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details regarding the 97% consensus paper from Peter Cook.

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    details regarding the 97% consensus paper from Peter Cook.

    Clean thread because the point was to just post some numbers for people who haven't sen them themselves. Not to wade through reams of pre-emptive rebuttals before finding the numbers which aren't actually up for debate (unless there's an error).


    This is all probably elsewhere too, I'm sure. But I thought I'd look at the actual data myself.

    Ok. So this idea that 97% of climate scientists agree that [global warming is real and...] man is the primary driver of global warming has largely been centred around the 2013 paper from the professional cartoonist Peter Cook and his fellow activists at skepticalscience.com:

    Skepticalscience.com states "Global warming is happening - and we are the cause." (Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature)

    It's parroted by people like NASA, and so people believe it.

    http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

    "Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."


    The idea of science being settled by consensus is absurd, but that's not the point. I'm just pointing out the sophistry & more blatant deception involved in this whole thing.


    Now... I've mentioned these last few points to try to put this in context - because things get decidedly slippery from here.
    While skepticalscience.com (and everyone parroting their sophistry) ostensibly aims to convince that human beings are the primary driver of global warming ("Global warming is happening - and we are the cause."), their methodology in no way aims to actually make this point.
    The best you can get from the data is, even if you assume that it's all legitimate, is that a certain percentage of papers either state or imply that human beings contribute in some way to global warming. Not that human beings are the primary driver (over 50%) - let alone the IPCC's claim that human beings are responsible for > 90% of warming.
    This is especially significant considering the real, albeit typically misrepresented situation, which is that it's *very* rae to find a sceptic (they'll call sceptics 'deniers' in order to subliminally tar them with 'holocaust denial' etc) who takes it seriously and also insists that man doesn't contribute anything at all to global warming.


    The volunteers reviewed anonymised abstracts of ~12000 papers (I'll post some abstracts towards the end), which were grouped as such:

    Impacts: effects and impacts of climate change on the environment, ecosystems or humanity
    Mitigation: research into lowering CO2 emissions or atmospheric CO2 levels
    Methods: focus on measurements and modelling methods, or basic climate science not included in the other categories.
    Paleoclimate: examining climate during pre-industrial times



    And each one was marked with one of the following (note that i've re-keyed the options with letters instead of numbers, to avoid confusion, as the numbers aren't consistent among different use cases elsewhere for the same options):

    A) Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%
    B) Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise
    C) Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it
    D) No Position
    E) Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW
    F) Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify
    G) Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50%



    So lets see how many papers, of 12 thousand, endorse the idea that man is responsible for the majority (over 50%) of warming...

    And the answer (according to the data I've filtered and sorted in front of me just now - which matches what i've seen elsewhere) is 64.

    So there you have it. 64 out of 12000 papers surveyed claim (assuming the classification is correct - which I'll move onto late) that man is the main cause of global warming. That's not even one percent.

    So lets give them the benefit of the doubt (honest guvnor!) and assume that the 8 thousand papers that don't present a view either way weren't meant to bolster the apparent sample size to lend credence, and use 3974 papers as our real sample size (much less impressive, right?).

    That's 1.6%.

    We've gone from 97% of "actively publishing climate scientists...", according to Nasa, to 97% of climate papers which state [they mean imply] a position agree that "Global warming is happening - and we are the cause.", to 1.6 percent.

    It's worth mentioning at this point that they also contacted a little over a thousand of the authors in order to get their own self-rankings for abut half of those 4 thousand papers - which roughly match up with the initial rankings. Note the following instruction on the survey, which is relevant later when we look some abstracts.

    "Note: we are not asking about your personal opinion but whether each specific paper endorses or rejects (whether explicitly or implicitly) that humans cause global warming:"


    But before we finally look at some of the abstracts that were ranked, lets quickly consider a couple of points regarding the makeup of the papers being surveyed (and those making it into our actual sample of just under thousand).

    1915 of the 3974 fell under the category "Mitigation: research into lowering CO2 emissions or atmospheric CO2 levels". That is to say that half of the papers in the entire sample only exist in the first place because the author's consider man-made warming to be a problem that needs addressing - while eight thousand papers were dismissed for not expressing an opinion on the matter.

