Physicists don't believe in global warming anymore?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Magiver]
I believe I’ve seen opinion raised that global warming is established fact based on the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community. Granted the absolute has not been generated because there are never absolutes in scientific opinion. But overwhelming opinion should be regarded in the same light of an absolute barring the obvious because it doesn’t change the weight of the argument significantly.
[/QUOTE]
Macgiver, thanks for your post. People such as yourself keep talking about the “overwhelming opinion” of the scientific community. Your statement, however, is far, far too vague to determine its truth or falsehood. If you actually want to say something concrete, you might specify (and please do be specific) exactly what you believe that scientists “overwhelmingly” agree about.

When making up your list, bear in mind that, according to the poll cited by jshore above …

One scientist in four polled thinks that “currently available scientific evidence” does not substantiate the existence of AGW.

Less than half think that global warming will pose “a very great danger” to the earth in 50 to 100 years.

40% say that climate science is an “emerging” science, and only 5% say it is a “fully mature” field of study.

Half the scientists polled think there is less than a 50% chance of a 2°C temperature rise in 50 to 100 years.

Only 29% express a “great deal of confidence” that scientists understand the size and extent of anthropogenic [human] sources of greenhouse gases.

… hardly “overwhelming” in my book, but YMMV, please let us know what the exact nature of the “overwhelming agreement” is in your book.

My thanks to you,

w.

42

[QUOTE=intention]
Macgiver, thanks for your post. People such as yourself keep talking about the “overwhelming opinion” of the scientific community. Your statement, however, is far, far too vague to determine its truth or falsehood. If you actually want to say something concrete, you might specify (and please do be specific) exactly what you believe that scientists “overwhelmingly” agree about.

When making up your list, bear in mind that, according to the poll cited by jshore above …

One scientist in four polled thinks that “currently available scientific evidence” does not substantiate the existence of AGW.

Less than half think that global warming will pose “a very great danger” to the earth in 50 to 100 years.

40% say that climate science is an “emerging” science, and only 5% say it is a “fully mature” field of study.

Half the scientists polled think there is less than a 50% chance of a 2°C temperature rise in 50 to 100 years.

Only 29% express a “great deal of confidence” that scientists understand the size and extent of anthropogenic [human] sources of greenhouse gases.

… hardly “overwhelming” in my book, but YMMV, please let us know what the exact nature of the “overwhelming agreement” is in your book.

My thanks to you,

w.
[/QUOTE]
http://www.ipcc.ch/ <- That’s what I consider “overwhelming agreement”. Physicists aren’t necessarily climate scientists. But climate scientists are… so does a group of them believing in AGW carry more weight?

43

We should keep in mind that most scientists were skeptical early on, insisting on rigorous methodologies that seemed nearly impossible to produce, it being impossible to perform repeatable experiments with the global climate. The evidence that produced the change in opinion was not the ideal evidence, evidence brought to light by an elegant experiment that does not permit misunderstanding. It was simply the dull weight of small evidence piled upon small evidence. Any one of which might have flaws, might be questionable if not refutable, but get together enough of these, and the most earnest skepticism must erode.

44

[QUOTE=intention]
However, Sage Rat, there is no reason to assume that those 14 people in any way “represent the majority position” regarding climate science. That’s like assuming that 14 people elected to run a small town “represent the majority position” of people in that town regarding climate science. Why should they? The were elected to run the town, not to represent the townspeople regarding climate.
[/QUOTE]

That seems to rather be arguing for the sheer sake of persnicketyness. Do you really believe that the members of a small town’s council aren’t usually pretty representative of small town folk? Sure they might be older townsfolk, and perhaps somewhat annoying personality-wise, but their overall outlook on life is going to be pretty consistent with the other people in town. You’re not going to find a flaming gay hippy on one, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Certainly there’s a margin for error, but let’s not unilaterally expand margins for error beyond reality. I could see, realistically with 14 people plus another 50-100 or so division heads taking the vote that there’s maybe a 10% margin of voting difference versus the general population of the organization, but you’re not going to get a larger range than that.

