How many people take Global Warming totally on faith?

[intention]

@recessiveMeme

I’m certainly not equipped to argue to argue climate science with you, intention (or jshore, for that matter), but I do find your posts on AGW illuminating. Thanks to both of your for your well-considered thoughts and dialogues on the matter.

That said, I’ve seen people here on the SDMB and elsewhere argue along lines similar to the Pielke quote in the past and the analogy bothers me. Certainly, I wouldn’t want a pharmaceutical company or scientists employed by the company to have direct oversight where the safety of a drug is being tested. The conflict of interest on the part of the pharmaceutical company is obvious: minimize the apparent risk, get the drug into circulation, make big bucks.

But… the argument seems to work off the idea that both climate scientists and, indeed, the IPCC itself will somehow benefit from convincing people to buy into AGW. I’ve never understood exactly how this transaction is supposed to occur. When I ask for clarification, I usually get some specious-sounding arguments about how IPCC scientists are simply using fear of AGW in a crass attempt to secure tenure or funding for themselves. Or, on the crazier end of things, I get to hear about how the IPCC itself is actually a front for some sort of shadowy one world government. Given the obvious thought you put into the issue and the candor with which you express your ideas, I’m hoping you can provide for me an answer which sounds less conspiratorial and more reasonable.

So yeah… When people accept IPCC reports as valid, who specifically benefits and where does the money come from?

recessiveMeme, thanks for an interesting question (and a great username).

The easiest way to answer your question is to ask another one: what would happen if through some amazing scientific proof, AGW were shown tomorrow to be completely false and untrue?

Well, the first thing would be that the IPCC would cease to exist … and so would the international travel, the nice hotels, the per diems, and all of the other perks that go with being a member of the IPCC.

Next, most climate scientists would be out of a job. If there’s no AGW, the importance of climate science goes from “more important than terrorism” to “a tempest in a teacup”. No one is going to pay somebody big bucks to study climate if AGW doesn’t exist.

Third, climate scientists would lose prestige and public visibility, authority, and power. Right now, when James Hansen sneezes, his nasal air speed gets added to the wind velocity of the latest hurricane and it makes headlines. If AGW didn’t exist, no one would care at all what he says.

So the answer to your question is power, employment, perks, prestige and public visibility.

Is there a conspiracy? I do not believe so. I believe that, like any organization, the IPCC is very unlikely to support any research that imperils its very existence.

And why is the picture one-sided? Well, how much time do you figure James Hansen spends looking for evidence to disprove AGW … and why should he? There’s no upside to it for him, and heaps of downside.

All the best,

w.

PS - my rule of thumb is “never ascribe to conspiracy what is adequately explained by common interest” …

[GIGObuster]

@intention

Third, climate scientists would lose prestige and public visibility, authority, and power. Right now, when James Hansen sneezes, his nasal air speed gets added to the wind velocity of the latest hurricane and it makes headlines. If AGW didn’t exist, no one would care at all what he says.

So the answer to your question is power, employment, perks, prestige and public visibility.

Is there a conspiracy? I do not believe so. I believe that, like any organization, the IPCC is very unlikely to support any research that imperils its very existence.

And why is the picture one-sided? Well, how much time do you figure James Hansen spends looking for evidence to disprove AGW … and why should he? There’s no upside to it for him, and heaps of downside.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11653

If you believe that tens of thousands of scientists are colluding in a massive conspiracy, nothing anyone can say is likely to dissuade you. **But there are less extreme versions of this argument.
**
One is that climate scientists foster alarmism about global warming to boost their funding. Another is that climate scientists’ dependence on government funding ensures they toe the official line (pdf).

**It has taken more than a century to reach the current scientific consensus on climate change (see Many leading scientists question the idea of human-induced climate change). It has come about through a steadily growing body of evidence from many different sources, and the process has hardly been secret.
**
Now that there is a consensus, those whose findings challenge the orthodoxy are always going have a tougher time convincing their peers, as in any field of science. For this reason, there will inevitably be pressure on scientists who challenge the consensus. But findings or ideas that clash with the idea of human-induced global warming have not been suppressed or ignored – far from it.

Cosmic rays
In fact, many of the better arguments seized upon by sceptics have been based on contradictory findings published in prominent journals, from the apparent cooling of the lower atmosphere (see The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming) to the apparent cooling of the oceans (see The oceans are cooling).

Millions will be spent testing whether cosmic rays can form cloud condensation nuclei, even though some regard this as a waste of money (see Cosmic rays are causing climate change).