    That is equivalent to performing a survey on whether motorcycles are cool or not where your sample of 400 people consists of 100 in an ice-cream parlour, another 100 at a horse race, and then 200 at a motorcycle shop - and then dismissing 2 thirds of those at the horse race and ice-cream parlour because they didn't care enough to comment, and then concluding that 85% of the population think that motorcycles are cool.

    This group of papers belong in the survey, but it is not appropriate - especially given their overwhelming number - to include these papers when drawing conclusions from the resulting stats.


    Finally, I took a quick look at 4 random abstracts from the list which supposedly endorse at least some man-made contribution to warming, albeit implicit rather than explicit (comprising a whopping 2910 papers, or 73% - only 922 are supposedly explicit about mankind even having some kind of influence).

    Of the 4, only 1 was legitimate. I spent 5 minutes picking the first 4 I randomly selected, and you'll just have to trust me that I didn't go hunting for dodgy examples. Everything else is easily verifiable. What this says about the wider sample I don't know - but I do know that the quality of these assessments has been widely criticised elsewhere.

    #2
    Here are a couple of examples:

    Influence of Antistripping Additives on Moisture Susceptibility of Warm Mix Asphalt Mixtures

    Article History
    Submitted: 21 October 2009
    Accepted: 12 April 2010
    Published: 15 April 2010
    Publication Data
    ISSN (print): 0899-1561
    ISSN (online): 1943-5533
    Publisher: American Society of Civil Engineers
    Feipeng Xiao, Ph.D., P.E.1; Wenbin Zhao2; Tejash Gandhi, Ph.D.3; and Serji N. Amirkhanian, Ph.D., M.ASCE4
    1Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634-0911 (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]
    2Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC.
    3Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC.
    4Consultant, formerly Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634-0911.
    Rising energy prices, global warming, and more stringent environmental regulations have resulted in an interest in warm mix asphalt (WMA) technologies as a means to decrease the energy consumption and emissions associated with conventional hot mix asphalt production. However, the utilization of the hydrated lime and liquid antistripping agents (ASA) in WMA mixture makes these issues more complicated. The objective of this study was to investigate and evaluate the moisture susceptibility of the mixtures containing ASA and WMA additives. The experimental design for this study included the utilizations of one binder source (PG 64-22), three ASA additives and control, two WMA additives and virgin, and three aggregate sources. A total of 36 types of mixtures and 216 specimens were fabricated and tested in this study. The performed properties include indirect tensile strength (ITS), tensile strength ratio (TSR), flow, and toughness. The results indicated that the hydrate lime exhibits the best moisture resistance for WMA mixtures, the liquid ASA additives can increase the ITS values of the mixtures but the liquid ASA generally exhibits a weak moisture resistance compared to the hydrate lime regardless of WMA and aggregate types in this study. In addition, the wet ITS values of mixtures containing WMA additives were lower than that of the mixtures without WMA additives.
    Clearly this in no way implies that the the paper endorses the idea of any man-made warming at all, let alone significant warming. Rather, it only implies that there is a market for materials manufactured with lower emissions.


    And another:

    Ultra-enhanced spring branch growth in CO2-enriched trees: can it alter the phase of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle?

    Craig D Idsoa, d, Sherwood B Idsob, , , Bruce A Kimballb, Hyoung-Shin Parkc, J.Kenneth Hooberc, Robert C Balling Jr.a


    doi:10.1016/S0098-8472(99)00054-4
    Get rights and content
    Abstract
    Since the early 1960s, the declining phase of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle has advanced by approximately 7 days in northern temperate latitudes, possibly as a result of increasing temperatures that may be advancing the time of occurrence of what may be called ‘climatological spring.’ However, just as several different phenomena are thought to have been responsible for the concomitant increase in the amplitude of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 oscillation, so too may other factors have played a role in bringing about the increasingly earlier spring drawdown of CO2 that has resulted in the advancement of the declining phase of the air’s CO2 cycle. One of these factors may be the ongoing rise in the CO2 content of the air itself; for the aerial fertilization effect of this phenomenon may be significantly enhancing the growth of each new season’s initial flush of vegetation, which would tend to stimulate the early drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and thereby advance the time of occurrence of what could be called ‘biological spring.’ Working with sour orange (Citrus aurantium L.) trees that have been growing out-of-doors in open-top chambers for over 10 years in air of either 400 or 700 ppm CO2, this hypothesis was investigated by periodically measuring the lengths, dry weights and leaf chlorophyll concentrations of new branches that emerged from the trees at the start of the 1998 growing season. The data demonstrate that the hypothesis is viable, and that it might possibly account for 2 of the 7 days by which the spring drawdown of the air’s CO2 concentration has advanced over the past few decades.

