In GW debates there is the claim that “97% of (climate) scientists agree with GW”.
Where does the number come from? How many scientists are/were part of the 97%?
Just a WAG, but like most things when it comes to emotional subject I would be willing to bet the number has been pulled out of someone’s rear. It sounds like that number is one that would be put out by supporters of the Global Warming therory (I don’t know that, just guessing). If so, I would also be willing to be that the scientest polled for this survey tend to be those who’s leanings support the belief in GW. Unless they release the polling information, you will never know. Also, was this poll conducted by contacting ALL scientists? If not all (and this is where my point comes from) was the poll taken among scientists that currently research Global Warming?
But like all things, numbers are skewed to get results that fit the message you are trying to get across.
Perhaps from this article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the abstract of which states:
“Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
It comes from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
You lose your bet. In effect you pulled your own statement out of your rear, didn’t you? Not much of a contribution to fighting ignorance, was it?
Well that itself was subjected to academic study and found wanting: For example -
"The study by Anderegg et al. (1) employed suspect methodology
that treated publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise.
Credentialed scientists, having devoted much of their careers to
a certain area, with multiple relevant peer-reviewed publications,
should be deemed core experts, notwithstanding that others are
more or less prolific in print or that their views stand in the
minority. In the climate change (CC) controversy, a priori, one
expects that the much larger and more “politically correct” side
would excel in certain publication metrics. They continue to cite
each other’s work in an upward spiral of self-affirmation. The
authors’ treatment of these deficiencies in Materials and Methods
was unconvincing in the skewed and politically charged environment of the CC hubbub and where one group is in the vast
majority (1). The data hoarding and publication blockade imbroglio was not addressed at all . . .
and so on.
Go here for more: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/52/E188.full.pdf+html
These guys are paid to believe - if they show any dissent, they are thrown out - lose their grants, denied publication and so on.
They are what’s known as a “Community of Interest” - like Turkeys at Christmas time.
And anyway, when was science voted on? Oh, I remember, Russian scientists against Einstein, everyone believed in Eugenics, Luminiferous aether, gastric ulcers caused by stress, tectonic plates are fiction and so on.
Do some research on the subject, start with a google - almost everyone who has looked closely at this stuff found it to be an amazing concoction of half-truths, linear extrapolation of tiny bits of unreliable data, hidden data and general skulduggery.
They way they treat raw data is outrageous.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some of these guys go to jail in the end - they would if they were in the Financial or Mining Sector.
Oh, and by the way, it’s getting cooler - has been doing so since 1998.
New York State’s murder rate has been precipitously falling – it’s only around 25% the rate it was in 2001. Must be those cops on the beat that have cut the murder rate by 75%.
I thought 2010 was the hottest year on record.
Yeah, about that.
Your cite that the data was subject to “academic study” is actually a letter to the editor. It’s nothing but an opinionated diatribe.
It was. They pick 1998 because that was the previous hottest year on record.
I think the factual question was answered in post #3 & 4.
The only people who say that can’t properly read graphs. It’s pretty obvious that the 2000s were much warmer than the 1990s, of which 1998 is the only year that comes close the the 2000 average; in fact, I’d say that after one or two more El Nino-La Nina cycles we will have a La Nina year that is warmer than 1998 (a good bet since La Nina years have been warming faster than other years during the past decade; the difference between the 1998 (actually 12 month average) peak and the 2010 peak is about a third of the difference between the minima reached in 2000 and now). Not to mention that surface temperatures represent a miniscule percentage of the total energy imbalance globally.
PS: Have you stepped outside lately? Feels more like June than March, at least where I live (yeah, I know that local weather doesn’t say anything about global climate, but neither does one year being cooler than some other year).