As for funding, the US spends billions of dollars on climate science and this increased by 55% from 1994 to 2004. However, an increasing portion of this is spent on mitigation technology rather than pure research. Climate scientists point out that if they were after a bigger chunk of that money, their best bet would be to stress the uncertainties of climate change and call for more research, rather than call for action.

Under pressure
As for the idea that scientists change their tune to keep their paymasters happy, under the current US administration many scientists claim they have been pressurised to tone down findings relating to climate change (see US fudging of climate science details revealed).

[GIGObuster]

@intention

RealClimate (your cite above) did not make a single substantial claim about the paper - in fact, they didn’t discuss the subject matter of the paper at all. Instead, they made up a rating score specifically for this paper and … guess what, surprise of surprises, the paper didn’t pass.

Gosh, that convinces me … don’t discuss the subject matter of the paper, don’t discuss the claims or ideas presented in the paper, just make up a rating and declare the paper as a failure. I guess that must seem like science to you, since you cited it … but to me, it looks like a copout. Perhaps the paper is incorrect, perhaps not, I don’t know, that’s why I called it “interesting” rather than established or proven.

But the RealClimate method doesn’t even discuss the contents of the paper, much less establish that it is incorrect. What kind of science is that?

w.

You tell me what science was in that paper, after checking it, it is clear that the paper you are calling “interesting” fails to me when they resort to Google vomit arguments. Hardly a point even worthy to discuss. Especially when in the quoted article at RealClimate they point to others that took a look at where that paper was coming from:

Principle 5: Submit your paper to a reputable journal whose editors and peer reviewers will help improve your text and point out some of these subtle misconceptions.

Score: -2
[It was submitted to] Energy and Environment. Need we say more?

And what is Energy and Environment? Following the link at RealClimate we get:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/policy/pt_skeptics.html

Policy News –
August 31, 2005
Skeptics get a journal
Climate skeptics and conservative politicians find all the science they need in the journal Energy & Environment.

If the manuscripts of climate-change skeptics are rejected by peer-reviewed science journals, they can always send their studies to Energy & Environment. “It’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little journals and little publishers like mine to even get published,” explains Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, the journal’s editor.

According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, the journal is found in only 25 libraries worldwide. And the journal is not included in Journal Citation Reports, which lists the impact factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals.

The journal remains unknown to most scientists. “I really don’t know what it is,” says Jay Famiglietti, editor-in-chief of Geophysical Research Letters.

Boehmer-Christiansen “tries to give people who do not have a platform a platform,” says Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Center (Germany). “This is then attractive for skeptic papers. They know they can come through and that interested people make sure the paper enters the political realm.”

Because this obscure journal packs a powerful political impact, it is often used by researchers to expand on studies and then attack the science of global warming. For instance, when businessman Stephen McIntyre had a small technical paper accepted to Geophysical Research Letters, he followed it up with a more expansive statement in Energy & Environment.

This repeated a pattern established by two other climate-change skeptics, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In 2003, the two published a paper in Climate Research that purported to find warmer temperatures 1000 years ago. Skeptics refer to this time as the Medieval Warming Period. The two then published a more expansive article making the same claims in Energy & Environment.

The Climate Research paper drew sharp criticisms, including one from Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. When von Storch, who was then the journal’s editor, read Mann’s critique, he recalls that he realized his journal should never have accepted the study. “If it would have been properly reviewed, it would have been rejected on the basis of methodological flaws,” von Storch admits.

Significantly, Willie Soon no longer lists a citation for Climate Research in his biography at the nonprofit Marshall Institute, but he does reference the Energy & Environment study.

[brazil84]

@scr4

I wasn’t asking for a guess.

Then I would suggest you start a thread in the general questions forum. Or do a few web searches.

To me, it’s pretty clear that climate researchers have an incentive to exaggerate when it comes to AGW.

[intention]

@jshore

I don’t really understand this quote. Is Dr. Pielke saying that an assessment should exclude all those scientists who have published in the field?!?! That would certainly be a novel scientific assessment process. Since you are big on examples from different scientific organizations, can you name a scientific organization that conducts assessments of the science by only having scientists who are not working in the field do the assessments?

Dr. Pielke is not suggesting that we use surgeons to review climate science. He is suggesting that having Michael Mann review and promote his own work, as he did in the TAR, might just possibly be a mistake … but it sounds like you disagree with that.

w.

