2.
The first three statements are about the ice, and mutually exclusive. That is, there is a perfect negative correlation.
The last three statements are about the bears, and mutually exclusive.
A PCA is therefore pointless. The fact that the first two components explain only 91.5% of the variance is due to the noise introduced by the faulty treatment of the missing observations.
RT, more evidence that Mann oversaw the PCA. He is in a class by himself when it comes to PCA competency, as McIntyre has repeatedly shown.
It might be a good idea to point this out to the Journal and suggest a correction or retraction. Yes I know it won’t be published, but you could then publish it and embarrass the Journal.
Mikie Mann is dangerous with a Principal component Analysis methodology. Hockey sticks, Antarctic warming and now proof that the skeptic blogosphere is a concerted conspiracy on his whited sepulchre are conjured out of his febrile imagination. Giving Mann a PCA package is like giving a climate communication psychologist a stats package or giving a gun to a serial killer. The good news is that sometimes they shoot themselves in the foot – hopefully the one that is in their mouths
‘Man Proposes, God Disposes’, Edwin Landseer (the mast was added as a reference to Sir John Franklin’s failed expedition to find the North West Passage in 1845). Polar bears tearing at a Red Ensign and human remains. (Red Ensign wasn’t used by Royal Navy in 1845 so a possible blooper by Landseer.)
My research suggest 1864 was the date that the R.N. stopped using red or blue ensigns as well as white ensigns. The choice of the colour depended on the naval squadron and/or seniority of the commanding admiral.
Thanks, the perils of ‘Wiki’! Shows what’s great about this site.
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb-enshs.html#red
And yet it continues to abruptly melt.
Interestingly, sea ice melted more during most of the last 10,000 years, with recent melting only slightly less advanced than during the Little Ice Age. How did those polar bears survive for millennia with so much less ice?
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Arctic-Sea-Ice-Holocene-Stein-17.jpg
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Holocene-Arctic-Sea-Ice-Changes-Chukchi-Sea-Yamamoto-2017.jpg
Actually it decreased up to 2007, for the last decade it has been virtually unchanged.
DATA says you are , as always, mistaken. Mc Clod
in summertime.
As stated in the research, Crockford is not cited as an author of any of the papers that actual deal with polar bears.
People tend not to cite authors who disagree with them unless their paper is intended on rebutting their arguments. That’s why you end up with scientific consensus, mutual cross-referencing, self-referencing and “pal” review.
Science only moves on when some new kid points out the emperor has no clothes. Or the old guard retire and/or die. Science progresses one funeral at a time.
Its just human nature. No-one likes to admit they were wrong.
Crockford is not a polar bear specialist, but is an expert in related fields. She has read all the relevant polar bear “literature,” I assume. Thus, she is in a position to make informed criticism. It’s common wisdom that it’s not uncommon for scientists outside a specialty to provide worthwhile input and a fresh viewpoint..
PS: Therefore, it was not necessarily a weighty objection to say, “She’s an outsider.” It depends. That should have been obvious to Harvey et al..
As for her not publishing in “the literature,” maybe that’s the fault of the literature.
“ Blogs were assigned ‘science-based’ and ‘denier’ categories on the basis of their positions taken relative to those drawn by the IPCC on global warming “.
Astounding, absolutely astounding. And written with, apparently, no trace of irony.
You can smell the fear and desperation even on this side of the pond. And the sound of warmists shooting themselves in the foot is echoing around the world. THIS is peer-reviewed science ?!
A toe-curlingly embarrassing document.
This is funny 😂.
The free peoples of the world know how to deal with fasc1sts including the eco- type.
Bring it on!
They will come to a sticky end in Russia 🇷🇺 .
Anthony/Moderator ==> i like the new “Leave a reply…” intro statement…. kh
Some of those ‘denial’ sites aren’t climate blogs. American Thinker for example.
I don’t think Breitbart is a climate blog either.
Not being a scientist by any stretch, I do notice some names in the CAGW list: references used in the PCA. In fact, a quick counting: Armstrup, SC mentioned in 19 papers; Stirling, I, in 27, Douglas, DC., IN 4 and Derocher, AE., IN 22 papers. Now I do understand that these so called scientists are mostly blabbering about their own field, but it seems to me that if one reads, eg, Derocher, it would be immediately obvious to cognoscenti on which side of the CAGW fence he was sitting. What were they thinking? Citing their own work or of their students almost exclusively?
And these are “revered scientists?”
Hang in there, Dr. Susan. Liked your ” Eaten ” very much.
Its clear that Crockford loves Polar bears and would give a lot to see them prosper. I will concede that the greens also have an equal ambition
But..she conducts herself in an exemplary fashion, they seem to me to be a seedy bunch
Have been discussing this at ATTP’s
Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial
Jeffrey A. Harvey Daphne van den Berg Jacintha Ellers Remko Kampen Thomas W. Crowther Peter Roessingh Bart Verheggen Rascha J. M. Nuijten Eric Post Stephan Lewandowsky Ian Stirling Meena Balgopal Steven C. Amstrup Michael E. Mann.
–
A star studded line up to attack one person, or should I say woman?
Yes. Why not, it is late 2017 after all. I guess they did the paper before Harvey.
They need to attach her.
