Guest essay by Jim Steele
A recent survey conducted by Weather Central and George Mason University makes this claim: TV Weathercasters’ Views of Climate Change Appear to Be Rapidly Evolving
Meteorologists examine causes of weather change every day. They are the scientists most likely to understand when unusual weather extremes are weather or climate change. Thus they have been polled every year about climate change.
However most don’t respond. Basically three fourths of weather scientists choose NOT to get entangled in a political, non-scientific debate. In 2015 the response rate was 22%, just 32% in 2016 and in 2017 just 22%. And as true for most skeptics, most agreed climate change is happening. However the question is: What is the cause of that change?
Of 2017’s respondents, only 15% thought climate change was entirely due to humans, while 34% thought 60 to 80% could be attributed to human activity. However the survey did not separate human contributions to climate change from urbanization, deforestation, loss of wetlands or CO2 .
One fifth, or 21% thought changes were mostly or entirely natural while 8% admitted they just didn’t know.
So for ALL meteorologists surveyed only 11% actually claimed humans were mostly responsible for observed climate change: 22%(response) X 49% (attribution).
The survey was done by advocates of CO2 warming at ClimateCentral. Read it here:
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“Is the 97% climate consensus Fake News?”
Is it 2017?
Phonier than a 3.35 dollar bill.
Darn, I thought that $3.35 Obama-bill was too good to be true.
Fauxny
The Pope is definitely a Catholic and yet he believes in CAGW! Inconsistency seems to be endemic amongst the supporters of the CAGW faith!
The Pope also believes in sky ghosts, snakes that can talk, disease is caused by bad ghosts and not by microbial life and genetic defects, and that a sky ghost who is his own son needed to die and come back as a zombie to quell his own anger over defects in creatures he created.
With a puffed-up primate that stupid, of course he believes in the failed CAGW hypothesis !
97% is more like a North Korean election to me.
“97% is more like a North Korean election to me.”
Or the size of the “black vote” in certain parts of Alabama!
A fair number of skeptics would be loathe to answer such a poll, especially from a university with decidedly green sympathies. Promises of anonymity can be broken, particularly by those pursuing an agenda.
Would many meteorologists be working at university? Other than those who teach it, wouldn’t most of them be in the field, at weather bureaus, TV stations, etc.?
I’m really asking. I don’t know the exact answer to this.
Not sure if they would be in university or weather bureaus etc. but, it is more to the point that it is dangerous to hold contray views about climate change. Top French weather man fired over questioning climate change hype. http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/03/europe/france-weatherman-sacked-climate/index.html
Bearman, as bizarre as it seems, some people have to pledge belief in a human aggravated climate catastrophe to maintain job security. You have to echo the views of the folks who pay your bills, lest they cease doing so.
Pop Piasa on December 22, 2017 at 6:55 pm
Or you can have standards and stand up for them. But you live your life your way.
It would be very dangerous for a skeptic to respond to this survey. Therefore, the responses which were received represent a very unbalanced sample.
The wisest of those polled chose not to respond or say they had no opinion. A few had little or nothing to lose in their individual situations and they are well represented.
GMU is also a state university, so one might be able to get the info via FOIA requests. I am not sure if it would be possible to get names, but it would not surprise me if it were.
Like most greenies, GMU is full of it. They preach sustainability, then scheme to build on every inch of the campus. (Apparently, they are now setting their sights on the portion of campus that is mostly athletic fields with small stands of trees.) They “encourage” students to come up with ways that the campus can use “organic” treatments on the grass…while paying grounds crews to mow the lawns and remove the leaves with fossil fuel powered equipment. And of course, there is all the “free” swag that every university now hands out to students like candy. That is not having an environmental impact???
It is having an impact on students’ wallets (and/or their parents). The entire rise in college costs over the last two decades could probably be attributed to administration and “freebies”. And CO2. It can do anything.
They should ask for a figure and error bars. I would say it’s 60% anthropogenic, plus or minus 40%.
