Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

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Another falacy of the global warming crowd debunked

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136?mg=reno64-wsj

Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent."

Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."

Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research.

One frequently cited source for the consensus is a 2004 opinion essay published in Science magazine by Naomi Oreskes, a science historian now at Harvard. She claimed to have examined abstracts of 928 articles published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and found that 75% supported the view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming over the previous 50 years while none directly dissented.

Ms. Oreskes's definition of consensus covered "man-made" but left out "dangerous"—and scores of articles by prominent scientists such as Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels, who question the consensus, were excluded. The methodology is also flawed. A study published earlier this year in Nature noted that abstracts of academic papers often contain claims that aren't substantiated in the papers.

Another widely cited source for the consensus view is a 2009 article in "Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union" by Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, a student at the University of Illinois, and her master's thesis adviser Peter Doran. It reported the results of a two-question online survey of selected scientists. Mr. Doran and Ms. Zimmerman claimed "97 percent of climate scientists agree" that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant contributing factor.

The survey's questions don't reveal much of interest. Most scientists who are skeptical of catastrophic global warming nevertheless would answer "yes" to both questions. The survey was silent on whether the human impact is large enough to constitute a problem. Nor did it include solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists or astronomers, who are the scientists most likely to be aware of natural causes of climate change.

The "97 percent" figure in the Zimmerman/Doran survey represents the views of only 79 respondents who listed climate science as an area of expertise and said they published more than half of their recent peer-reviewed papers on climate change. Seventy-nine scientists—of the 3,146 who responded to the survey—does not a consensus make.

In 2010, William R. Love Anderegg, then a student at Stanford University, used Google Scholar to identify the views of the most prolific writers on climate change. His findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Mr. Love Anderegg found that 97% to 98% of the 200 most prolific writers on climate change believe "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming." There was no mention of how dangerous this climate change might be; and, of course, 200 researchers out of the thousands who have contributed to the climate science debate is not evidence of consensus.

In 2013, John Cook, an Australia-based blogger, and some of his friends reviewed abstracts of peer-reviewed papers published from 1991 to 2011. Mr. Cook reported that 97% of those who stated a position explicitly or implicitly suggest that human activity is responsible for some warming. His findings were published in Environmental Research Letters.

Mr. Cook's work was quickly debunked. In Science and Education in August 2013, for example, David R. Legates (a professor of geography at the University of Delaware and former director of its Center for Climatic Research) and three coauthors reviewed the same papers as did Mr. Cook and found "only 41 papers—0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent—had been found to endorse" the claim that human activity is causing most of the current warming. Elsewhere, climate scientists including Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir J. Shaviv and Nils- Axel Morner, whose research questions the alleged consensus, protested that Mr. Cook ignored or misrepresented their work.

Rigorous international surveys conducted by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch —most recently published in Environmental Science & Policy in 2010—have found that most climate scientists disagree with the consensus on key issues such as the reliability of climate data and computer models. They do not believe that climate processes such as cloud formation and precipitation are sufficiently understood to predict future climate change.

Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus. Only 39.5% of 1,854 American Meteorological Society members who responded to a survey in 2012 said man-made global warming is dangerous.

Finally, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—which claims to speak for more than 2,500 scientists—is probably the most frequently cited source for the consensus. Its latest report claims that "human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems." Yet relatively few have either written on or reviewed research having to do with the key question: How much of the temperature increase and other climate changes observed in the 20th century was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions? The IPCC lists only 41 authors and editors of the relevant chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report addressing "anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing."

Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project, a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures—more than 31,000 (more than 9,000 with a Ph.D.). It was most recently published in 2009, and most signers were added or reaffirmed since 2007. The petition states that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

We could go on, but the larger point is plain. There is no basis for the claim that 97% of scientists believe that man-made climate change is a dangerous problem.
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I see you are dodging the climate scientists issue per the unusual nonsense. What a piece of crap trying to be academic....

We'll included a threesome here since ABC and AM refuse to answer

Does CO2 trap IR
DO try and stick to climate science instead of conspiracy articles from the Wall Street fossil fools.
 
This what counts....not some word salad out of WSJ - that bastion of integrity :rolleyes:

Jan12014piechart.png
 
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Elf Grinder 3000 said:
Another falacy of the global warming crowd debunked

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136?mg=reno64-wsj
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Wow, Elf Grinder 3000, you cannot tell the difference between a politician and a scientist :D!

