27 thoughts on “The Science Is Getting More Unsettled By The Day”
Maybe I’m missing something, the IPCC estimates sensitivity of 3C plus or minus 1.5C, this study estimates 2.3C with a 66% probability it’s between 1.7 and 2.6. And this study is being depicted as a refutation, not just of the more extreme “alarmist” arguments, but also of the science supported IPCC consensus?
Mead writes:
This is modern science in action: some of the best minds in the discipline probing the validity of others’ hypotheses in the interest of advancing our understanding of the world around us.
Mead isn’t writing about a scam.
You can’t be serious
Rand, this article disproves your claims of “conspiracy.” A respected scientist writing in a highly-respected journal makes an argument that goes against the climate consensus. If there were a conspiracy, this paper would never see the light of day.
Which article are you referring to? I don’t see the Science piece anywhere. The Economist write-up doesn’t even list an author. It starts off with “In Dr Schmittner’s analysis, the climate is less sensitive to carbon dioxide than was feared.”, but as Andrew points out, it appears to boil down to a half degree. And it concludes with:
Moreover, some sceptics complain about the way ancient data of this type were used to construct a different but related piece of climate science: the so-called hockey-stick model, which suggests that temperatures have risen suddenly since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It will be interesting to see if such sceptics are willing to be equally sceptical about ancient data when they support their point of view.
I don’t see “A respected scientist writing in a highly-respected journal” making much of an argument anywhere. And describing Science as a highly-respected journal is… a stretch.
The abstract is here (scroll down a few comments in Rand’s cite.)
Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.
This is still about a model that simulates global climate. And imminent extreme climatic change. IOW, bananas and strawberries. I’ve criticized Mead before; he’s a very good writer, but he sometimes runs off the rails. I think he did so here.
Rand, this article disproves your claims of “conspiracy.”
Nonsense (not that I recall making “claims of ‘conspiracy'”).
If there were a conspiracy, this paper would never see the light of day.
I didn’t say it was a competent conspiracy. Are you really denying that some of these people attempted to, and in some cases succeeded in, suppressing papers that didn’t support “the cause”?
Bullshit. You just in this very post called AGW a “scam.” A scam you’ve defined in other posts as involving multiple people. That’s a claim of conspiracy.
You want to argue a conspiracy going on for 20+ years that’s not competent to keep an article out of one of the most-read journals in the field? Incompetent conspiracies don’t last that long.
I think what’s happened with “suppressing” papers is conducting a peer-review and determning that the study is junk science. That’s what “peer review” means.
I called it a scam because it is a scam. And if you want to continue to be a “denier” about what the emails revealed, you are welcome to do so.
It’s a scam and a conspiracy, as the leaked e-mails make abundantly clear. Amongst themselves they admit their models are wrong, that they can’t account for the lack of warming, and that the important things are to to keep their funding rolling in by misinforming the public of the uncertainties.
The conspiracy is also incompetant in failing to suppress all papers exxpressing doubts, but as the e-mails also make absolutely clear, they try their mightiest to suppress such papers. They attempt to destroy the careers of any scientist who publishes such a paper (this is explicit in their e-mails), and they attempt to destroy the career of any editor who lets such a paper see print (this is explicit in the e-mails). The also attempt to destroy any journal that prints such papers if they can’t gain control of it (this is explicit in the e-mails). If that fails, they attempt to redefine which journals count as peer-reviewed literature (this is explicit in the e-mails).
Is that explicit enough for you, Chris? If young Earth creationists from the 1800’s had been as coordinated, Darwin’s evolutionary theory would’ve never been more than a rumor in a tabloid, invoked to explain the discovery of a wolf-boy with bat wings.
And, a floor wax and a dessert topping!
(Sorry. Obscure cultural reference and random synapse arcing.)
I didn’t say it was a competent conspiracy.
The National Academy of Sciences surveyed 1,300 climate scientists and found 97% support for AGW. If AGW is a conspiracy, it’s a very effective one. It isn’t easy to get 97% of scientists in a field to agree even about things that are trivially true; getting them to agree about a made-up falsehood is pretty impressive.