Well, that actually depended on which data set you looked at; NASA and NOAA have 2010 as the warmest year on record (with 2005 being basically tied and also warmer than 1998) but HADCRUT had 1998 as the hottest. Yes, had, since they have updated the record and now they also have 2010 as the warmest year (not unexpected, given that it had been known for a while that there were inconsistencies in their data compared to other datasets). Of course, that is just the surface records (including the one whose intention was to prove that warming was exaggerated); the satellite records still have 1998 as the warmest year, but overall show basically the same trend (they just have more ENSO variability).
FWIW, if you look at the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else, 2011 was the warmest year on record (and it has been exceptionally warm so far this year).
It’s not, of course, nor has it ever been. However, science certainly proceeds by consensus, which has a specialized sense here. A scientific consensus is a body of fact that has been studied and tested extensively in many ways by a variety of researchers of every type, in every location, and of every specialty, and found to be consistent and explanatory and predictive. It does not come together casually.
The OP did not ask whether the 97% were correct; only where the figure first appeared. However in those same debates referred to, opponents of global climate change, the preferred term although global warming is often used popularly, often use an argument in which the number of deniers is used to support its side. The number of adherents is either a legitimate argument for both sides or for neither; you can’t have it both ways.
You need to provide a cite for “almost everyone.” If the 97% figure is correct, then this statement is nonsense. If the 97% figure is not correct you have to show that. The letter to the editor you cite doesn’t provide any backup for any claims.
The exact number or percentage of scientists who find global warming to be correct is unknown. But if you have some actual figures to cite that would show a major difference from near-unanimity, please show them.
The letter misses the point: the Anderegg study was not attempting to conclude that AGW exists because most relevant scientists say it does. The study just concerned whether it was true that most relevant scientists say AGW exists, not whether it does or does not, as such.
The letter questions the Anderegg study’s conflation of “expertise” with “number of relevant papers published”. This criticism might have some validity in that there may be CC experts who publish little and CC non-experts who publish a lot. However, the letter appears to miss the point that this is barely relevant to the purpose of the Anderegg study which was to reach a conclusion about the proportion of experts who do and who do not accept AGW. And on that score, unless the author of the letter can produce evidence that AGW skeptics disproportionately do not produce papers, and AGW accepters do, the conclusion about proportion would be valid.
Finally, while the letter attacks the methodology of the Anderegg study, the author of the letter also states: “The majority of climate scientists favor some form of anthropogenic CC (and that view is not disputed here).”
Sorry loose syntax.
What I meant was that most of the people I meet who do not believe in this stuff (for a wide variety of reasons) have started out as firm believers.
Many of them (like me) started to look into various aspects of the subject;everything from economics to hydrodynamics to data records and presentation. They all found (like me) how thin and dubious the whole thing is.
As soon as you start asking questions, it all seems to look a bit “made up”.
To quote James Lovelock (he of Gaia fame and a great believer):
“The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.”
From the UK Guardian: see in context here: James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed | James Lovelock | The Guardian
And on this evidence, many want to institute an undemocratic World Government.
'Course now you think I’m going to quote some mad eco-loon.
Nope Scientific American
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/03/17/effective-world-government-will-still-be-needed-to-stave-off-climate-catastrophe/
Good luck with that idea.
As you know in science you should question everything. In fact, better still do your own graphs.
I’ve started you off here. Plot till you drop:
And a word from the alarmist Meister himself (from 2010): Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised | Daily Mail Online
Yeah, I know it’s the Daily Mail - but it was widely reported elsewhere to the alarmist’s great embarrassment.
And if El Nino / La Nina can swamp this evil CO2 stuff the plants love - what drives El Nino and La Nina. Don’t know? Well, nor does anyone else.
As noted, this is a letter, not a peer reviewed publication. The author could easily try to write such - it is common to publish papers in opposition to other papers. But the quality has to be up there also.
