WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

[NeedsMercy]

It’s interesting that other 97% figures have been debunked. Now we are to take Skeptical Science’s survey.

Well, look who else has used the 97% figure, President Obama!

wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/17/to-john-cook-it-isnt-hate-its-pity-pity-for-having-such-a-weak-argument-you-are-forced-to-fabricate-in-epic-proportions/

mrcNewsBusters? “Exposing & combating liberal media bias”? This is your source? Ok, I’ll bite. Let’s address some of those other so-called “debunked” studies. Solomon wrote:

The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois,” he wrote in a 2010 article. “The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97 percent figure that pundits now tout.

Doran 2009’s methodology is perfectly appropriate. Yes, over 10,000 surveys were sent out, but only 3146 were completed! As Doran and Zimmerman report “…the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%. This is a typical response rate for Web-based surveys.” The “subset” included those whose exact specialty was climate science (as opposed to geology, oceanography, etc.) and who had published the most papers on the subject. This number was 79 individuals.

Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 [When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?] and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2 [Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?].

If there’s something dishonest, illogical or unscientific about this reasoning, could you please point it out?

This rejoinder to the 97 percent figure concerning the so-called “scientific consensus” is not typically reported as it would complicate the political agenda attached to global warming alarmism. But there is a new 97 percent number concerning the latest U.N. report that goes unmentioned. John Droz, a physicist and mathematician, who heads up the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED), has just released an independent study that shows 97 percent of the computer models attached to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) overestimate the amount of carbon dioxide induced warming. Droz’s study probes into the draft version of the U.N.’s Fifth Assessment, which was released in September.

Many studies now show that the IPCC may actually be underestimating the climate response. The contention that the IPCC overestimates the climate response is already being addressed by other posters on this thread.

skepticalscience.com/ipcc-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

 

[Path_Finder]

mrcNewsBusters? “Exposing & combating liberal media bias”? This is your source? Ok, I’ll bite. Let’s address some of those other so-called “debunked” studies. Solomon wrote:

Doran 2009’s methodology is perfectly appropriate. Yes, over 10,000 surveys were sent out, but only 3146 were completed! As Doran and Zimmerman report “…the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%. This is a typical response rate for Web-based surveys.” The “subset” included those whose exact specialty was climate science (as opposed to geology, oceanography, etc.) and who had published the most papers on the subject. This number was 79 individuals.

If there’s something dishonest, illogical or unscientific about this reasoning, could you please point it out?

Many studies now show that the IPCC may actually be underestimating the climate response. The contention that the IPCC overestimates the climate response is already being addressed by other posters on this thread.

skepticalscience.com/ipcc-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

Again if you carefully read these studies they are indeed saying that 97% of scientists who believe in global warming believe in global warming Its like to going to a KC Royals fan site and determining that 98% of baseball fans are Royal fans - Post # 818

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=907237&page=55

 

[NeedsMercy]

As I said, this assertion is completely misleading and, as stated, is false. Go to your source and follow the link to the paper itself. There you will find this statement:* Among abstracts expressing a position* on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
So, out of the 12K papers they reviewed how many expressed no position? That would be 66.4%. If two-thirds of the papers expressed no opinion whatever how can anyone claim that 97% of them support AGW? You have, yet again, been deceived by those pushing the idea that man is responsible for global warming. At some point you ought to ask yourself why such deceit is thought to be necessary and why anyone should believe people who constantly distort the truth.

Ender

Once again, you are totally incorrect. If you had read anything in the paper besides that one sentence, some things would have been obvious.

First, do you know what an abstract even is? An abstract is not the same as the complete study or paper! Those conducting the immediate study were not going to read over 12,000 papers in their entirety. Sorting the abstracts of the papers into 3 categories is a perfectly reasonable methodology. Secondly, you cannot extrapolate that the studies which were not used because there was no opinion on AGW **in the abstract itself **did not contain a position on AGW **in the body of the study itself. ** Therefore, all your statements containing percentages are wrong.

I submit that YOU are the one being deceived, and further, are—innocently, I believe–spreading the deceit.