[intention]

@GIGObuster

You tell me what science was in that paper, after checking it, it is clear that the paper you are calling “interesting” fails to me when they resort to Google vomit arguments. Hardly a point even worthy to discuss. Especially when in the quoted article at RealClimate they point to others that took a look at where that paper was coming from:
And what is Energy and Environment? Following the link at RealClimate we get:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/policy/pt_skeptics.html

Once again, you completely ignore my point. RealClimate did not say one word about the science in the paper. And to complete the ignoring of science, you follow up with a complaint about where the paper was published … when are either of you going to get to the science? I don’t care if it was published in the Jakarta Daily Times, and neither should you – that’s an ad hominem argument. The question is not where it was published, that’s childish misdirection.

The question is whether what they say is true, and so far, both you and RealClimate seem to be allergic to that question.

w.

[intention]

jshore, thanks as always for your well cited responses. You say:

Well, what the IPCC says in the latest report is:

Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.

As for the question about the rise itself, the statement in the TAR was “It is likely that the rate and duration of the warming of the 20th century is larger than any other time during the last 1,000 years.” I couldn’t find a statement in the new report and that may well be because some of the studies with “greater variability” lead them to now have less confidence in that conclusion (although there is certainly no evidence that it is wrong).

The reason the statement about the “warmest in 1,000 years” doesn’t appear in the FAR is that the statement in the TAR was built upon the “Hockeystick”, which has been discredited.

Also, you’re still mixing statements, one about the Northern Hemisphere and the other about the globe.

Then you quote the NAS report as saying:

Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming.

Here we run into the schizophrenia of the NAS report. They said not to use bristlecones, and said Mann’s method was wrong, and said that his uncertainty estimates were wrong … then they went and cited other “newer supporting evidence” that made one or more of those same errors. Have you read and analyzed those succeeding studies? I assure you, I have, and they have used Mann’s foolishness both wholesale and retail.

Note the careful wording of their quote. They call the claim that this is the warmest period in over 1000 years “plausible” … plausible? Dude, if “plausible” is what you call a scientific statement of support, I really don’t know what to say. If it is only “plausible” that it is the warmest in 1000 years, it must also be “plausible” that it is not the warmest. In short, calling it “plausible” has absolutely no scientific meaning at all. Without error bars and without any assignment of probability, “plausible” is just fast-talk designed to convince the credulous or non-scientific reader …

Let me say it again. DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF. You look at the glossy NAS report and take it as gospel … me, I turn over the rocks and find lots of ugly creatures residing in the crevices.

w.

[GIGObuster]

@intention

Once again, you completely ignore my point. RealClimate did not say one word about the science in the paper. And to complete the ignoring of science, you follow up with a complaint about where the paper was published … when are either of you going to get to the science? I don’t care if it was published in the Jakarta Daily Times, and neither should you – that’s an ad hominem argument. The question is not where it was published, that’s childish misdirection.

The question is whether what they say is true, and so far, both you and RealClimate seem to be allergic to that question.

w.

I have to say it is only true in the sense that it is once again a quality control point, the misdirection in your part is assuming that alone is a good point, it is not. You have a group that insist “Jump trough my hoop and then we’ll tell you it is science” Maybe so, but that does not invalidate all the evidence found.

When a similar proportion of contrarians did not bother to reply to them I have to indeed fall with what other environmentalist groups are reporting, your paper is coming from an astroturf group that is not in the loop regarding this issue.

[scr4]

@brazil84

To me, it’s pretty clear that climate researchers have an incentive to exaggerate when it comes to AGW.

And it’s not clear to me at all. You’re basing your argument on your opinion, one which you can’t back up with facts.

[brazil84]

@scr4

And it’s not clear to me at all. You’re basing your argument on your opinion, one which you can’t back up with facts.

I’m basing my argument on common sense. I’m happy to try to find some facts if you tell me which facts you are disputing.

First, do you dispute that public concern about AGW is greater now than it was 25 years ago?

Second, do you dispute that public concern about AGW has influenced the level of funding for research, development and assessment concerning AGW?

[scr4]

@brazil84

First, do you dispute that public concern about AGW is greater now than it was 25 years ago?

No.

Second, do you dispute that public concern about AGW has influenced the level of funding for research, development and assessment concerning AGW?

AGW is just one topic studied by climate researchers. I don’t believe funds are allocated specifically to study AGW.

As for funding level for the entire field of climate research, I don’t believe there has been any noticeable increase as a result of concern about global warming. NASA’s science budget has remained pretty constant since the Apollo days. This document seems to indicate that funding for NASA and NOAA’s earth oberving programs has declined over the past decade or so.

But even if earth science as a field were benefiting from AGW, the question is whether an individual researcher benefits from advocating AGW. And I don’t see any mechanism by which that can happen. Researchers are judged by the quality of work, not whether their conclusions support the popular theories. If anything, I think most researchers tend to favor work that poke holes in the widely accepted theories. We understand that’s how scientific advances are made.