I recently watched a Jimmy Stewart film I had never seen before, called the Mortal Storm. It is of course a U.S. made pre-war (for the U.S.) film on the Third Reich. I advise all to watch it while Imagining the Science Professor in the movie (Frank Morgan) a climate skeptic as the world around him turns toward climate activism. It will turn historical fiction into a horror movie for you.
Today, the Government and our Universities are indoctrinating our children to be jack booted thugs. Don’t kid yourselves we are losing the war for the minds of millennials.
Re: Indocrination of our youth.
Yes Bill. The last Climate conversation I had with my 14 yr. old grandson revealed that I was talking to a parrot. Somehow his curiosity had been blanked off; but maybe I was a bit boring. Who knows?
Perhaps someone could poll retired meteorologists…
I think this quote by Samuel Butler covers many who didn’t respond to this,
“He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still”
They keep their opinions to themselves as they work in the media or are surrounded by “true believers”
James Bull
8% don’t know. Bravo! Brava! The lack of certainty is refreshing.
The number of non responses is replicated in most of these surveys.
Even Cook et al in trying to fabricate a consensus had a low response rate to follow up emails.
Whilst I’d agree that it may indicate a reluctance to get involved in the pseudo science political debate, there needs to be a clearer acknowledgement admitted that they simply don’t know the cause of climate change.
“Pretending” to know damages their credibility more than any admission of not knowing would.
Also I think it’s well time that any references to a 97% consensus is dropped.
We 100% know it doesn’t exist and dragging it up and mentioning it again only serves to promote it. If it has to be mentioned, preface it with the word “Fake”.
Because that’s what it is.
Well,,that did not go the way Climate Central hoped. Nice post, Jim Steele.
Rhetorical question. Who replied that climate change was eniterly human caused?
Probably all 37 that WIKI utilizes as their 97.1% scientist survey
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change
Wankerpedia is full of felgercarb.
Michael Mann’s hockey stick infers that…
Reg: Hope you and your family have a great Xmas and New Year…
Dill
Does a weather scientist become a climate scientist before or after he becomes infallible? A rhetorical question
The 6 or so “Weathercasters” that I see here in So. Cal. , seem to be hired for their lovely Feminine faces and figures, as well as their clingy, revealing, wardrobes.
They don’t seem to have many Diplomas posed on the walls behind them.
You are lucky. Up nort they wear Carharts and snowmobile boots.
Polls don’t mean much to me, but that is because too many of my friends (and myself) intentionally answer them in as chaotic a manner as possible. For instance, being a lifetime liberal and Democrat, but loving the positive things Trump is accomplishing. Believing in AGW but thinking the IPCC is full of BS. You get the picture.
The pollsters will often pick and choose to get the answers they want (see Naomi Oreskes for a perfect example). Why make their job easy? On a scale of 1 – 10, I always use 1 and 10, but chaotically.
I just don’t believe in polls, and hate having so many phone calls/emails to get my opinion. This is payback.
At least they tried asking some quantitatively better questions than the usual polls. That is a huge improvement, and indicates that the people setting the questions are a step above the usual political morons. But why 60-80%?
“Is the 97% climate consensus Fake News?” Yes. Next stupid question, please.
Why should a meteorologist be expected to know more than a PhD in engineering who has studied the facts and theories (or lack thereof)?
https://www.gooduniversitiesguide.com.au/careers-guide/browse/meteorologist
“To become a meteorologist you usually have to study atmospheric science, mathematical and computer sciences, mathematics and statistics, ocean and climate sciences or physics at university.”
You’re not confusing a meteorologist with a weather presenter are you?
Its easy to do, just ask Jim Steele.
So much for the common view of education at the bottom of the globe.
Would explain why you can’t, tony.
Can’t what?
Since the alleged “97% consensus” was confirmed with a scientific survey, WHERE ARE THE NAMES OF THE 97%?
If people in general understood how tenuous the determination of the 97% actually was, we’d all have one hell of a good laugh.
WE NEED TO DEMAND TO SEE THE NAMES OF THE 97%.
Similar results have been reported previously.