But more importantly, why are you even arguing this? If you want to know what physicists vote, as individuals, in regards to AGW then go look it up or ask someone to look it up. All you’re trying to accomplish at the moment is to prove–through methods unknown–that the APS has a poor governing system that is unrepresentative of its members, which has little to nothing to do with global warming even if it was true since like I said, if you just care about physicists and global warming, you can search down some surveys of them.

45

[QUOTE=intention]

When making up your list, bear in mind that, according to the poll cited by jshore above …

[INDENT]One scientist in four polled thinks that “currently available scientific evidence” does not substantiate the existence of AGW.

[/quote]

Hi intention - it’s unclear to me how you get the above from a poll that says:

Are you using a different poll or is it a different source talking about the same poll jshore cited? Could you provide a link please?

Isn’t it a little disingenuous to leave out the 44% moderately dangerous in addition to the 41% very great danger?
Finally, I’m getting the impression that you believe a large society (>5,000 members) should as standard practice conduct a poll before its elected representatives issue an official statement. Do you know of examples where this ‘standard practice’ has been applied or am I misreading you - or is it something else?

I personally think it would be unusual for such a large organization to conduct a poll before issuing a statement and I know of no examples of large organizations run that way.

46

intention, wevets already pointed to a few issues in the way that you have spun the poll…I’ll just add a few more.

[QUOTE=intention]

One scientist in four polled thinks that “currently available scientific evidence” does not substantiate the existence of AGW.
[/quote]

It doesn’t say that. It does say that 74% think it does but that doesn’t mean 26% think it doesn’t as this does not account for those that are unsure. Given that, as noted, presumably a lot of those polled don’t work in the climate science field or even all that close to it, I imagine these “unsure” folks might be a significant fraction. In fact, the poll noted that only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming.

That’s not all that comforting to me. Given that a 2°C rise in the next 50 years requires a rate of rise of 0.4C per decade, substantially higher than the rate over the last ~30 years of 0.2 C per decade, that seems fairly unlikely to me too…I sure hope it’s unlikely. So, given the phrasing of the question, I am not sure how I would respond.

And yet, most still think that some conclusions can be drawn and an overwhelming majority believe climate change poses at least a moderate danger over the next 50 to 100 years. This just shows that scientists have a deeper understanding of the nature of uncertainty in science and the fact that some uncertainties (which exist in any science) don’t mean that conclusions, especially probabilistic ones, cannot be drawn. They also seem to recognize that uncertainties can cut both ways…i.e., that things can turn out worse than expected too.

Frankly, the figure that most surprised me in that survey is, that as hard as they were on the media in general, 26% found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be “very reliable”. Personally, if they had asked me, I think I would have been in the 38% that said it was “somewhat reliable”. But, that nearly 2/3 believed it to be very or somewhat reliable (while generally being very critical of media sources) was quite interesting, was it not!?

47

Thanks, jshore, as always, interesting insights. You say
[QUOTE=jshore]
…
Frankly, the figure that most surprised me in that survey is, that as hard as they were on the media in general, 26% found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be “very reliable”. Personally, if they had asked me, I think I would have been in the 38% that said it was “somewhat reliable”. But, that nearly 2/3 believed it to be very or somewhat reliable (while generally being very critical of media sources) was quite interesting, was it not!?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I found that quite interesting. It seemed like some kind of cognitive dissonance. It was akin to the statements that :

These seem to say that 10% believe it without scientific evidence … they may overlap somewhat with those that believe AIT is scientific evidence …

All the best,

w.

PS - you are right, I incorrectly characterized the poll as saying:

I should have said:

PPS - as evidence of the weakness of the poll due to vague questions, I count myself among the “Eighty-four percent [who] say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring”. To me the huge unanswered questions are not “if” humans have changed the climate, but “how much” and “how”. And to me, the likely answers are “not much”, and “land use/land change and soot” …

48

[QUOTE=Lobohan]
http://www.ipcc.ch/ <- That’s what I consider “overwhelming agreement”. Physicists aren’t necessarily climate scientists. But climate scientists are… so does a group of them believing in AGW carry more weight?
[/QUOTE]
Lobohan, thanks for your response on this question citing the IPCC.