 

[NeedsMercy]

Path_Finder, I have addressed at least 3 different studies: Doran, Droz and the one by Skeptical Science. About which are you speaking? Linking to comments on other threads is confusing.

 

[Path_Finder]

Once again, you are totally incorrect. If you had read anything in the paper besides that one sentence, some things would have been obvious.

First, do you know what an abstract even is? An abstract is not the same as the complete study or paper! Those conducting the immediate study were not going to read over 12,000 papers in their entirety. Sorting the abstracts of the papers into 3 categories is a perfectly reasonable methodology. Secondly, you cannot extrapolate that the studies which were not used because there was no opinion on AGW **in the abstract itself **did not contain a position on AGW **in the body of the study itself. ** Therefore, all your statements containing percentages are wrong.

I submit that YOU are the one being deceived, and further, are—innocently, I believe–spreading the deceit.

Okay, many scientists say there is global warming but by how much? Most scientists say the effect is very small so even saying 97% of scientists say there is global warming is not very helpful. Add to that now, in simple terms, the term has been revamped to “Climate Change”.

In 1820, Earth began its recovery from the Little Ice Age. This natural warming has continued with superimposed ocean cycles to today. Glaciers began to shorten in 1820, about 140 years before humans began to emit significant CO2.

Humans caused only 3 percent of the CO2 increase since 1958. ** Nature caused 97 percent. Even if we stopped all human CO2 emissions, we would have no effect on climate.**

missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/percent-claim-on-global-warming-a-hoax/article_6807ccd4-3a8d-11e4-8195-2711ab08722c.html

So the fraction of warming man-made compared to that caused by nature is miniscule.

Do you believe in global warming? Man has little effect on it.

 

[Path_Finder]

Path_Finder, I have addressed at least 3 different studies: Doran, Droz and the one by Skeptical Science. About which are you speaking? Linking to comments on other threads is confusing.

I did not link to other threads, I linked to this thread, page 55.

 

[Path_Finder]

Path_Finder, I have addressed at least 3 different studies: Doran, Droz and the one by Skeptical Science. About which are you speaking? Linking to comments on other threads is confusing.

Source of Doran Study?

• In fact, the Doran EoS paper merely cites a MSc thesis for the actual source of this 97% figure and the actual survey. *

wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/

Source of Droz Study?

According to a search of Google Scholar, John Droz does not appear to have published any articles in peer-reviewed journals on the subject of climate or any other topic.- desmogblog.com/john-droz

An apparent environmentalist radical.

And Skeptical Science appears to be John Cook whose studies also appear to be suspect now. One can look around, most of the debunking of the 97% figure is from Cook’s study.

wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/27/skeptical-science-john-cook-embarrassing-himself/

 

[NeedsMercy]

I did not link to other threads, I linked to this thread, page 55.

I’m sorry, the title of the thread is switching between two titles. My bad.

 

[Ender]

The temperatures of ocean waters at different locations and different depths are taken by a variety of measures. It’s **actual **data.

And actually there is very little data available. Those charts you see of ocean heat content going back into the 70’s are not much more than educated guesses; they are not based on anything like a reasonable number of measurements. Before about 2003 and the deployment of the Argo buoys the data collected was basically random, heavily skewed to the shipping lanes, and contained virtually no accurate measurements at depth. The assertion that the oceans have warmed is a hypothesis, not a demonstrated fact, as is the assertion that the atmosphere is responsible for “warming the oceans” despite not getting any warmer itself.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Once again, you are totally incorrect. If you had read anything in the paper besides that one sentence, some things would have been obvious.

OK, here is the entire abstract so we can all review it.We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed* no position on AGW (35.5%).** Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.*
Let me know which points you dispute.

1. The study examined abstracts from about 12K papers.
2. Of those 12k abstracts, 66% expressed no opinion on AGW.
3. Of those 12k abstracts, 34% supported AGW and 1% rejected it or were uncertain about it.
4. A second phase of the survey was conducted whereby authors were asked to rate their own papers.
5. The abstract contains no information about what percentage of authors responded.

you cannot extrapolate that the studies which were not used because there was no opinion on AGW **in the abstract itself **did not contain a position on AGW **in the body of the study itself. ** Therefore, all your statements containing percentages are wrong.