Ragnaar says:
“I Googled this: population polar bears Crockford gets hits 2, 3 and 4.”
–
For what it is worth I totally agree with Joshua and Steven on this in their first comments.
–
The paper is a statement of the obvious. If AGW, ice all melts and polar bears die. Logic impeccable for warmists.
However, If AGW is denied, if ice melt is denied, then polar bears live. Logic impeccable for denialists.
–
Hence the problem, how many polar bear specialists are there? Like one does not get up real close and friendly like gorillas in the mist. How many reports on numbers are there and how reliable?
Ragnaar again
“There’s is a lack of data. I looked at a few maps, and there are large unknown areas.”
–
Then there is this
“A boatload of tourists in the far eastern Russian Arctic thought they were seeing clumps of ice on the shore, before the jaw-dropping realisation that some 200 polar bears were roaming on the mountain slope.”.
Perhaps it was fake news. Perhaps 1 litter of 200 babies was born in this area last year.
All I can think of is that if one extrapolates out 200 bears in 1 square kilometer then the number of Polar bears in the Arctic has been sadly and badly underestimated by everyone , including Dr S Crockford.
It is good to see Jeff Harvey put up his perspective on his paper at ATTP’s. Very well worth reading by anyone here who wants more input into the ideas behind the paper
A few comments for consideration
The article was never about the science.
It was about the *direction the planet is going in and how to save it.
Consequently the aim of the paper
–
[JH]“My final point. Our paper was about scientific transparency and integrity ”
“one of the major aims of the paper was to advise general readers not to take at face value what they read on blogs.”
was lost in the execution which resulted in
“Instead they accuse us of ad hominem smears of Susan Crockford and leave it at that. They can dish it out but can’t take it.”
This was the “insight” moment for me of his discussion
–
“[I] and the other authors had the courage to show that blogs which habitually dismiss climate change-related threats to polar bears do not refer to the primary literature but to a blogger that disagrees with the primary literature, and not through scientific journals but through her blog.”
–
Instead of dismissing a scientist as a mere blogger the intent of the article would have been best achieved by providing the data on Polar Bear numbers, distribution and time changes, real and known firstly extrapolated secondly and then addressing the scientist bloggers extrapolations and conclusions and scientifically, with transparency and clarity, proving her wrong.
Simple.
Can the paper be redone with this aim?
polar bears engendered species?
.
and close up
not likely
Polar bears are usually solitary animals, but here Rodney Russ, leader of the expedition estimated there were 230 of them, so if polar bears are engendered species where did they come from?
(photographed at Wrangel Island Nature Reserve)
Here is Professor Harvey response to the claim that
Polar bears are not suffering declining numbers.
http://gregladen.com/blog/2017/11/18/book-deals-including-al-gores-truth/
“November 20, 2017 at 2:55 pm
I must wade in here. I have been reading BB’s bilge for a few months now, and as utterly vile it all is, he reached new depths with his completely vacuous attack on Al Gore. Truth be told, Gore has more integrity in the fingernail of his left pinky than Donald Trump or any of his goons have in their whole bodies. Each of those memes he listed can be summarily quashed, but let’s focus on the Arctic and polar bear lies he spews as I have a paper coming out very soon which in part examines this. You will all know about it very soon.
There has been no ‘major refreezing’ in the Arctic; indeed by the end of this month ice extent there will in all likelihood be the 2nd lowest for this time of the year after 2016. As for polar bears, numbers are meaningless unless placed in the context of the age structure of the population, the per capita fitness of individual bears, and importantly the projected effects of a continuation in the seasonal decline of ice extent based on extrapolated trends. First of all, the age-structure of many of the populations is becoming skewed towards older animals; natality is down. Moreover, per capita fitness is reduced because the bears face multiple anthropogenic threats in addition to climate change. Bill’s kindergarten analysis ignores vital and relevant crteria such as tipping points, critical thresholds and temporal lags that are vital in order to understand the prognosis of warming on polar bears and other arctic species. Two analogies are appropriate: using Bill and other denier approaches is akin to saying that a patient with spreading cancer is fine because he or she has not shown any symptoms yet. Alternatively, its like asking someone who jumps off the top of a 100 story building how they are doing after falling 50 floors. The person might shout out ‘everything is fine!’ When it clearly isn’t. If the Arctic continues to shrink at the current 30-40 year rate over the coming decades, there are no ands, ifs or buts: polar bears will be in deep trouble.
There are thousands of other examples of the negative effects of warming on biodiversity. Bill’s sandbox level understanding of the field precludes him from being taken seriously. The rest of his first post was similar gibberish.”
Man exterminates pretty much any animal weighing more than 5 kg he comes close, unless he find some use of it in animal husbandry or as pet.
For that matter, polar bears are probably the LEAST concerned land mammal, just because men don’t care to live in polar region.
Wot! RealClimate didn’t make the cut?
I wonder if they should have weighted their results by the number of web hits each site gets? If the self-confirmation result wasn’t as expected, they could always try inverse weighting or bristle-cone pine weighting a la Mickey Mann.
It’s tells me a lot when I’m bookmarking this as a list of blogs I’ve got to have a read of and have zero interest in the paper.
When are journals going to start having a professional statistician on staff? Across so many fields the chicanery and incompetence are shocking.