If the IPCC actually did its job, you’d be right that the would represent agreement. But they seem to specialize in things like the “Hockeystick”. The Hockeystick is an excellent example of why when we talk of IPCC “consensus” we’re not talking about science. The consensus of IPCC scientists was originally that it was good, solid science, but in fact it concealed a host of fatal problems. (In fact, M. Mann concealed the problems so well that revealing his egregious fraudulent manipulations required a congressional committee … but I digress).

So hey, hooray, there was an IPCC consensus on the Hockeystick … but so what? All that means is that they didn’t do their job.

In addition, the IPCC does not represent the opinion of very many climate scientists. How many climate scientists do you think were involved in the preparation? Surprisingly few, when you realize that

a) many of the scientists involved were not climate scientists, and

b) some scientists with dissenting points of view (e.g. Paul Reiter) were not allowed to serve despite being nominated by their respective governments, and

c) the scientists involved were picked by governments for political reasons, and

d) requests from reviewers to include alternate points of view were just thrown in the trash, and

e) authors like Michael Mann used the IPCC to push their particular point of view, and

f) some of the non-climate scientists used their position to push for foolishly unscientific things like the use of MER instead of PPP (I assume this was because it makes the situation look much scarier than it is, since there’s no scientific reason to use MER and lots of scientific reasons to use PPP), and

g) they bent the rules to include studies they liked, and enforced the rules to keep out studies they didn’t like, and

h) they initially refused to reveal the reviewer’s comments, and

g) now that the review period is over, they have destroyed some documents rather than reveal them, in contravention of their own published guidelines, and

h) they knowingly allowed the excision of just that part of the Briffa data which didn’t agree with their preconceived notions.

Which is a lot of things … but it’s not science. Heck, the IPCC documents say:

… funny how, even though reviewers who disagreed with the conclusions specifically asked that their differences be described in said “annex”, no annex was ever published. If you think that means there weren’t significant differences of opinion, you haven’t been following the story.

So yes, the IPCC has achieved consensus, but only by collecting like minded individuals who then ruthlessly suppressed dissenting viewpoints. Sorry, Lobohan, but that don’t impress me much …

w.

49

And to return to the OP, I know that you guys think there is a consensus within the APS on climate, but the Editor of the APS newsletter clearly doesn’t agree. In the issue containing Moncton’s piece, he explains why it was published …

[QUOTE=Jeffrey Marque]
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.
[/QUOTE]
Me, I’m sorry it was Monckton who got the first shot, as there are larger and more relevant unsettled questions, and better people to question them.

None of that, however, takes away the Editor’s statement that “There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion …”

My best to everyone,

w.

50

[QUOTE=intention]
None of that, however, takes away the Editor’s statement that “There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion …”
[/QUOTE]
I think my reaction is that “scientific community” doesn’t mean a hell of a lot by itself. Remember the petition signed by a couple thousand “scientists” – almost all of whom had nothing at all to do with climate science? Granted, many weren’t even really “scientists”, but anyway…

Monckton is silly enough but even the other side was presented by a nuclear physicist and a materials engineer. If I was looking to hold a serious scientific debate on a topic, I’d probably start with people actively involved in that field, not folks I could just slap a “scientist!” label on.

51

[QUOTE=intention]
Macgiver, thanks for your post. People such as yourself keep talking about the “overwhelming opinion” of the scientific community. Your statement, however, is far, far too vague to determine its truth or falsehood.
w.
[/QUOTE]
I was addressing a point that Tomndebb made. I don’t believe the science community is intellectually invested in the subject because the primary goal appears to be a political change in energy policy and not a reduction in global temperature. There is virtually no discussion of the concept of return on investment. Lowering Co2 is not synonymous with lowering temperature on a dollar cost basis.

