Climate Change News collection

[Ender]

Inapt analogy, because in a jury it is expected that all 12 members of the jury are to express their opinion. In the case of someone writing a paper about calibration methods for measuring global warming, that expectation is missing.

There is no expectation that all climate scientists will have as yet formed an opinion about global warming. At most only 1/3 of climate scientists have taken a position on global warming; that’s no different than the analogy I made where only 1/3 of the jurors had - as yet - taken a position. The Cook paper ignored the 2/3 of climate scientists who had not expressed an opinion…just as the foreman did in my analogy.

Not applicable. The “document” cited by HS has no independent verification that it even came from the CIA and is not just a faked photocopy, much less that it was the accepted position by anyone other than the author, whereas there are plenty of ways to verify that the positions voiced by NASA really do come from NASA.

You didn’t make the argument that that was a bogus CIA document. Your argument was that it represented solely the position of the authors. That much is surely true of documents coming out of the USCCB, it is true of CIA documents, and equally true of NASA documents as well.

 

[Theo520]

Still, it is surprising that none on that side have even tried. It is surprising because a contrary study with vastly different results would be much more convincing than what they are doing now. I can’t believe they wouldn’t do it if it were that easy.

Quite a few papers have been published that argue with data that we are experiencing natural variation rather than catastrophic climate change caused by CO2

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Inapt analogy, because in a jury it is expected that all 12 members of the jury are to express their opinion. In the case of someone writing a paper about calibration methods for measuring global warming, that expectation is missing.

There is no expectation that all climate scientists will have as yet formed an opinion about global warming. At most only 1/3 of climate scientists have taken a position on global warming;

That is an unwarranted statistical conclusion from the data. All we know is that only 1/3 of the papers on climate science with the words “global warming” expressed an opinion on AGW in those papers. That says nothing about the position of the scientists who wrote those papers, such as what they might say if asked “Do you accept AGW?” It is a mistake to conclude that 2/3 of climate scientists have not taken a position on AGW.

that’s no different than the analogy I made where only 1/3 of the jurors had - as yet - taken a position.

As I said, it is different because all of the jurors are expected to take a position.

The Cook paper ignored the 2/3 of climate scientists who had not expressed an opinion…

which is exactly what they were supposed to do in order to maintain statistical integrity.

just as the foreman did in my analogy.

No, the foreman is not supposed to ignore the fact that some jurors refused to vote.

Not applicable. The “document” cited by HS has no independent verification that it even came from the CIA and is not just a faked photocopy, much less that it was the accepted position by anyone other than the author, whereas there are plenty of ways to verify that the positions voiced by NASA really do come from NASA.

You didn’t make the argument that that was a bogus CIA document.

I’m questioning it now. I didn’t know there was time limit on voicing an objection.

Your argument was that it represented solely the position of the authors. That much is surely true of documents coming out of the USCCB, it is true of CIA documents, and equally true of NASA documents as well.

No, they are different. The level of official approval is different in all three cases.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Still, it is surprising that none on that side have even tried. It is surprising because a contrary study with vastly different results would be much more convincing than what they are doing now. I can’t believe they wouldn’t do it if it were that easy.

Quite a few papers have been published that argue with data that we are experiencing natural variation rather than catastrophic climate change caused by CO2

Does “quite a few” mean 10% of the papers? 30%? 50%? 80%? 97%? Remember, you are trying to refute Cook, which was a numerical result. So there should be a number somewhere in your argument.

 

[Theo520]

The number is irrelevant

Cooks research is also irrelevant, he should have just done a straight up survey instead of pretending he could infer someone’s beliefs from reading a title and abstract. Cook has had a serious maths problem in how he summed his categories. He assumed what was not explicit

How the question is asked is also very important. I fully expect 99% to agree man is contributing to global warming due to radiative forcing by increasing CO2. But that is very different than stating 99% believe man is the primary cause of recent warming.

Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change - Science & Education

Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013)...

link.springer.com

Can’t find it now but proper surveys have been done of what climate scientists believe. As I recall a super majority believed man was the primary contributor, but it wasn’t near 97% of respondents.

The debate is far from over about the significance of feedbacks, and that is where the rubber hits the road.

edit: here are references to multiple surveys indicating 97% is a bogus claim

Fact Checking The Claim Of 97% Consensus On Anthropogenic Climate Change

Belief in the scientific community in human-caused climate change is clearly below 97%, a close review of the evidence shows, but the claim continues to be widely publicized and defended. Would a lower level of consensus convince anyone concerned about global warming to change their views?

www.forbes.com

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The number is irrelevant

Cooks research is also irrelevant, he should have just done a straight up survey instead of pretending he could infer someone’s beliefs from reading a title and abstract.