And if this scam has ensnared 97% of climate scientists, why pay any attention to Schmittner? He’s obviously one of the 97%.
The National Academy of Sciences surveyed 1,300 climate scientists and found 97% support for AGW. If AGW is a conspiracy, it’s a very effective one
You seem to have the wrong tense, there. It was a very effective one.
It was a very effective one.
And yet people like Schmittner are still publishing papers backing AGW. Either the conspiracy is still effective, or there’s something there besides a conspiracy.
Indeed, its very lucrative financially speaking. Snake oil was very lucrative too.
97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the IPCC.
The methodology of the Anderegg et al. study was challenged in PNAS by Lawrence Bodenstein for “treating publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise”.
That’s an old one Jim. Those eMails got you depressed?
Bodenstein doesn’t not challenge the fact that of the 1,300 climate scientists actively publishing, 97% support AGW. To him it’s evidence of a conspiracy: those scientists are being actively published because they support AGW. Which just restates my point: if AGW is a conspiracy, it’s been very effective at dominating the field of climate science.
If you agree, there’s no point in trumpeting results like Schmittner’s; the whole field is hopelessly tainted. People like Rand want it both ways: to treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam, and anti-AGW results as science (even when, as in this case, they are based on same sort of data and climate modeling behind the AGW thesis). There isn’t any imaginable result that would actually change his mind.
People like Rand want it both ways: to treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam, and anti-AGW results as science (even when, as in this case, they are based on same sort of data and climate modeling behind the AGW thesis). There isn’t any imaginable result that would actually change his mind.
I do not treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam. I treat evidence of a scam as evidence of a scam. And what is it that my mind needs to be changed about? My position remains that we don’t know enough to make the policy changes that the hysterists demand, not that AGW doesn’t exist. That’s the scientific position.
Actually, Bodenstein opposes treating publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise. And I think you’ve demonstrated your own problems with an imaginable result that would change your mind.
Your point: if AGW is a conspiracy, it’s been very effective at dominating the field of climate science. You obviously DON’T think it’s a conspiracy; you think “there’s something there besides a conspiracy.” If there is, if 97% of scientsts are in agreement with AGW/ACC/ARGH, why the paranoia-bordering-on-schizophrenia from UEA? What the hell are they so afraid of that would cause them to say the things they said? Could it be a scheme for making money by dishonest means?
I have some Carbon Default-Swap Credits I’d like to sell ya…
Your 97% figure is illuminating. Out of 3,000 climate scientists polled on three questions, 77 went on the record supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming, 2 went on the record as opposed (undoubtedly now part of Obama’s 9% unemployment rate), and 2,921 decided to keep both their jobs and their sense of honor by not giving an answer. So somewhere between 3.2% and 97% of climate scientists support the theory. However, of the 77 scientists who did answer positively, the majority might just be addicted to fat paychecks, unbelievably large research budgets, taxpayer funded supercomputer centers, unbridled power (including the power to destroy the careers of anyone who pisses them off, and eventually to destroy entire economies and countries that don’t bow to them), everlasting fame, rock star status, and hippie/greenie co-eds who want to give their bodies to save the planet.
So yes, the 97% figure is as scientifically accurate as their sea-level predictions.
You are referring to the Doran and Kendall Zimmerman 2009 paper, which surveyed 79 scientists. I was referring to the Anderegg, Prall, Harold, and Schneider 2010 paper, which reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers. Although the methodologies were very different, both studies found 97-98% support for AGW.
which reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers
But there is more evidence that the paper was published for propaganda purposes rather than the advancement of science. It is so sloppy that it wouldn’t pass a 7th grade science lab.
They used Google Scholar instead of any one of several academic databases. They searched only in English, despite the fact that many climate scientists publish in other languages (and have many more who are skeptical of the English and American mania for histrionic claims of disaster due to CO2).
They got names, job titles and specializations wrong–they obviously did zero quality control checking.
As for the publications they were counting, they got them incredibly wrong. They hugely inflated the publication counts for their ‘side’ and reduced the publication counts for the opposition. In short, they lied about the data.