52

[QUOTE=Magiver]
I was addressing a point that Tomndebb made. I don’t believe the science community is intellectually invested in the subject because the primary goal appears to be a political change in energy policy and not a reduction in global temperature. There is virtually no discussion of the concept of return on investment. Lowering Co2 is not synonymous with lowering temperature on a dollar cost basis.
[/QUOTE]
Macgiver, I could not agree more. On the one hand, we have a possibility of climate change doing some damage, although there is no agreement among AGW supporters about the size, composition, type, or location of the damage.

On the other hand we have Kyoto supporters and their ilk, who claim that for a mere trillion dollars, maybe even less, we can possibly avert the damage. No guarantees, you understand, that either the damage is real or that Kyoto will make any difference.

jshore (I think it was) a while ago compared Kyoto to buying insurance. Now, this would make sense if the premium bore some relationship to the size and probability of the averted problems … but all the Kyoto folks can tell us is that if everyone were to sign on (they haven’t) and were able to meet their targets (they haven’t), the temperature reduction by 2050 would be less than a tenth of a degree. Even if Kyoto were free (as if!), that’s still too small a difference to even measure. The uncertainty of the measurements is larger than the maximum possible effect of Kyoto.

You are right, it’s a political issue, not a scientific one. Color me underwhelmed.

w.

53

[QUOTE=elucidator]
We should keep in mind that most scientists were skeptical early on, insisting on rigorous methodologies that seemed nearly impossible to produce, it being impossible to perform repeatable experiments with the global climate. The evidence that produced the change in opinion was not the ideal evidence, evidence brought to light by an elegant experiment that does not permit misunderstanding. It was simply the dull weight of small evidence piled upon small evidence. Any one of which might have flaws, might be questionable if not refutable, but get together enough of these, and the most earnest skepticism must erode.
[/QUOTE]
elucidator, thank you for statement of belief. Unfortunately, every time I ask what this mysterious “evidence” might be, people show me computer model results. Sorry, that’s not evidence, as anyone who has ever made a computer model knows. All computers can reflect are the assumptions, beliefs, and parameters of the programmers.

So, elucidator, I continue my quest to find the mysterious “evidence” that shows that increasing CO2 is responsible for global warming. Perhaps you could point it out for me.

w.

54

[QUOTE=wevets]
Quote:
Originally Posted by intention
When making up your list, bear in mind that, according to the poll cited by jshore above …
[INDENT]One scientist in four polled thinks that “currently available scientific evidence” does not substantiate the existence of AGW.

Hi intention - it’s unclear to me how you get the above from a poll that says:

Quote:
Originally Posted by http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Over eight out of ten American climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming, according to a new survey released by the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University.
Are you using a different poll or is it a different source talking about the same poll jshore cited? Could you provide a link please?

Quote:
Originally Posted by intention
Less than half think that global warming will pose “a very great danger” to the earth in 50 to 100 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.
Isn’t it a little disingenuous to leave out the 44% moderately dangerous in addition to the 41% very great danger?
Finally, I’m getting the impression that you believe a large society (>5,000 members) should as standard practice conduct a poll before its elected representatives issue an official statement. Do you know of examples where this ‘standard practice’ has been applied or am I misreading you - or is it something else?

I personally think it would be unusual for such a large organization to conduct a poll before issuing a statement and I know of no examples of large organizations run that way.

[/QUOTE]
I used the poll jshore cited, the one you are reading. I did not mention many of the poll’s findings, since any fool with a mouse can click on the link and see them. You seem to think that is “disingenuous” … however, to even claim that, you must have clicked on the link. So what is it that you think I’m trying to hide? You seem to have found everything … or do you just think people are too stupid to click on the link? I don’t, which is why I did not quote the entire post. That’s what citations are for.

Should a large professional society conduct a poll before its elected representatives issue a statement? Depends on the subject of the statement, the perceived differences of opinion among the membership, and the political nature of the question.