If you think about it, there are logistical problems in doing such a direct survey. I agree it would have been better because then we could get a more exhaustive response. However reliably contacting 4000 randomly chosen climate scientists around the world and hoping they would respond is difficult. There would also be the problem of the selection process itself. Who is a climate scientist? Using professional journals solves that problem by the fact that they have already done that evaluation. If Cook had just asked 4000 climate scientists, he would have been accused of cherry-picking. What he did do was open enough that others could duplicate the process so they could check it for themselves.

How the question is asked is also very important. I fully expect 99% to agree man is contributing to global warming due to radiative forcing by increasing CO2. But that is very different than stating 99% believe man is the primary cause of recent warming.

That is a valid objection. But at most it means the 97% figure should be quoted with proper qualifications. Perhaps some media outlets do not do that, but that does not discredit the entire study.

Can’t find it now but proper surveys have been done of what climate scientists believe. As I recall a super majority believed man was the primary contributor, but it wasn’t near 97% of respondents.

When you do run across them again, let me know so I can look at them.

The debate is far from over about the significance of feedbacks, and that is where the rubber hits the road.

edit: here are references to multiple surveys indicating 97% is a bogus claim
Fact Checking The Claim Of 97% Consensus On Anthropogenic Climate Change

I have seen so many objection articles that I just can’t read them all. It is a shotgun approach. Instead use a 22 and pick the one best objection in the Forbes article and I will look at that one, OK?

 

[Theo520]

If you think about it, there are logistical problems in doing such a direct survey.

Surveys are very easy to do in this modern age of computers and email. all such publishing experts are public record and members of a few key organizations.

He wouldn’t have been accused of cherry picking any more than he already has been, and at least he would have gotten their actual opinions with a degree of fidelity.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

If you think about it, there are logistical problems in doing such a direct survey.

Surveys are very easy to do in this modern age of computers and email.

How do you find the e-mail addresses of 4000 climate scientists? How do you convince those 4000 scientists that your survey request is not spam? How do you convince them to respond? (They might be busy.) How many responses do you think you would get for every 1000 requests?

all such publishing experts are public record and members of a few key organizations.

That does not not mean their e-mail addresses are known, or that they will take your survey seriously.

He wouldn’t have been accused of cherry picking any more than he already has been, and at least he would have gotten their actual opinions with a degree of fidelity.

If it is so easy and reliable, why doesn’t Anthony Watts conduct such a survey to refute the “consensus” claim?

 

[Theo520]

How do you find the e-mail addresses of 4000 climate scientists? How do you convince those 4000 scientists that your survey request is not spam? How do you convince them to respond? (They might be busy.) How many responses do you think you would get for every 1000 requests?

Any incomplete response would be better than Cook’s work, and it has been done repeatedly, it was linked in the forbes article I posted above.
http://www.hvonstorch.de/klima/pdf/CliSci2013.pdf

The variety of opinion can be illustrated by one graph from the 2013 repeat of the Bray and von Storch survey showing the degree of belief that recent or future climate change is due to or will be caused by human activity. A value of 1 indicates not convinced and a value of 7 is very much convinced. The top three values add to 81%, roughly in the range of several other surveys.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[LeafByNiggle]

…the Bray and von Storch survey…

On the surface of it, the survey you cite seems well-executed and dependable. Perhaps Cook could have done something like this too. However this Bray and von Storch survey seems to confirm the general consensus, even if they don’t come up with exactly the same numbers as Cook. I would be happy to abandon the Cook result of 97% and accept the 81% figure you cite, along with the revised qualifications for what the 81% represents.

 

[Theo520]

Yes, the Bran paper is more in line with what I would expect, but it adds the fidelity that there is not a complete consensus.

And note that even this research is not giving their opinion on the projections of the climate models. One could believe man is primarily the cause of the 1C in warming we’ve seen since 1850 and not support the higher projections of 3.5-4.5C in warming with doubling.

Cooks paper left no room for genuine disagreement.

 

[Ender]

That is an unwarranted statistical conclusion from the data. All we know is that only 1/3 of the papers on climate science with the words “global warming” expressed an opinion on AGW in those papers . That says nothing about the position of the scientists who wrote those papers, such as what they might say if asked “Do you accept AGW?” It is a mistake to conclude that 2/3 of climate scientists have not taken a position on AGW.