That thing has been so discredited it’s nothing more than a joke punch line. But if you think it will bolster your argument (whatever it is), knock yourself out.
No doubt, Jim believes dictators who typically win 97% or more in elections are legitimately supported and overwhelmingly beloved by their people.
You are referring to the Doran and Kendall Zimmerman 2009 paper, which surveyed 79 scientists.
No, they weeded through over 3,000 scientists and counted 79 responses, 77 in agreement. If I sent out a questionaire to 3,000 people asking if they had sex with farm animals, and 77 people said yes and 2 people told me to get stuffed, should I go on the record claiming my survey proved 97% of people have sex with farm animals?
The other problem with the study is that their questions don’t really tell us anything.
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
Temperatures have risen, as we were in the Little Ice Age back then, so answering yes indicates anything from strong agreement to strong opposition to CAGW theory. Question 1 tells us absolutely nothing.
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
In all sorts of ways, especially land use changes and our nasty little habit of putting our recording thermometers in the middle of busy airports, because the only “mean global temperatures” we can talk about are the results of our decisions on where and how to take temperature readings. We also pump out sulfates, irrigate (which changes the level of water vapor, a major greenhouse gas), seed clouds, dam rivers, and produce black soot which falls on pristine ice. This of course all begs the question about what “significant” means. 1 degree? 0.01 degrees? The thermometers we’ve been using are only accurate to about a degree, and our errors in placement can introduce several degrees of error, and the way we massage, adjust, and readjust the temperature record also introduces huge errors, such that the 1940’s risks slipping into a full blown ice age.
So answering yes to question 2 also tells us nothing.
From this pathetically constructed little survey (even by junior high science fair standards) comes the claim that 97% of climate scientists believe in CO2 induced catastrophic global warming.
If they really did, they wouldn’t need to resort to rubish like this, or Oerskes study, or all the similar studies that don’t pass the laugh test.
Since when is science determined by popular poll?
And since when – in any area of science – has anything been “settled”? Relativity is still being prodded for holes more than a century later with the Gravity Probe B satellites, how can catastrophic AGW be considered “fact” rather than “theory”?
Maybe I’m missing something, the IPCC estimates sensitivity of 3C plus or minus 1.5C, this study estimates 2.3C with a 66% probability it’s between 1.7 and 2.6. And this study is being depicted as a refutation, not just of the more extreme “alarmist” arguments, but also of the science supported IPCC consensus?
Mead writes:
Mead isn’t writing about a scam.
You can’t be serious
Rand, this article disproves your claims of “conspiracy.” A respected scientist writing in a highly-respected journal makes an argument that goes against the climate consensus. If there were a conspiracy, this paper would never see the light of day.
Which article are you referring to? I don’t see the Science piece anywhere. The Economist write-up doesn’t even list an author. It starts off with “In Dr Schmittner’s analysis, the climate is less sensitive to carbon dioxide than was feared.”, but as Andrew points out, it appears to boil down to a half degree. And it concludes with:
Moreover, some sceptics complain about the way ancient data of this type were used to construct a different but related piece of climate science: the so-called hockey-stick model, which suggests that temperatures have risen suddenly since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It will be interesting to see if such sceptics are willing to be equally sceptical about ancient data when they support their point of view.
I don’t see “A respected scientist writing in a highly-respected journal” making much of an argument anywhere. And describing Science as a highly-respected journal is… a stretch.
The abstract is here (scroll down a few comments in Rand’s cite.)
Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.
This is still about a model that simulates global climate. And imminent extreme climatic change. IOW, bananas and strawberries. I’ve criticized Mead before; he’s a very good writer, but he sometimes runs off the rails. I think he did so here.
Rand, this article disproves your claims of “conspiracy.”
Nonsense (not that I recall making “claims of ‘conspiracy'”).
If there were a conspiracy, this paper would never see the light of day.
I didn’t say it was a competent conspiracy. Are you really denying that some of these people attempted to, and in some cases succeeded in, suppressing papers that didn’t support “the cause”?
Bullshit. You just in this very post called AGW a “scam.” A scam you’ve defined in other posts as involving multiple people. That’s a claim of conspiracy.