This is from:
Verheggen, Bart, et al. “Scientists’ views about attribution of global warming.” Environmental science & technology 48.16 (2014): 8963-8971.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es501998e
6500 climate scientists were asked. 29% responded. 66% thought anthropogenic GHGs contributed more than half to global warming. Only 17% supported the IPCC view that anthropogenic GHGs are responsible for >100% of observed warming (all observed warming plus more, compensated by cooling from anthropogenic aerosols).
Considering the intense professional pressure to conform, that they only get two out of three is pretty damning.
Those that didn’t respond know Alarmist Climate Change is a scam but are keeping their mouth shut to avoid the Progressive hate machine.
There is a strong incentive to keep your head down and mouth shut at universities right now if you do not hold the Progressive’s world views.
Assigning an opinion to those that do not respond is obviously wrong. Those polls responses are anonymous.
From the abstract of http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es501998e :
Consistent with other research, we found that, as the level of expertise in climate science grew, so too did the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming.
That’s bullshit. Those that support the dominant paradigm, and belong to the gatekeepers circles publish a lot more than those who don’t.
Once you prove the 97% meme is fake, then the 66% turns into the ones that are better. That is also fake. Better at receiving grants and publishing consensus papers with little science in them.
In the end only one thing matters in science. Being right. And paraphrasing Einstein, it doesn’t matter how many they are. One with the right demonstration would suffice. After four decades and huge amounts of money it can only be described as complete failure to prove their thesis. We have no better idea of the effect of doubling CO₂ on climate than when it all started.
“as the level of expertise in climate science grew”
roflmao..
If their expertise grew, how come that are still stuck with the same huge range or error/uncertainty in their wonky climate models.
No, what has happened is that they have become more and more anti-science and fixed in the original errors
They CANNOT progress towards reality, because the “meme” won’t let them.
The correct correlation is: the more their livelihoods depend on their agreement with the CAGW ideology, the greater said “agreement” is.
Of course it helps that most journals publishing papers which are worded to confirm the AGW hypothesis will often (97% of the time) refuse to publish papers which refute it
LOL, “experts in climate science”.
A biologist who studies the affects on wildlife of a drought here, or a flood there, and then looks at the WRONG climate models and says how bad it will be in the future, is NOT an expert in ” climate science”. He studies attribution, not causation. He is happy to collect a salary and future grants. He is NOT a climate scientist.
Also, all consensus studies FAIL to even state if the anthropogenic warming will be good or bad, or at what point said warming hypothetical negative affects will overcome the KNOWN benefits.only the “Oregon Petition” spoke to the good or bad consequences of human CO2 emissions. It states that the affects are overwhelmingly good.
Huh?
You mean Hansen didn’t know it all back then? He seemed so certain.
You mean that all those climate model projections that observations have proven to be wrong are (or will be) right … eventually? They just need a few more trillion dollars?
PS Did Mann answer the survey? Did Dr. Spencer? Did Dr. Christy? Dr. Ball? Pielke? Curry?
And just what are the names on the mailing list?
tony sez…
“90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming.”
IOW, those who “explicitly agreed” published more papers. Of course, in Jones’ and Trenberth’s “re-defined peer review process” (of papers AND grant proposals) world, that would be expected.
Javier
December 23, 2017 at 1:14 am
Actually we do have a better idea of ECS now than in 1979, but IPCC dare not lower its central estimate from 3.0 degrees C to 1.5, where it belongs.
@Javier, indeed it IS bullshit.
@Tony, here I fixed it for you.
“…as the level of indoctrination in climate pseudo-science group-think grew, so too did the level of conformity to the “party line” of anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related pal-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents or FIFTEEN percent – of an incomplete sample to begin with, IOW a whopping wee bit shy of the “97%” meme), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming, since that supports their egos, reputations among goose-stepping colleagues, careers, and incomes, and despite the complete lack of empirical evidence to support such conclusions.
It’s been fake news since they had to cull 83% of the names from it to maintain the 97% consensus.