The"Another falacy of the global warming crowd debunked" statement is wrong - there is no such assertion by scientists. The actual facts are:
* 97% of climate scientists (or papers) agree that AGW is happening.
* John Kerry makes a mistake and leaves out the climate part of climate scientists :eye-poppi.

The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
What is the origin of the false belief—constantly repeated—that almost all scientists agree about global warming?
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The answer is obvious: people like the authors lying about what the 97% figure actually applies to - climate scientists and papers expressing an option on GW :jaw-dropp.
This is especially bad for Roy Spenser who is a climate scientist and should know better.

The lie is even more pronounced because they quote NASA:
Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."
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President Obama's tweet on May 16, 2013 was "It was "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous" where the "and dangerous" bit is wrong (and he misses out climate from climate scientists but this is a tweet!), not the 97%.

Then Legate, et. al. then research that tweet in the literature - ignoring that the surveys asked whether global warming existed and if it existed then was it man made :eek:.

ETA: Then there is that "0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts" bit of nonsense where Legate, et. al. assume that every paper that does not take a position on GW is taking the position that GW does not exist!
The correct thing to do is to ignore papers that do not take a position when calculating the % of papers that take positions either way.

It was stupid of that article to treat the Legate, et. al. paper as a rebuttal to:
Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
A new survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers by our citizen science team at Skeptical Science has found a 97% consensus among papers taking a position on the cause of global warming in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are responsible.
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when it did not even address the same question.
 
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What possible bearing do the poorly informed opinions of meteorologists have to do with climate science ....or do you think meteorology and climate science are one in the same.

You might as well ask a pharmacy clerk about nuclear medicine.
The clerk might have an opinion .....but it's not an informed one.

Retired weather newscasters have nothing to offer climate science except noise and use of fossil fuel funding to influence the likes of you three....
:dl:

Reality is

It's getting warmer
We're responsible.
Even Exxon got the message but somehow you there......well....we'll let the reader decide veracity of position when you refuse to answer a simple atmospheric physics question.

Does CO2 trap IR??
 
macdoc said:
What possible bearing do the poorly informed opinions of meteorologists have to do with climate science ....or do you think meteorology and climate science are one in the same.

You might as well ask a pharmacy clerk about nuclear medicine.
The clerk might have an opinion .....but it's not an informed one.

Retired weather newscasters have nothing to offer climate science except noise and use of fossil fuel funding to influence the likes of you three....
:dl:

Reality is

It's getting warmer
We're responsible.
Even Exxon got the message but somehow you there......well....we'll let the reader decide veracity of position when you refuse to answer a simple atmospheric physics question.

Does CO2 trap IR??
Click to expand...

How bout 30 year tenure of MIT Atmospheric Physicists Dr. Richard Lindzen? He is about as knowledgeable as it gets. Those "climate scientist" can't compete with him and other notables like the 9,000 PHDs who were part of the 31,000 real time scientist who don't agree.
No warming for 16 plus years. We are not responsible for climate or weather. The sky isn't falling. Has Exxon gone out of the fossil fuel business?
 
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Elf Grinder 3000 said:
Another falacy of the global warming crowd debunked
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Same question (slightly modified) to you that I have posed to others, a question that has as yet gone unanswered.

You have but three options.

(1) All the evidence produced by scientists from around the world for over thirty years is all honestly in error (in which case you need to explain how they all keep getting it wrong the same way for so long);

(2) All the evidence produced by scientists from around the world for over thirty years is deliberately in error (in which case you need to explain how this worldwide conspiracy came into being, how it is organized and run, how it is funded, and what its goals are); or

(3) Some combination of #1 and #2 (in which case you'll have to explain both facets).

Perhaps you'll be the first to take up the challenge of providing an answer in the form of your selected option, complete with solid evidence demonstrating the soundness of your choice.

I eagerly await your treatise!
 