If it is a mistake to conclude that 2/3 of climate scientists have not taken a position it is an even greater mistake to suggest that they have taken a position and that it is in support of AGW, which is exactly how the Cook paper is interpreted.

As I said, it is different because all of the jurors are expected to take a position.

Whether they may take a position or must take one is a statistical irrelevancy in calculating who believes what. The question is whether it is appropriate to assume that the conclusions reached by the 1/3 who have made a decision accurately represent the conclusions that will be reached by the other 2/3. In that regard there is no difference between scientists trying to decide the cause of global warming and jurors trying to decide the guilt of the defendant.

No, they are different. The level of official approval is different in all three cases.

You just make this up as you go along. You have no idea what the “level of official approval” is for any of those institutions, let alone all of them so you could make a fit comparison.

The Cook study eliminated the case of “undecided”; it allowed only yes or no. That 2/3 of all climate scientists expressed no position was dealt with by effectively putting them all in the yes column. It was a bogus approach for my fictional foreman, and it was bogus for Cook.

 

[Ender]

How the question is asked is also very important. I fully expect 99% to agree man is contributing to global warming due to radiative forcing by increasing CO2. But that is very different than stating 99% believe man is the primary cause of recent warming.

From Cooks paper:

Explicit endorsements were divided into non-quantified (e.g., humans are contributing to global warming without quantifying the contribution) and quantified (e.g., humans are contributing more than 50% of global warming,

These define categories 1 and 2. This is the definition for category 3:

Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause

Note that categories 2 and 3 do not specify the amount of anthropogenic warming, only that it occurs. Given that pretty much everyone recognizes that man contributes something to warming (e.g. the heat island effect) that opens door three (implicit, not quantified support) pretty wide.

So, of the ~12k papers, how many fell into category 1? At most 64, and possibly as few as 41, but the results are presented as if everything in categories 1-3 was actually in 1. Even the paper itself does not make the claim that its adherents make - that 97% of all climate scientists believe man is responsible for more than 50% of the warming. It only claims:

Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.

And that claim glides around the distinction between causing some warming and causing half or more. What this paper shows is how easy it is to manipulate the public.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

That is an unwarranted statistical conclusion from the data. All we know is that only 1/3 of the papers on climate science with the words “global warming” expressed an opinion on AGW in those papers . That says nothing about the position of the scientists who wrote those papers, such as what they might say if asked “Do you accept AGW?” It is a mistake to conclude that 2/3 of climate scientists have not taken a position on AGW.

If it is a mistake to conclude that 2/3 of climate scientists have not taken a position it is an even greater mistake to suggest that they have taken a position and that it is in support of AGW,

No. That assumption is justified by sampling theory - the same theory that says that the people you did not poll likely would answer the same as the people you did poll.

As I said, it is different because all of the jurors are expected to take a position.

Whether they may take a position or must take one is a statistical irrelevancy in calculating who believes what.

No. When a juror ignores explicit instructions that he is required to follow under law, that is very different from a scientist who was never even asked what he thought of global warming. In the first case we stop the proceedings and replace the juror or something drastic. (I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it happening.) The law requires more than a statistical approximation to the jury’s decision. It requires a complete vote. In the second case, statistical sampling theory is applicable.

No, they are different. The level of official approval is different in all three cases.

You just make this up as you go along. You have no idea what the “level of official approval” is for any of those institutions, let alone all of them so you could make a fit comparison.

Any reasonable person can recognize the difference between a photocopy of a document that some unknown person uploads to some internet site, and an article published on the official website of the USCCB or NASA. Journalism 101.

The Cook study eliminated the case of “undecided”;

There is a big difference between “undecided” and “someone we didn’t ask”. It is wrong to call all those papers that did not express an opinion on AGW “undecided.”

You know, there are some much better attacks you could be making on the Cook methodology, such as incorrect categorizations of papers or systematic bias due to counting publishing scientists more than unpublished scientists. That’s what I would do if I were you. This approach of hammering away at the papers that were discarded after the initial screen is the most flawed of any of the objections to the Cook et. al. result.

 

[Ender]

No. That assumption is justified by sampling theory - the same theory that says that the people you did not poll likely would answer the same as the people you did poll.

I was unaware that sampling theory justified eliminating subjects after they had been sampled, which is what Cook did by throwing away 2/3 of his original 12k papers. He simply eliminated the category of “no position”, and given that that’s where most of the papers fell that significantly skewed the result.