From the article: “Basically three fourths of weather scientists choose NOT to get entangled in a political, non-scientific debate. In 2015 the response rate was 22%, just 32% in 2016 and in 2017 just 22%. And as true for most skeptics, most agreed climate change is happening.”
The climate changes continually and has done so since the beginning of time. It did so before humans were on the Earth, so saying the climate is changing is stating the obvious, and does not point to a connection with humans.
This is the kind of confusion we get when the Alarmist buzz words were changed from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change”, and this is the kind of confusion that was meant to be created by the promoters of human-caused Global Warming. If they call it Climate Change instead of Global Warming then they can apply CAGW to any change in the climate, no matter how transient. And they do. Without any supporting evidence.
Agreeing that the Climate changes is like agreeing that the Sun comes up every morning. It means nothing as far as human-caused Global Warming is concerned.
The phrase “Climate Change” is a trick to muddy the waters when used by Alarmists.
Don’t let facts get in your way…
Gilbert Plass’ ‘The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change’. 1956
Barrett and Gast published a letter in Science in 1971 entitled simply ‘Climate Change’.
The journal ‘Climatic Change’ was created in 1977 (and is still published today).
The IPCC was formed in 1988, and of course the ‘CC’ is ‘climate change’, not ‘global warming’.
“Climate Change” is a trick to muddy the waters when used by Alarmists”…
is a figment.
WOW…85000 hits
How many hits does WUWT have?
Let me scroll up and take a look
……………
337,581,780 as of 11:00pm PST Friday Dec 22
AND
46,746 followers
i think you missed the point Bryan.
Tony, you made NO meaningful point !!
You rarely do. !
tony mcleod on December 23, 2017 at 12:05 am
i think you missed the point Bryan
What? That you intrinsically believe the IPCC (no matter how many times their “predictions” don’t come to pass)? I think we know that.
We believe they are a lying Marxist cult bent on world domination, and that you are useful to them. At least we are honest.
Tony, you cited word for word, but you forgot the link:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming.htm
@Tonly Mc: I believe Tony that you were responding to TA’s statement:
“Agreeing that the Climate changes is like agreeing that the Sun comes up every morning. It means nothing as far as human-caused Global Warming is concerned.
The phrase “Climate Change” is a trick to muddy the waters when used by Alarmists.”
*************
Judging from your comment in response, it appears YOU are the one who does not understand what TA was saying.
What I believe TA was saying there was that a changing climate IS NOT the issue. Skeptics do not deny that the climate changes. Referring to them as ‘climate change deniers’ is a deceptive misrepresentation of their position and what they are saying.
The real issue, which you seem to not understand, is what the climate’s sensitivity to the GHGE of CO2 and other such gases is. Their is also an issue of how much of the CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere actually comes from humans and how much of it comes from Nature. That is why using the term ‘climate change’ when debating this issue and using it in reference to skeptics (along with the word ‘deniers’) is muddying the waters, as TA puts it.
To the best of my knowledge, even the alarmist scientists do not know for sure what the sensitivity and human contributions are. That is why referring to CAGW as a settled issue is a flat out lie. There is no settled science when these questions remain to be answered.
“human contributions are”
Can be calculated knowing what fossil has been burned.
Given that the carbon cycle should be in equiibrium…
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-crazy-scale-of-human-carbon-emission/
@Toneb: Thanks for your reply to my comment. I was thinking though in terms of what percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere we humans are responsible for. Maybe 50%? 75%? Do we really know?
Very unlikely for the carbon cycle to always be in equilibrium. Ocean circulation alone is a 1000 year cycle.
ToneB, I think that this is the great flaw in CC thinking. It has been assumed as fact that such a thing a “balance” exists. It doesn’t. The natural world is always modifying and changing and has never been in equilibrium.
This false belief in “the balance of nature” leads to the idea that any and all change is therefore “unnatural” and must be caused by man. Hence the panic.
Once a person sees that nature is not ever in equilibrium and is constantly changing naturally (often at rates far faster than the recent modest changes, check the ice cores) then the realisation hits that worry is not really warranted.