    This one is even worse; It nowhere implies any human involvement, and doesn't even refer to emissions - only increases in atmospheric CO2.

    The only way you can infer that this last abstract (and the first one too to a lesser extent) in any way implies endorsement of the AGW position (and this is what I've seen people do) is if you:

    1) Create a tautology whereby CO2 emissions must be man-made, CO2 necessarily increases global temperature, and finally, considering that we know CO2 levels have increased, there must be global warming and it must be man made.

    This renders the whole survey redundant, and for that matter the whole climate-change debate.

    2) Assume that it is 2 blokes from skepticalscience.com's place to apply their scientific interpretation (to the content of those abstracts) in order to determine the implied consensus position with regards to contentious scientific interpretation.
    I.e. to beg the question.

    Countless links to unrelated posts, papers and ideas from PJ doesn't stop any of the above from being un true.


    The data is freely available.

    Comment


      #3
      You said you've studied all the data, yet you state that others read it then you read their results.


      I call BS on you and your religion.
      …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

      Comment


        #4
        Can I get all my Carbon taxes refunded?

        Thought not.

        Comment


          #5
          So you don't like the results of the last time you posted it so you will do it again and again until you get the results you want

          Maybe that's what both camps are doing anyway

          Originally posted by Stevie Wonder Boy
          I can't see any way to do it can you please advise?

          I want my account deleted and all of my information removed, I want to invoke my right to be forgotten.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by SpontaneousOrder View Post
            Here are a couple of examples:



            Clearly this in no way implies that the the paper endorses the idea of any man-made warming at all, let alone significant warming. Rather, it only implies that there is a market for materials manufactured with lower emissions.
            That might be why it is classed as Endorsement 4 - No Position

            Endorsement
            1,Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%
            2,Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise
            3,Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it
            4,No Position
            5,Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW
            6,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify
            7,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50%

            Perhaps your understanding of data is a tad flawed!
            Last edited by WTFH; 7 March 2016, 13:30.
            …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by WTFH View Post
              That might be why it is classed as Endorsement 4 - No Position

              Endorsement 1,Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% 2,Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise 3,Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it 4,No Position 5,Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW 6,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify 7,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50%

              Perhaps your understanding of data is a tad flawed!


              He doesn't come across as the sharpest tool in the box TBH.
              Hard Brexit now!
              #prayfornodeal

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by SpontaneousOrder View Post
                This one is even worse; It nowhere implies any human involvement, and doesn't even refer to emissions - only increases in atmospheric CO2.

                The only way you can infer that this last abstract (and the first one too to a lesser extent) in any way implies endorsement of the AGW position (and this is what I've seen people do) is if you:

                1) Create a tautology whereby CO2 emissions must be man-made, CO2 necessarily increases global temperature, and finally, considering that we know CO2 levels have increased, there must be global warming and it must be man made.

                This renders the whole survey redundant, and for that matter the whole climate-change debate.

                2) Assume that it is 2 blokes from skepticalscience.com's place to apply their scientific interpretation (to the content of those abstracts) in order to determine the implied consensus position with regards to contentious scientific interpretation.
                I.e. to beg the question.
                Again, you don't appear to be able to read. The second article (peer reviewed and approved in 2000) was given a 3. Why? Well it would help if you read even the abstract.
                The "natural" CO2 change could only account for perhaps 2 out of the 7 day change. That means nature does not account for 5 out of the 7 days of change.

                If nature isn't responsible for it, then what has caused the change?
                …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

                Comment


                  #9
                  Sorry, in case anyone is wondering where I got the information from, it's here:
                  http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/...91datafile.txt


                  That's the data file which shows the endorsement. It's CSV, so pull it into Excel and convert text to columns on the commas.
                  …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The main problem with any scepticism is that it presumes there's nothing wrong with spewing vast amounts of CO2 and other noxious gases into the atmosphere in the first place. Is the suggestion that we should just go back to filling the skies with soot like they did in the 19th century? I'd say they're just breathing too many petrol fumes - take the tailpipe out of your mouth and try some fresh air for a change!

                    Comment

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