No. When a juror ignores explicit instructions that he is required to follow under law, that is very different from a scientist who was never even asked what he thought of global warming.

I never suggested the jurors refused to take a position, all I said was they had not (yet) expressed an opinion. The fact that a juror at some point has to take a position on the evidence is not really different than expecting a scientist to take a position once there is sufficient reason to do so. In both cases, 1/3 of the set had taken a position while 2/3 had not. Over (an unspecified amount of) time, we would expect virtually everyone to reach a conclusion, but until they have done so there is no justification in assuming everyone will make the same decision.

Any reasonable person can recognize the difference between a photocopy of a document that some unknown person uploads to some internet site, and an article published on the official website of the USCCB or NASA. Journalism 101.

Your response has nothing whatever to do with my challenge regarding “level of official approval” (your phrase). I see you’re trying to finesse that claim.

There is a big difference between “undecided” and “someone we didn’t ask”. It is wrong to call all those papers that did not express an opinion on AGW “undecided.”

So where are the “undecided” scientists? It is ludicrous to suggest that 100% of climate scientists have taken a position on global warming, but that is what Cook suggests. He eliminated that category entirely, which seems a bit extreme given that that is where the bulk of scientists actually belong.

You know, there are some much better attacks you could be making on the Cook methodology, such as incorrect categorizations of papers…

The Cook paper is a target rich environment; one hardly knows where to start. Regarding incorrect categorization, even Cook recognized a problem here:

Initially, 27% of category ratings and 33% of endorsement ratings disagreed

 

[Theo520]

The Cook paper is a target rich environment; one hardly knows where to start. Regarding incorrect categorization, even Cook recognized a problem here:

Initially, 27% of category ratings and 33% of endorsement ratings disagreed

It was shoddy research from the ‘get go’ but he was just a psychology major at the time, with an agenda to push.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

No. That assumption is justified by sampling theory - the same theory that says that the people you did not poll likely would answer the same as the people you did poll.

I was unaware that sampling theory justified eliminating subjects after they had been sampled, which is what Cook did by throwing away 2/3 of his original 12k papers.

The discarded papers were not “already sampled.” It is more like having a list of telephone numbers that you want to call to ask them a polling question. But for 2/3 of those phone numbers, when you called them, there was no answer. It is statistically justified to assume that the people who did not answer their phone likely would have answered similarly to those 1/3 who did answer their phone. The fact that 12K papers were in the initial computer screen does not mean that those authors had been “already sampled.”

LeafByNiggle:

No. When a juror ignores explicit instructions that he is required to follow under law, that is very different from a scientist who was never even asked what he thought of global warming.

I never suggested the jurors refused to take a position, all I said was they had not (yet) expressed an opinion.

Well, then how did the foreman in your story get to the point of reporting the results to the judge? If he had not yet collected the ballots he should have waited for all of them.

LeafByNiggle:

Any reasonable person can recognize the difference between a photocopy of a document that some unknown person uploads to some internet site, and an article published on the official website of the USCCB or NASA. Journalism 101.

Your response has nothing whatever to do with my challenge regarding “level of official approval”

If you don’t know where a document came from, you also don’t have any confidence in its level of official approval.

LeafByNiggle:

There is a big difference between “undecided” and “someone we didn’t ask”. It is wrong to call all those papers that did not express an opinion on AGW “undecided.”

So where are the “undecided” scientists? It is ludicrous to suggest that 100% of climate scientists have taken a position on global warming, but that is what Cook suggests. He eliminated that category entirely, which seems a bit extreme given that that is where the bulk of scientists actually belong.

I suppose Cook could have established a category called “undecided”, but then the only papers he could have counted in that category would be those where the author explicitly said “I am undecided” on this issue. You certainly can’t count papers that took no position as undecided. Have you ever seen a paper where the author said “I am undecided” on this issue? I don’t suppose there are many.

LeafByNiggle:

You know, there are some much better attacks you could be making on the Cook methodology, such as incorrect categorizations of papers…

The Cook paper is a target rich environment; one hardly knows where to start.

Start at a more supportable one.

 

[HarryStotle]

But there is no evidence that document ever became the position of the CIA. It was the view of the authors alone.
…
The author of the article may have taken the issue very seriously, but regarding the CIA, not so much. This is a very indirect and unreliable way of assessing scientific consensus of the 1960s and 1970s.