“Carbon cycle should be in equilibrium” – bullshit! ASSUMPTION – not fact in evidence. This is what typifies the entire AGW propaganda – it’s one assumption piled atop another, with extrapolations assuming that the assumptions are factual. Not a scrap of empirical evidence to be found in any of it.
When you’re measuring every source and sink for CO2 into and out of the Earth’s atmosphere, THEN you might have an idea about what portion of the CO2 level or any change thereto is attributable to human fossil fuel burning. Until then, you have more questions than answers, and the assertion that human activities are responsible for x portion of, or x % of a change to, the atmospheric CO2 level is just another steaming pile of manure.
The climate inquisition has silenced many. Some day it will be recognized as such.
Given that REAL temperatures in 1940 were probably similar to what they are now, especially in the NH, I ask a simple question
In what way has the climate changed since the 1940’s ?
Gees.. crickets chirping..
Where are all the AGW advocates to enlighten us ?
Or is the simplest of the questions just too difficult to answer 😉
Poor tony, even you must known that they are all based on the same underlying NCDC manipulated data.
Even you can’t be ignorant of the fact that most unmanipulated data for the NH shows the 1940’s similar to current.. Although, we have seen over and again, that you ARE that ignorant.
Iceland , USA, Arctic circle, all have a peak around 1940 that has been erased, PURPOSELY by the AGW anti-scientists.
Please stop being IGNORANT, if you can somehow manage it. !!
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/sites/default/files/ClimateTrends/StateWide_Change_1949-2016_F.png
Even places like the Andes show 1940s was warmer
And WHY do you think some warming in Alaska is bad?
Do you live there? or do you choose to live somewhere that is actually WARM.
Try to be HONEST with yourself if you can.
Honest, as in using temperatures back to 1940. (weak act, Tony, very weak) !!
Oh , and thanks for showing everybody that the late 1970’s was an anomalously COLD period..
The reason why Arctic sea ice extent was so extreme. 🙂
Doing well, Tony… for the realist side. 😉
So, Since 1940, how has the climate changed ?
And as for Alaska. Most places show only slight warming,
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/sites/default/files/ClimateTrends/Seasonal_Yearly_Temp_Change_77_F.png
Maybe you should look at Google Earth and see why the places that are warming might be doing so.
Give you a hint.. airports and UHI effects. Really is GIGO stuff.
“Honest, as in using temperatures back to 1940.”
Good catch, Andy! Tony thought it was a good idea to start his chart in 1949! That’s tricky, but not tricky enough, obviously. 🙂
Some people ignore facts that do not fit in with their viewpoint. The question is: Is it done consciously or unconsciously.
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/sites/default/files/ClimateTrends/StateWide_Change_1949-2016_F.png
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20RSS%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
The graph clearly shows the start of the warm trend in the middle of the 1970s. That graph also shows, imo, the start of the cooling trend around 2006/07. The cooling trend was then interrupted by positive ENSO conditions being dominant from 2014 up the peak which is shown on the graph in 2016. All of that is natural.
I was referring to the graph of Alaskan temps. To me it shows how the Pacific Ocean can shift the climate of a region or regions dependent on cyclic patterns. That is the natural cause of your global warming.
Seriously Toneb ..
Why the Climate4you graph starting in 1979.
STOP the deceitful misrepresentation of data… it cheapens any argument you are trying to make.
You KNOW that starting in 1979 catches only the warming section of the AMO cycle.
Your attempts to limit discussion to that period are quite childish and, quite frankly, underhanded
GROW UP !!
Uh oh…per Toneb’s first graph, Greenland has hit the magical 3deg tripping point AND…….
OH … nothing happened
Also , what caused it to warm FASTER from 1916-1932 than from 1994 until 2010
We all know that the world is very much at the COOL end of the Holocene, don’t we, Toneb
And that the SMB was about the same around the mid 1930s as the early 2000s
Well the US had more warm days then.
PS, There is no doubt that the calculated so-called “global temperature” has changed..
…. but is that change REAL or FABRICATED.