If the criteria were publications on climate change, this would have a point. But it appears that the criterion was publications on climate science in general, which is perfectly appropriate. And if you have ever worked in academics or know anyone who has the contention that publications are not a measure of expertise would make you laugh hysterically. Publishing is what academics do. Getting into high quality journals is how you get tenure and a reputation. People who don’t publish are either near retirement (though my 70+ professor friends all were publishing like crazy) or too incompetent to get published. I’m in industry but I’ve controlled the gates to peer reviewed journals, and I know how this works.
Everyone except 97% of published climate scientists, obviously. There are certain areas where it is not one person, one vote. BTW, if you want to research this area, don’t start with Google - start at a university library and look for articles in peer reviewed journals.
I think the GQ question was answered quite nicely.
And I think you are purposely ignoring the manipulation of peer review and access to journals that has been well documented by the “Climategate emails”. (And this is another example of where if you just look a little further, it all goes bad.)
Many publications cover this - here is one quote:
"But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the “peer review” process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.
And that is precisely what we find."
See full context here:ClimateGate: The Fix is In | RealClearPolitics
There were many many articles on this at the time.
Many credit the release of the emails as one of the major factors in the collapse at Copenhagen.
As said previously skulduggery. And if that’s an OK way to create an apparent consensus - then the answer must be yes, Global Warming is real, we must do something now - roll on World Government to enforce it.
What’s somehow worse, is that all this is pulling down the authority of science - and when it all unravels, as it must, the standing of science will be forever damaged.
There have been very long threads where deniers can “debate” (if that’s what you call what they do) the issue to their hearts content. Go there.
(emphasis mine)
And here’s some more updated info on “Climategate”… which would seem to indicate that, after all the facts came out, it really wasn’t as bad as that 2009 article would lead one to believe.
By the way, I love the implication that global warming is all some super-secret conspiracy to bring about a “world government”. Really drives home the paranoia, ya know?
And when it turns out that it didn’t “unravel” as you’d want us to believe? What happens then?
No. You were trying to score a rhetorical point and you got found out.
I need to introduce you to tomh4040 in this thread. He starts by reviving the thread with post #53 in October and has kept it going ever since. He is a former believer in relativity who received enlightenment and now believes in aether theory. He can argue it freely and at length because he knows absolutely nothing about either relativity or aether theory.
The parallels are clear because of the remarks you’ve made in this thread. That the earth has been cooling since 1998 (1998 was an unusually high blip in an upward sawtooth graph that has since been exceeded anyway); that by using graphs with arbitrary start dates the warming effect vanishes (see the same graph using 1930 as a start date); that a letter to the editor trumps a peer-reviewed paper (as far as I can tell nobody has even bothered to respond to Bodenstein, possibly because as a pediatrician who backs up none of his claims he is not a credible information source); that “Climategate” proved … well anything at all (multiple independent investigations have vindicated the scientists involved).
As with tomh4040 it’s clear that you’ve merely switched from adhering to one side of an argument that you don’t understand to another side of the argument that you don’t understand. That’s clear because facts have meaning only in context. It is a fact that a letter to the editor was written and that a cut-off graph gives certain data. They are at best half-truths, and half-truths are deprecated because they serve no purpose except to further a cause by deliberately ripping a fact out of its context and presenting it as the full answer.
What neither of you seem to understand is that there may be a proper argument for aether theory or climate denial that you aren’t even approaching because neither of you knows enough about either science or these particular subjects to form a credible case. Individual facts are sufficient to refute theories, true, but only in a full context. Take the recent kerfluffle about faster-than-light neutrinos. That claim - properly presented as a possible if fascinating finding that needed more investigation - received the investigation. Scientists from all over the world tore into it trying to determine both whether the experiment had been run correctly and whether these results could fit into the large and deep body of previous findings. As it stands there is just enough evidence that tiny flaws in the apparatus that no outsider could possibly have known about were the cause of this anomaly that no scientist in the field will use them in the future. I’ll bet large sums of money that people who want relativity to be wrong will quote them forever, though.
If you don’t know when not to use a fact, then you don’t know enough about the argument to convince anyone. And that’s why science will survive your assault with its authority intact.