I didn’t extrapolate anything; I used the figures reported in the study. The issue here for me is the deceptive way this study has been represented, which is that 97% of “the experts” believe AGW is valid. That is not at all what this study found, or what the study itself claimed. Nor did it claim that 97% of the 12k papers supported AGW, which is another false implication given by those (e.g. Skeptical Science) who reported on it.

I have never claimed the study was invalid or that it claimed anything other than what it found: 97% of the 3800 papers which took a position on the issue believe AGW is true. That, however, is not how the study has been presented to the public.

I submit that YOU are the one being deceived, and further, are—innocently, I believe–spreading the deceit.

We will continue to disagree on the first point, but as I prefer to be thought a fool than a liar I appreciate your caveat.

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Another point to consider about the “papers” survey is this. The survey was about counting papers. But the conclusion was about counting authors (or scientists). However some scientists are very prolific and write many papers, while some only write one, or none. The authors with several papers got to have their views counted more than once in this survey, while authors with only one paper only got one “vote”, and authors who wrote no papers or whose papers didn’t take a position on global warming got no “votes”. So does 97% of the relevant subset of papers tell the same story as 97% of the authors, or 97% of all climate scientists, published or not? Well, until we find some reason to think that publishing scientists have a substantially different view of global warming than non-publishing ones, the reasonable conclusion is yes. But I am open to being shown otherwise.

 

[Theo520]

Another point to consider about the “papers” survey is this. The survey was about counting papers. But the conclusion was about counting authors (or scientists). However some scientists are very prolific and write many papers, while some only write one, or none. The authors with several papers got to have their views counted more than once in this survey, while authors with only one paper only got one “vote”, and authors who wrote no papers or whose papers didn’t take a position on global warming got no “votes”. So does 97% of the relevant subset of papers tell the same story as 97% of the authors, or 97% of all climate scientists, published or not? Well, until we find some reason to think that publishing scientists have a substantially different view of global warming than non-publishing ones, the reasonable conclusion is yes. But I am open to being shown otherwise.

Of greater relevance is the recent survey of Climate Scientists

• Only 52 percent believe global warming is mostly human in cause.
• The other 48 percent either questioned whether global warming is happening or would not ascribe human activity as the primary cause.

journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Of greater relevance is the recent survey of Climate Scientists

• Only 52 percent believe global warming is mostly human in cause.
• The other 48 percent either questioned whether global warming is happening or would not ascribe human activity as the primary cause.

journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

Let’s take a closer look at that survey. First of all, it was a survey of members of the AMS, not climate scientists. Not that their views are any less important than the view of just climate scientists or researchers, but just to be accurate, let’s use the right term: meteorologists. That’s the term that is in the title of the report.

Now let’s get into the numbers. You say that only 52% of the total respondents believe global warming is mostly human in cause. That is right. And it looks like a bare majority. But then consider that this category was one of 7 categories from which the respondents could choose. All 7 categories are:

52% - Yes; mostly human
10% -Yes; equally human and natural
5% - Yes; mostly natural
20% - Yes; insufficient evidence
1% - Yes; don’t know cause
7% - Don’t know if GW is happening
4% - GW is not happening

Since there were these 7 different categories to choose from, that sheds a different light on the fact that 52% of them all chose one category. But let’s not forget the second category, “Yes, equally human and natural”. That category is almost in agreement with the first category, except that they allow an equal role for natural causes of global warming. The respondents for this category also believe that global warming is happening, and that humans have a measurable impact on it. If you wanted to group the first two categories you could say that 62% of the respondents agree that global warming is happening and that humans have something to do with it. Then there is the third category - “Yes, insufficient evidence”. These 20% of the respondents also agree that global warming is happening, but do not believe that the current evidence is strong enough to say for sure that humans are causing it. If you combine the first four categories you can conclude that 83% of the respondents agree that global warming is happening. But the most telling of all is the last category - “No, global warming is not happening”. Only 4% of the respondents say that. Since the title of this thread is “Whatever Happened to Global Warming?”, it seems like this last statistic from the survey you quoted seems to indicate that there is quite a lot of agreement that it is still happening.