[GIGObuster]

@intention

Then you quote the NAS report as saying:

Here we run into the schizophrenia of the NAS report. They said not to use bristlecones, and said Mann’s method was wrong, and said that his uncertainty estimates were wrong … then they went and cited other “newer supporting evidence” that made one or more of those same errors. Have you read and analyzed those succeeding studies? I assure you, I have, and they have used Mann’s foolishness both wholesale and retail.

Note the careful wording of their quote. They call the claim that this is the warmest period in over 1000 years “plausible” … plausible? Dude, if “plausible” is what you call a scientific statement of support, I really don’t know what to say. If it is only “plausible” that it is the warmest in 1000 years, it must also be “plausible” that it is not the warmest. In short, calling it “plausible” has absolutely no scientific meaning at all. Without error bars and without any assignment of probability, “plausible” is just fast-talk designed to convince the credulous or non-scientific reader …

Let me say it again. DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF. You look at the glossy NAS report and take it as gospel … me, I turn over the rocks and find lots of ugly creatures residing in the crevices.

w.

I entered this thread thinking contrarians had good evidence, instead I do turn the rocks and the creatures you point as good evidence are the ugly ones.

Now, what would happen if the plausible is not correct and in reality politics has tainted the reports? In this aspect hoping that you are correct and indeed politics has tainted the results does not make comfortable.

Because it is becoming clear that more dire warnings have been minimized (that is not a bad thing considering they are indeed just probable), but it is beginning to look to me that the science is being distorted to minimizes the problem. IOW it does not support your overall position that these reports are politicized in favor of AGW, they are more likely distorted by the current politics into minimizing the problem.

Climate Change Research Distorted and Suppressed

This is why I think you are welcome in finding that there is political interference in these groups, it is just that you are missing that your overall position is not helped by that. I see the NAS and the IPCC reports as good in the sense that because of political pressure they are offering in reality a very conservative estimate of what is going on, I would consider that a good check against just the extreme views taking over the discussion. The disturbing thing is that even this conservative position is being seen as extremist for some reason.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/the-ipcc.html

Representing a Range of Expert Opinions
As mentioned above, one critical strategy the IPCC uses to ensure the scientific credibility and political legitimacy of its reports is to represent the range of scientific opinion on climate change fairly. To this end, the IPCC provides several channels for input from experts along the entire spectrum of opinion, including global warming contrarians.

First, accredited NGOs from all sides of the issue are welcome as observers at the opening plenary session and some other sessions over the course of the report production cycle. In addition, well-known contrarians can and do become contributing authors by submitting material to lead authors, and play advisory roles for their governments by working with government representatives to revise and approve the final SPMs. (See [2].)

The presence of climate change experts from industry and environmental organizations in the assessment process also illustrates the IPCC’s desire to seek input from outside traditional research institutions. Industry examples have included representatives from the Electric Power Research Institute and ExxonMobil. Environmental examples have included representatives from Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others all over the world.

Climate contrarians frequently claim that the IPCC produces politically motivated reports that show only one side of the issues. Given the many stages at which experts from across the political and scientific spectrum are included in the process, however, this is a difficult position to defend. [3]

Furthermore, according to IPCC principles, lead authors are “required to record views in the text which are scientifically or technically valid, even if they cannot be reconciled with a consensus view.” [4]

And before this is missed, that was the conclusion of the Union of Concerned Scientists after taking a look.

[brazil84]

@scr4

AGW is just one topic studied by climate researchers. I don’t believe funds are allocated specifically to study AGW.

Does that mean yes or no?

But even if earth science as a field were benefiting from AGW, the question is whether an individual researcher benefits from advocating AGW. And I don’t see any mechanism by which that can happen.

A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

[intention]

@GIGObuster

I have to say it is only true in the sense that it is once again a quality control point, the misdirection in your part is assuming that alone is a good point, it is not. You have a group that insist “Jump trough my hoop and then we’ll tell you it is science” Maybe so, but that does not invalidate all the evidence found.

When a similar proportion of contrarians did not bother to reply to them I have to indeed fall with what other environmentalist groups are reporting, your paper is coming from an astroturf group that is not in the loop regarding this issue.

GIGObuster, I’m not asking you to “jump through my hoop”. I am asking you to discuss the subject matter of the paper, and to date you have come up with a number of reasons not to do so. Instead, you send ad hominems, and citations to RealClimate that don’t discuss the science, and a citation from an environmental group telling me the IPCC is wonderful. Gosh. Thanks.

This is my last word on the subject until you stop the misdirection, quit the ad hominems, leave out the propaganda and the “citations” that are hagiographies of the IPCC, and discuss the science.

w.