If the change is purely fabricated then , yes a certain group of people is responsible for the perception of “climate change™”
Just to add, Ireland hasn’t experienced much in terms of “climate change” either:
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/Chart%207.jpg
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/Chart%206.jpg
A leading Irish economist analysed figures from the Irish Central Statistics Office and produced the above some years ago.
The reaction from the alarmists was classic.
+10
From the article: “Of 2017’s respondents, only 15% thought climate change was entirely due to humans, while 34% thought 60 to 80% could be attributed to human activity.”
Their guesses are as good as any I suppose. But ultimately, they are all just guesses.
Not one of these meterologists could show any proof of this human attribution, no matter what percentage they decided to choose.
They are all just guessing and speculating. It’s kind of pathetic really.
Yes, fake news
So for ALL meteorologists surveyed only 11% actually claimed humans were mostly responsible for observed climate change: 22%(response) X 49% (attribution).
That doesn’t look right. Presumably, the respondents are representative of the population as a whole (which should be tested, of course, and the reason surveys ask demographic questions). So the response rate for any choice should be close to the true rate for the population.
Continuing and even accelerating the alarming discoveries and carrying on polling and other club activities on the deck of the climate Titanic has taken on a surreal character. Mann and Lewandowski running over to polar bears, which no longer are relevant to climate change, is a testament to the limited wit these beleaguered climateers seem to possess. It makes one almost a bit sorry to see such pathetic floundering about of the once mighty. Most climate science papers published these days are by social scientists, psychologists, and ‘researchers’ from the flotsam of the new, meaningless marxy disciplines cobbled together when academia threw its doors open wide to accommodate hordes of illiterate, innumerate students created by an industrial democracy putsch by the neo-left to kill scholarship. Feminine glaciology will always be one of my favorites. How can you turn down a goofy paper produced by the diversity-social justice warriors. It may even be against the law or some advocacy quota policy. Cleaning this up may be impossible now.
“They are the scientists most likely to understand when unusual weather extremes are weather or climate change.”
As a result of their preoccupation with the “change” that occurs over daily, and even hourly time scales, they are the least likely to understand the significance of that “change” within the context of time.
ROTFLMAO fhsiv,
So you think you don’t need to understand the dynamics of weather to be a climate scientist.
From below:
They surveyed TV weathercasters – that might include a few air-heads who wouldn’t know an isobar from a nudge bar . For your reasons you morph them into “Meteorologists” and from Meteorologists into “weather scientists”.
Now they’re “climate scientists”? You’re making this up as you go.
Sorry. I was referring to the night school meteorologists (part of the 15%) who work as TV Weathercasters at The Worthless Channel.
tony mcleod on December 22, 2017 at 9:34 p.m.
Now they’re “climate scientists”? You’re making this up as you go.
From the mouth of babes that believe Al Gore and James Hanson are “climate scientists”.
Yes, climate scientists and Nobel Prize winners as well!
This meteorologist would guess 50% natural, 50% president Trumps fault.
Just kidding. 50% humans.
It seems plausible to go as extreme as 80-20 with both humans or natural being 80%. This is sort of like saying “I don’t know”.
Since we can’t isolate the fingerprint or separate the contribution of each factor, we really don’t know.
This is what makes it so absurd to assign confidence levels like 95% to ones belief in how much warming is coming from humans.
We don’t know exactly what caused the Medieval, Roman and Minoan Warm Periods, 1,000, 2,000 and 3,500 years ago, that featured warmth similar to today and cant completely rule out the same thing playing at least part of a role in this current warm period. “Part” could mean the majority or it could be just a minor role.
Nobody knows with certainty or with provable scientific evidence. Hand picked mathematical equations in a global climate model that assumes that most of the warming is from greenhouse gas warming from humans and positive feedbacks is only right if you can rule out natural warming.
You can’t rule out something that you don’t understand. You can’t say “it must be all from CO2” because we don’t completely understand natural warming cycles…….despite solid hisorical documentation of them happening with gusto every 1,000 years or so.