Now let’s look at the survey methodology. The results quoted were from 1,821 respondents to the request by e-mail. Considering that the other survey of published papers was being criticized for involving “only” 3,800 papers instead of the promised 12,000, what can we say about a survey of “only” 1,821 people? But the most significant characteristic of the survey methodology is the method of selection. E-mails were sent out to all 7,062 AMS professional members with e-mail addresses. The response by 1,821 people made the response rate 26%. This is even lower than the selection of 3,800 papers out of the initial 12,000. Whenever there is a low response rate, you always have to consider that the self-selection process might introduce a bias in the results. The lower the response rate the greater the risk of contamination due to self-selection bias. In this case it might be that those meteorologists who hold a contrary view about global warming are more passionate about their views than those in the majority, and therefore are more likely to respond to a self-selected survey. I don’t know that to be a fact, but it is certainly a risk worth considering.

Finally, even if we only use your original statistic of 52% in strong agreement that global warming is mostly caused by humans, it is still a majority. That makes me wonder why so many non-professionals with no inside information or independent research, choose to side with the minority of professional weather people.

 

[Tomdstone]

Let’s take a closer look at that survey. First of all, it was a survey of members of the AMS, not climate scientists. Not that their views are any less important than the view of just climate scientists or researchers, but just to be accurate, let’s use the right term: meteorologists. That’s the term that is in the title of the report.

Now let’s get into the numbers. You say that only 52% of the total respondents believe global warming is mostly human in cause. That is right. And it looks like a bare majority. But then consider that this category was one of 7 categories from which the respondents could choose. All 7 categories are:

52% - Yes; mostly human
10% -Yes; equally human and natural
5% - Yes; mostly natural
20% - Yes; insufficient evidence
1% - Yes; don’t know cause
7% - Don’t know if GW is happening
4% - GW is not happening

Since there were these 7 different categories to choose from, that sheds a different light on the fact that 52% of them all chose one category. But let’s not forget the second category, “Yes, equally human and natural”. That category is almost in agreement with the first category, except that they allow an equal role for natural causes of global warming. The respondents for this category also believe that global warming is happening, and that humans have a measurable impact on it. If you wanted to group the first two categories you could say that 62% of the respondents agree that global warming is happening and that humans have something to do with it. Then there is the third category - “Yes, insufficient evidence”. These 20% of the respondents also agree that global warming is happening, but do not believe that the current evidence is strong enough to say for sure that humans are causing it. If you combine the first four categories you can conclude that 83% of the respondents agree that global warming is happening. But the most telling of all is the last category - “No, global warming is not happening”. Only 4% of the respondents say that. Since the title of this thread is “Whatever Happened to Global Warming?”, it seems like this last statistic from the survey you quoted seems to indicate that there is quite a lot of agreement that it is still happening.

Now let’s look at the survey methodology. The results quoted were from 1,821 respondents to the request by e-mail. Considering that the other survey of published papers was being criticized for involving “only” 3,800 papers instead of the promised 12,000, what can we say about a survey of “only” 1,821 people? But the most significant characteristic of the survey methodology is the method of selection. E-mails were sent out to all 7,062 AMS professional members with e-mail addresses. The response by 1,821 people made the response rate 26%. This is even lower than the selection of 3,800 papers out of the initial 12,000. Whenever there is a low response rate, you always have to consider that the self-selection process might introduce a bias in the results. The lower the response rate the greater the risk of contamination due to self-selection bias. In this case it might be that those meteorologists who hold a contrary view about global warming are more passionate about their views than those in the majority, and therefore are more likely to respond to a self-selected survey. I don’t know that to be a fact, but it is certainly a risk worth considering.

Finally, even if we only use your original statistic of 52% in strong agreement that global warming is mostly caused by humans, it is still a majority. That makes me wonder why so many non-professionals with no inside information or independent research, choose to side with the minority of professional weather people.

Only 4% say that GW is not happening.