You want to argue a conspiracy going on for 20+ years that’s not competent to keep an article out of one of the most-read journals in the field? Incompetent conspiracies don’t last that long.
I think what’s happened with “suppressing” papers is conducting a peer-review and determning that the study is junk science. That’s what “peer review” means.
I called it a scam because it is a scam. And if you want to continue to be a “denier” about what the emails revealed, you are welcome to do so.
It’s a scam and a conspiracy, as the leaked e-mails make abundantly clear. Amongst themselves they admit their models are wrong, that they can’t account for the lack of warming, and that the important things are to to keep their funding rolling in by misinforming the public of the uncertainties.
The conspiracy is also incompetant in failing to suppress all papers exxpressing doubts, but as the e-mails also make absolutely clear, they try their mightiest to suppress such papers. They attempt to destroy the careers of any scientist who publishes such a paper (this is explicit in their e-mails), and they attempt to destroy the career of any editor who lets such a paper see print (this is explicit in the e-mails). The also attempt to destroy any journal that prints such papers if they can’t gain control of it (this is explicit in the e-mails). If that fails, they attempt to redefine which journals count as peer-reviewed literature (this is explicit in the e-mails).
Is that explicit enough for you, Chris? If young Earth creationists from the 1800’s had been as coordinated, Darwin’s evolutionary theory would’ve never been more than a rumor in a tabloid, invoked to explain the discovery of a wolf-boy with bat wings.
And, a floor wax and a dessert topping!
(Sorry. Obscure cultural reference and random synapse arcing.)
I didn’t say it was a competent conspiracy.
The National Academy of Sciences surveyed 1,300 climate scientists and found 97% support for AGW. If AGW is a conspiracy, it’s a very effective one. It isn’t easy to get 97% of scientists in a field to agree even about things that are trivially true; getting them to agree about a made-up falsehood is pretty impressive.
And if this scam has ensnared 97% of climate scientists, why pay any attention to Schmittner? He’s obviously one of the 97%.
The National Academy of Sciences surveyed 1,300 climate scientists and found 97% support for AGW. If AGW is a conspiracy, it’s a very effective one
You seem to have the wrong tense, there. It was a very effective one.
It was a very effective one.
And yet people like Schmittner are still publishing papers backing AGW. Either the conspiracy is still effective, or there’s something there besides a conspiracy.
Indeed, its very lucrative financially speaking. Snake oil was very lucrative too.
97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the IPCC.
The methodology of the Anderegg et al. study was challenged in PNAS by Lawrence Bodenstein for “treating publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise”.
That’s an old one Jim. Those eMails got you depressed?
Bodenstein doesn’t not challenge the fact that of the 1,300 climate scientists actively publishing, 97% support AGW. To him it’s evidence of a conspiracy: those scientists are being actively published because they support AGW. Which just restates my point: if AGW is a conspiracy, it’s been very effective at dominating the field of climate science.
If you agree, there’s no point in trumpeting results like Schmittner’s; the whole field is hopelessly tainted. People like Rand want it both ways: to treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam, and anti-AGW results as science (even when, as in this case, they are based on same sort of data and climate modeling behind the AGW thesis). There isn’t any imaginable result that would actually change his mind.
People like Rand want it both ways: to treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam, and anti-AGW results as science (even when, as in this case, they are based on same sort of data and climate modeling behind the AGW thesis). There isn’t any imaginable result that would actually change his mind.
I do not treat pro-AGW results as evidence of a scam. I treat evidence of a scam as evidence of a scam. And what is it that my mind needs to be changed about? My position remains that we don’t know enough to make the policy changes that the hysterists demand, not that AGW doesn’t exist. That’s the scientific position.
Actually, Bodenstein opposes treating publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise. And I think you’ve demonstrated your own problems with an imaginable result that would change your mind.
Your point: if AGW is a conspiracy, it’s been very effective at dominating the field of climate science. You obviously DON’T think it’s a conspiracy; you think “there’s something there besides a conspiracy.” If there is, if 97% of scientsts are in agreement with AGW/ACC/ARGH, why the paranoia-bordering-on-schizophrenia from UEA? What the hell are they so afraid of that would cause them to say the things they said? Could it be a scheme for making money by dishonest means?