[jshore]

@intention

Well, the first thing would be that the IPCC would cease to exist … and so would the international travel, the nice hotels, the per diems, and all of the other perks that go with being a member of the IPCC.

I think most scientists who heard this would laugh. (In fact, I think I remember a post by one of the scientists at RealClimate responding to this.) Working on the IPCC report is a pretty thankless task. In fact, there has been some concern expressed that the IPCC may have trouble attracting scientists to be involved because of the large time commitment that takes scientists away from things they would rather be doing.

Most scientists who have achieved a certain amount of stature in the field are looking for ways to avoid meetings and other time commitments rather than looking for more opportunities.

Also, most of these scientists are pretty well-established in their fields, many have tenure at universities, and even if the concern about AGW faded away, they would not be out of a job. They would still be working on some climate-related issues or move into some allied field of atmospheric science or the like.

In the end, despite your protestations, your view is very much a conspiracy theory, I think. It relies on exaggerating the reasons why scientists would want to agree with the AGW hypothesis and ignoring the other side…i.e., the large motivation there is for a scientist to come up with the counter-hypothesis that actually better explains the evidence.

It, of course, doesn’t help that a good fraction, if not most, of the scientists who hold positions strongly opposed to the AGW theory seem to have a direct connection to either industries that benefit or political organizations whose worldview benefits from AGW being wrong. And that they can’t seem to come up with any better hypothesis to explain the evidence, at least in the judgement of every other scientific group but themselves.

You have a pretty hard road to hoe when you are trying to argue that the whole scientific establishment has essentially been corrupted and the few “brave souls” who are willing to tell the truth about “the emperor having no clothes” have quite obvious biases to want to believe this is true independent of the evidence.

[GIGObuster]

@intention

GIGObuster, I’m not asking you to “jump through my hoop”. I am asking you to discuss the subject matter of the paper, and to date you have come up with a number of reasons not to do so. Instead, you send ad hominems, and citations to RealClimate that don’t discuss the science, and a citation from an environmental group telling me the IPCC is wonderful. Gosh. Thanks.

That group is not just any group, and not just environmentalists. Your disrespect does show indeed who relies in ad hominems.

This is my last word on the subject until you stop the misdirection, quit the ad hominems, leave out the propaganda and the “citations” that are hagiographies of the IPCC, and discuss the science.

w.

The “science” they refer to is still misguided and suspect when they in the first place are the ones that did not seek publication in more respected journals. It is indeed you that is still propping up FUD.

[jshore]

intention: Could you point out the “science” in that paper that you want us to comment upon? All I can tell from the paper is that two people with no background in climate science looked at one chapter in the IPCC report and at several articles by well-known contrarians like Bob Carter, Patrick Michaels, R.M. Taylor, and Robert Balling mainly in non-peer-reviewed sources and claimed to arrive at some important conclusions about the forecasting methods used in climate science.

[scr4]

@brazil84

Does that mean yes or no?

It’s a meaningless question that I cannot answer. There’s no such thing as “funding for AGW research.”

Unless you’re talking about privately funded research (i.e. “think tanks” funded by oil companies), in which case, of course there is pressure to produce a specific result (i.e. to refute AGW).

A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

Scientists don’t usually think like that, when it comes to funding. There’s a relatively fixed amount of money available, and you’re competing for it against other scientists.

And as far as I can tell, the boat is not rising at all. (Unless you can provide cites that contradict the one I presented?)

[brazil84]

@scr4

It’s a meaningless question that I cannot answer. There’s no such thing as “funding for AGW research.”

I didn’t ask about “funding for AGW research.” I asked about “funding for research, development and assessment concerning AGW” The word “concerning” is a lot broader.

Scientists don’t usually think like that, when it comes to funding.

Cite?

And as far as I can tell, the boat is not rising at all. (Unless you can provide cites that contradict the one I presented?)

Here’s a start:

gao-05-461.pdf

Federal funding for climate change increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $5.1 billion in 2004 (116 percent), as reported by OMB, or from $3.3 billion to $5.1 billion (55 percent) after adjusting for inflation. During this period, inflation-adjusted funding increased for technology and science . . . .

And even if the tide isn’t rising anymore, climate scientists still have an incentive to keep the tide from sinking – as intention pointed out.

[brazil84]

@jshore

I think most scientists who heard this would laugh. (In fact, I think I remember a post by one of the scientists at RealClimate responding to this.) Working on the IPCC report is a pretty thankless task.

Then why do they do it? It’s not as though the IPCC can conscript anyone.