 

[lynnvinc]

Let’s take a closer look at that survey. First of all, it was a survey of members of the AMS, not climate scientists. Not that their views are any less important than the view of just climate scientists or researchers, but just to be accurate, let’s use the right term: meteorologists. That’s the term that is in the title of the report…

We invited a meteorologist to give a talk on CC a couple of years ago, and the first thing he said was “I am not a climate scientist. I’m a meteorologist [and he proceeded to give educational and background details]…I have an interest in climate change and have made it my hobby to study it.” His talk was great, bringing in the meso-level of weather and climate patterns, such as el nino, etc.

We had a meteorologist weatherman in my previous area where I lived some 14 years ago who denied CC…I later found out he was closely related to a prominent person in the fossil fuel industry.

The point is meteorologists – whether they accept anthropogenic climate change or not – are NOT climate scientists. They do not have the necessary expertise or research experience to say whether or not ACC is happening…just as none of us here (except one who was on for a short time) have that expertise. We simply accept what the real experts say – and they overwhelmingly say ACC is happening – or not.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

…The point is meteorologists – whether they accept anthropogenic climate change or not – are NOT climate scientists. They do not have the necessary expertise or research experience to say whether or not ACC is happening…just as none of us here (except one who was on for a short time) have that expertise. We simply accept what the real experts say – and they overwhelmingly say ACC is happening – or not.

Lynn, it is not fair to dismiss so easily the view of meteorologists. Even though they are not the primary experts themselves, they are closer to the experts than most of us. They know what climate scientists are saying as well as or better than we do. They are at least as well equipped to understand and relate to the research as we are. If we are too restrictive on whose opinion matters, we invite the argument that the definition of a climate scientist is one who agrees with AGW. To avoid going down that rabbit hole I would rather treat the views of meteorologists with respect and focus more on the fact that even meteorologists are in general agreement that global warming is happening.

 

[Path_Finder]

I was watching CSPAN the other day and they happened to mention a website, opendemocracy.net, it looks left-wing on the surface, I opened up this article on global warming, I’m certainly not saying I agree with it. It is certainly very alarmist reading. I don’t know if this is all true. Whether one agrees or not, it’s often helpful to read the other side. Again, this article is very alarmist.

opendemocracy.net/transformation/jem-bendell/future-of-climate-debate

Warming in the Arctic has been exponential, and there are signs that this is already affecting frozen methane on the sea floor, leading to its release into the atmosphere. Over 20 years, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of the greenhouse effect. The release of oceanic methane was the cause of the largest mass extinction on Earth, called the Permian, which ended 95 per cent of species in existence at that time.

Given these trends, future debates about climate change will have to be very different to anything that was on offer in the conference centres or on the streets of New York. It’s this future debate that we need to explore ourselves–and urgently–even if politicians, businesses, and mainstream environmental groups are not ready to acknowledge it. On the sidelines, I’m seeing four emerging lines of thinking and action: profound change, emergency response, local resilience, and transcendence.

I thought the polar ice cap was expanding. So much information out there.

 

[Path_Finder]

Only 4% say that GW is not happening.

Yes, but 4% are not saying man-made global warming is not happening.

 

[Theo520]

Only 4% say that GW is not happening.

I think this represents the broader community as well. Most people acknowledge the climate record, that we are in a warming phase out of a mini ice age.

Here I’m labeled a ‘denier’ but could easily argue for any of the below answers.
10% -Yes; equally human and natural
5% - Yes; mostly natural
20% - Yes; insufficient evidence

 

[jmaher2day]

Global Warming? Sure is alot of “Scienctist” lol in here…I say this! global warming, Is it your “globe” or “eveyones” globe"? Remember His Word, He spoketh…and what did He say? Read Revelations! Matter of fact! It’s the ONLY book, that cometh with a BLESSING FROM GOD HIMSELF! But read His Word, all the books that are cannonzied, and you may discover something! His “Kingdom” is NOT OF THIS WORLD? IS IT? NOT!!! So…When the ICE metls…what does it mean then? Does one “wonder” “WHO” is it that will wipe the tear from thine own eyes? Food…Eat thy Word, Is there not manna hidden? Bitter it is in thine stomach, is it not written? It will pass…

Peace