ABC10 said:
How bout 30 year tenure of MIT Atmospheric Physicists Dr. Richard Lindzen? He is about as knowledgeable as it gets. Those "climate scientist" can't compete with him and other notables like the 9,000 PHDs who were part of the 31,000 real time scientist who don't agree.No warming for 16 plus years. We are not responsible for climate or weather. The sky isn't falling. Has Exxon gone out of the fossil fuel business?
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It wasn't just 9000 phd's. It was also the cast of MASH and ginger spice. That you continue to use this "fact" although it was debunked earlier in the thread speaks volumes.
As for Lindzen, well there were also brilliant scientists willing to tell us that smoking was safe. Anyway lets see how reliable he is:-

Lindzen has given estimates of the Earth's climate sensitivity to be 0.5°C based on ERBE data. These estimates were criticized by other researchers, and Lindzen accepted that his paper included "some stupid mistakes". When interviewed, he said "It was just embarrassing", and added that "The technical details of satellite measurements are really sort of grotesque." Lindzen and Choi revised their paper and submitted it to PNAS. The four reviewers of the paper, two of whom had been selected by Lindzen, strongly criticized the paper and PNAS rejected it for publication. Lindzen and Choi then succeeded in getting a relatively unknown Korean journal to publish it as a 2011 paper. Andrew Dessler published a paper which found errors in Lindzen and Choi 2011, and concluded that the observations it had presented "are not in fundamental disagreement with mainstream climate models, nor do they provide evidence that clouds are causing climate change. Suggestions that significant revisions to mainstream climate science are required are therefore not supported".
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ABC10 said:
How bout 30 year tenure of MIT Atmospheric Physicists Dr. Richard Lindzen? He is about as knowledgeable as it gets. Those "climate scientist" can't compete with him and other notables like the 9,000 PHDs who were part of the 31,000 real time scientist who don't agree.
No warming for 16 plus years. We are not responsible for climate or weather. The sky isn't falling. Has Exxon gone out of the fossil fuel business?
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hillarious.

you ignore the whole MIT
http://globalchange.mit.edu/

but that one guy that says the stuff you want to hear. oh well he must know what he is talking about, he is from the MIT..........

and 16 years of no warming you say?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/ua...istemp/from:1998/plot/gistemp/from:1998/trend

ooops 3 global temperature datasets show you wrong.
nowadays just picking a startig point is not going to do it anymore. you also need to cherrypick the one sat dataset that still uses the NOAA-15 sat. the RSS Dataset.....

and you online teptition is worldwide without limiting to relevant fields of science.
but 9 000 PhDs? that is nothing, the US alone gives out some 40 000 PhDs each year......
and your petition is still only at some 9k .....
 
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Well finally.
So AM - since the plants are unable to consume as much additional fossil CO2 as we have pumped into the atmosphere - kind of obvious as it keeps rising and is at 400 ppm up from 283 ppm pre-industrial.

And you acknowledge CO2 traps IR.

Then it follows completely that the fossil C02 we have released has caused the current radiation imbalance leaving atmosphere and ocean warmer and loss of glacial mass worldwide
Would you care to dispute that chain of consequences? They are after all both observed and based on the the fact that C02 absorbs IR - answering the latter shows some science honesty in your queries here?

The part highlighted and italicized is what the climate science community and sensible people worldwide acknowledge as a reality and are struggling with what to do about.

Are you now ready to move on to dealing with consequences, instead of denying that we are responsible for the changing climate?

A major step in dealing with a problem is acknowledging it in the first place.
You took one positive step in acknowledging the mechanism which ABC10 has avoided.
Let's see where you are willing to go from here.....this is a science forum after all.

To give you some encouragement...one of the geoengineering solutions proposed is to aid plankton in uptake of C02 by seeding the oceans with iron.
Plants are part of the carbon cycle, they both absorb CO2 and emit it when they burn or decay.

Once you get by acknowledging the reality of the problem.
Then rational people can discuss dealing with the consequences of industrial society's actions and the best approaches.

It's getting warmer
We're responsible
What should we do to? a) mitigate the damage b) prevent it from getting worse for future generations.

Planting high carbon uptake vegetation is a start and reducing deforestation to that the carbon sequestered by plants ....stays out of the atmosphere.
 
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lomiller said:
1) plants won't absorb any more CO2 than they need
2) plants are generally not CO2 limited so they don't need more
3) plants that do absorb more CO2 emit more CO2 when they die so plant respiration doesn't change long term atmospheric CO2 levels4) CO2 LEVELS ARE RISING RAPIDLY AND IT'S BEEN PROVED THAT THE NEW CARBON IS FOSSIL IN ORIGIN.
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Not necessarily. If nothing changes, that could be true. But on the other hand the sequestration of C in soils is quite variable. When the plants die, and even while still alive, they can either release their carbon back into the atmosphere, or they can also release it deep in the rhizosphere. Carbon deep in the rhizosphere can potentially be held 1000 years or more if conditions are right.
 
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