The author of the article took the word of a few climatologists meeting in Bonn (so the story goes). I have not found any independent verification of what those meeting in Bonn actually said. Why don’t you link to one of their statements rather than to a third party assessment of what those scientists said? In fact I have no way of knowing if the entire scanned photocopied document is not a fake. I’m not saying it is a fake, but just that its provenance is lacking.
…
You cannot assess any kind of consensus by only considering those who agree with one side of the question. Cook counted those who for and against AGW. In attempting to establish a different consensus during the 1970s you are only counting those who profess global cooling. This methodology does not come close to the objectivity of Cook’s methodology. So it seems odd that one would use such a flawed methodology to attack a much better methodology.

And conversely, I suppose, that if I can establish that there was a consensus of leading scientists on global cooling in the 1970s, we can reverse the flawed methodology accusation? As if the two methodologies have anything to do with each other?

Here is an article that documents the hysteria of global cooling in over a hundred articles written in the 1970s in such august publications as the New York Times, Time Magazine, Chicago Tribune, LA Tmes, Times of London, the Telegraph, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and others from various countries. How is that for provenance?

1970s Global Cooling Alarmism

" Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. " – George Santayana " The scientists and computers at the National O...

www.populartechnology.net

Not sure how old you are, but I was alive back then and attending university. Yeah, it was a major issue and it makes sense that the CIA took it seriously. There is a certain benefit to being able to remember the past. Or, at least, being sufficiently aware of it that we aren’t doomed to reliving it.

It also explains why those UNDER 40 are more likely to take seriously the idea of a scientific consensus, whereas those who have been around since Galileo understand that scientists can and do often become heavily invested in certain notions that sooner or later turn out quite different from the certainty expressed by the scientific community.

 

[HarryStotle]

You cannot assess any kind of consensus by only considering those who agree with one side of the question. Cook counted those who for and against AGW. In attempting to establish a different consensus during the 1970s you are only counting those who profess global cooling. This methodology does not come close to the objectivity of Cook’s methodology. So it seems odd that one would use such a flawed methodology to attack a much better methodology.

True enough. And what about the 31 487 scientists who explicitly deny that there is anything like a significant human impact on the climate?

http://www.petitionproject.org/

I suppose that if you are now only counting those who agree with global warming to establish what you assume is a consensus today you are engaging in your own use of a flawed methodology.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

But there is no evidence that document ever became the position of the CIA. It was the view of the authors alone.
…
The author of the article may have taken the issue very seriously, but regarding the CIA, not so much. This is a very indirect and unreliable way of assessing scientific consensus of the 1960s and 1970s.

The author of the article took the word of a few climatologists meeting in Bonn (so the story goes). I have not found any independent verification of what those meeting in Bonn actually said. Why don’t you link to one of their statements rather than to a third party assessment of what those scientists said? In fact I have no way of knowing if the entire scanned photocopied document is not a fake. I’m not saying it is a fake, but just that its provenance is lacking.
…
You cannot assess any kind of consensus by only considering those who agree with one side of the question. Cook counted those who for and against AGW. In attempting to establish a different consensus during the 1970s you are only counting those who profess global cooling. This methodology does not come close to the objectivity of Cook’s methodology. So it seems odd that one would use such a flawed methodology to attack a much better methodology.

And conversely, I suppose, that if I can establish that there was a consensus of leading scientists on global cooling in the 1970s, …

But you cannot do that because it was not true.

Here is an article that documents the hysteria of global cooling in over a hundred articles written in the 1970s in such august publications as the New York Times, Time Magazine, Chicago Tribune, LA Tmes, Times of London, the Telegraph, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and others from various countries.

Don’t confuse popular media with scientific consensus. Besides, 100 articles over a several year period is not that many. Have you counted the number of articles in scientific journals of the period that suggest global warming? That’s what I mean about one-sided counting. It can never prove consensus.

Not sure how old you are, but I was alive back then and attending university.

71, and I was attending university at that time too, and I remember to such alarmism (although I would not be surprised that their might have been such alarmism in the popular media.)

Yeah, it was a major issue and it makes sense that the CIA took it seriously.

As I said, your photocopy with no provenance does not prove the CIA believed global cooling was likely.

It also explains why those UNDER 40 are more likely to take seriously the idea of a scientific consensus, whereas those who have been around since Galileo…

Wow! You’re over 377 years old? Congratuations! But citing Galileo is off the mark too. If you have to back 3 centuries to find an example of a scientific consensus being wrong, I would say the reputation of science is quite safe!