If the APS wants to issue a statement that the earth is round, no need to poll the members. But if the APS leadership wants to issue a statement supporting unlimited gun ownership by teenagers, they should poll their members first. Otherwise, the leaders are giving a false imprimatur of legitimacy to their personal views.

In general I’d say that if the subject matter is important politically and socially, and if there is perceived disagreement among the members regarding the subject, yes, the organization should not make a statement without discussing it with the members. And that is the situation with AGW. As I pointed out above, the Editor of the APS journal says there is perceived disagreement, and it is important politically and socially.

w.

55

[QUOTE=intention]

So, elucidator, I continue my quest to find the mysterious “evidence” that shows that increasing CO2 is responsible for global warming. Perhaps you could point it out for me.
[/QUOTE]

You can start with Chapter 9 of the IPCC report.

56

[QUOTE=intention]
I used the poll jshore cited, the one you are reading. . . .

Should a large professional society conduct a poll before its elected representatives issue a statement? Depends on the subject of the statement, the perceived differences of opinion among the membership, and the political nature of the question.

If the APS wants to issue a statement that the earth is round, no need to poll the members. But if the APS leadership wants to issue a statement supporting unlimited gun ownership by teenagers, they should poll their members first. Otherwise, the leaders are giving a false imprimatur of legitimacy to their personal views.
[/QUOTE]
I note, however, that the confusion between the various numbers has already been explained in the poll citation. When the question is asked of “scientists,” (including physicists, biologists, chemists, astronomers, and any number of other folks, then the results come out as one in four have not yet been persuaded of AGW. However, when a similar question is asked of “climate scientists,” then the number of persuaded individuals jump to over 80%, with some portion of the less than 20% who are not fully persuaded including those who lean toward that explanation but may be holding out for a bit more data points. Given a base line poll from a (presumably) neutral pollster, then the APS would seem to have already met the conditions that would allow them to avoid publishing “personal” beliefs in the name of their membership.

57

[QUOTE=jshore]
You can start with Chapter 9 of the IPCC report.
[/QUOTE]

He might want to start with the discovery of the greenhouse effect as well.

58

jshore, as I have said before, citing an entire Chapter of the IPCC report is like a religious zealot saying “the answer’s in the Bible”. Maybe so, but where?

Sage Rat, the existence of the greenhouse effect is not the question. It is how much, and how, humans might be affecting the climate.

w.

59

intention: Well, you have the whole chapter there dealing with issues of attribution of climate change. That is why I cited the chapter. As elucidator aptly noted:

Chapter 9 spells out much of that evidence.

60

I had said:

[QUOTE=intention]
elucidator, thank you for statement of belief. Unfortunately, every time I ask what this mysterious “evidence” might be, people show me computer model results. Sorry, that’s not evidence, as anyone who has ever made a computer model knows. All computers can reflect are the assumptions, beliefs, and parameters of the programmers.

So, elucidator, I continue my quest to find the mysterious “evidence” that shows that increasing CO2 is responsible for global warming. Perhaps you could point it out for me.
[/QUOTE]
To which jshore replied:

[QUOTE=jshore]
You can start with Chapter 9 of the IPCC report.
[/QUOTE]
I demurred, saying:

[QUOTE=intention]
jshore, as I have said before, citing an entire Chapter of the IPCC report is like a religious zealot saying “the answer’s in the Bible”. Maybe so, but where?
[/QUOTE]
I got this reply:

[QUOTE=jshore]
intention: Well, you have the whole chapter there dealing with issues of attribution of climate change. That is why I cited the chapter. As elucidator aptly noted:

Chapter 9 spells out much of that evidence.
[/QUOTE]
jshore, I just re-read that chapter (admittedly hurriedly, but I was re-reading) and I found the following:

  1. Computer models

  2. GCMs

  3. Models of the atmosphere that run on computers

  4. Models of the clouds that run on computers

  5. Did I mention computer models?

  6. More models

Now, you have said that there is actual evidence in that chapter, you claim it’s not all just computer models and their untested claims about virtual worlds.

Which may be so, but … where?

w.