I have some Carbon Default-Swap Credits I’d like to sell ya…
Your 97% figure is illuminating. Out of 3,000 climate scientists polled on three questions, 77 went on the record supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming, 2 went on the record as opposed (undoubtedly now part of Obama’s 9% unemployment rate), and 2,921 decided to keep both their jobs and their sense of honor by not giving an answer. So somewhere between 3.2% and 97% of climate scientists support the theory. However, of the 77 scientists who did answer positively, the majority might just be addicted to fat paychecks, unbelievably large research budgets, taxpayer funded supercomputer centers, unbridled power (including the power to destroy the careers of anyone who pisses them off, and eventually to destroy entire economies and countries that don’t bow to them), everlasting fame, rock star status, and hippie/greenie co-eds who want to give their bodies to save the planet.
So yes, the 97% figure is as scientifically accurate as their sea-level predictions.
You are referring to the Doran and Kendall Zimmerman 2009 paper, which surveyed 79 scientists. I was referring to the Anderegg, Prall, Harold, and Schneider 2010 paper, which reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers. Although the methodologies were very different, both studies found 97-98% support for AGW.
which reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers
Or didn’t do anything of the sort:
But there is more evidence that the paper was published for propaganda purposes rather than the advancement of science. It is so sloppy that it wouldn’t pass a 7th grade science lab.
They used Google Scholar instead of any one of several academic databases. They searched only in English, despite the fact that many climate scientists publish in other languages (and have many more who are skeptical of the English and American mania for histrionic claims of disaster due to CO2).
They got names, job titles and specializations wrong–they obviously did zero quality control checking.
As for the publications they were counting, they got them incredibly wrong. They hugely inflated the publication counts for their ‘side’ and reduced the publication counts for the opposition. In short, they lied about the data.
That thing has been so discredited it’s nothing more than a joke punch line. But if you think it will bolster your argument (whatever it is), knock yourself out.
No doubt, Jim believes dictators who typically win 97% or more in elections are legitimately supported and overwhelmingly beloved by their people.
You are referring to the Doran and Kendall Zimmerman 2009 paper, which surveyed 79 scientists.
No, they weeded through over 3,000 scientists and counted 79 responses, 77 in agreement. If I sent out a questionaire to 3,000 people asking if they had sex with farm animals, and 77 people said yes and 2 people told me to get stuffed, should I go on the record claiming my survey proved 97% of people have sex with farm animals?
The other problem with the study is that their questions don’t really tell us anything.
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
Temperatures have risen, as we were in the Little Ice Age back then, so answering yes indicates anything from strong agreement to strong opposition to CAGW theory. Question 1 tells us absolutely nothing.
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
In all sorts of ways, especially land use changes and our nasty little habit of putting our recording thermometers in the middle of busy airports, because the only “mean global temperatures” we can talk about are the results of our decisions on where and how to take temperature readings. We also pump out sulfates, irrigate (which changes the level of water vapor, a major greenhouse gas), seed clouds, dam rivers, and produce black soot which falls on pristine ice. This of course all begs the question about what “significant” means. 1 degree? 0.01 degrees? The thermometers we’ve been using are only accurate to about a degree, and our errors in placement can introduce several degrees of error, and the way we massage, adjust, and readjust the temperature record also introduces huge errors, such that the 1940’s risks slipping into a full blown ice age.
So answering yes to question 2 also tells us nothing.
From this pathetically constructed little survey (even by junior high science fair standards) comes the claim that 97% of climate scientists believe in CO2 induced catastrophic global warming.
If they really did, they wouldn’t need to resort to rubish like this, or Oerskes study, or all the similar studies that don’t pass the laugh test.
Since when is science determined by popular poll?
And since when – in any area of science – has anything been “settled”? Relativity is still being prodded for holes more than a century later with the Gravity Probe B satellites, how can catastrophic AGW be considered “fact” rather than “theory”?
The whole thing reeks of a scam.