There have been at least four studies into the attitudes of climate scientists toward manmade global warming and in every one of them the result was the same – 97% believe that humans are contributing towards it.
Had there been one survey amongst a handful of scientists then it would be fair to argue that the result could be inaccurate due to any number of reasons (sample size, PE, SD etc). The fact is that there have been four studies (that I know of) involving thousands of scientists, the margin for error is tiny.
Given that the column in question focuses on the consensus than it isn’t surprising that it’s referenced several times in the article; it would be more unusual if there were no references to it. Imagine a column in a newspaper devoted to the latest technology that never mentioned technology, it would be pointless.
The references to the consensus are factually accurate, backed up by real world research and used in their correct contexts.
Sorry Mike but I fail to see any problem here, other than perhaps the fact that you’re not happy that so many climate scientists concur with the notion that humans are affecting the climate (which I thought you accepted anyway but were sceptical of the scale and consequences).
The sceptics favoured study is this one, as there were only 79 climate scientists involved, of which 77 or 97.5% agree that humans are influencing the climate:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Dor...
The most recent survey was just a few months ago and involved the analysis of 12,000 scientific papers, 4,000 of which specifically referenced global warming and climate change. More than 97.1% of the authors supported the tenet that humans are causing global warming.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/...
Perhaps the most extensive study was that conducted by Anderegg et al and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This looked at the work of 1,372 climate researchers and concluded that “(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/0...
I do not have to explain away the 97%. The virtuous scientists will be here in a minute and they will be all over the data behind that claim. One of the papers has Stephen H Schneider's name attached. So the climate scientists will know all about them although the particular one referred to is Cook et al (2013).
Such is their strength of character they will have it debunked in seconds.
You just watch!
EDIT1 @ Some1:
"Well, it all looks rather legit to me ..."
That is why I do not trust your objectivity. A newspaper article by Nuccitelli, cites a newspaper article by Nuccitelli which cites a newspaper article by Nuccitelli which cites a survey by Cook, Nuccitelli and friends which Nuccitelli and friends decided the results of before the survey was started.
What does something non-legit look like, pray?
EDIT2: I can tell that Trevor has not delved into the data and methodology of any of the reports he cites.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...
EDIT3 @ Pegminer:
According to Doran and Zimmermann, the Oreskes survey "found that more than 75% either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities."
According to Doran and Zimmermann their survey found that "82% answered yes to question 2" [Question 2 is "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?"] Try this test, what would Lindzen have replied to Q2? Yes or No? How would he, or anyone else, interpret "significant"?
But they then reduced the number of respondents to 77 "specialists" and found that 75 of them said Yes to Q2.
The recent AMS survey came out at 52% to 48%.
The Cook et al survey was stunning in comparison. After verification, only 0.3% of papers' abstracts fell into the category of "mostly man made". So 99.7% thought not mostly man made? The desired figures were obtained by ignoring the "don't knows" and lumping together several human-related categories. They did have meetings beforehand to decide on the desired type of result and how they were going to promote it.
As for Anderegg, the selection process has to be seen to be believed. If you worked for the IPCC you were a good guy, unless you were on a particular blogger's black list. If you felt strongly enough to sign an open letter expressing dissent then you went on the list, usually. A reason was found to exclude the Oregon petition members but the people on Inhofe's list were also bad boys. Quality of publication was not assessed only the quantity. If you were a professor with lots of PhD students and you added you name to their papers then you were more authoritative. The subjective way the category criteria were chosen is open to suspicion as well.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Is anyone starting to see why I have problems with some of the "authoritative" views expressed here? I seem to be the only person who has looked at these papers. In how many other questions are the responders just relaying the approved consensus view rather than relying on their own powers of investigation?
EDIT4 @ Gary F: Nearly all of those institutions did not carry out even a bogus survey. Their views have no authority at all. The two activists on the Climate Change Committee will have taken all the decisions - not the experts in the membership.
The point of being concerned about this is that, recently, appeals to authority have changed into appeals to honesty and integrity etc. If those wishing to pursue the honesty and integrity route do not show any when acclaimed climate scientists like the late Steve Schneider have added their support to a dubious paper like the Anderegg one then how can they be taken seriously?
If you had honesty and integrity would you not be denouncing these papers and the associated 97% figures at every opportunity, particularly if some of the problems have been highlighted previously?
I've always thought that 97% may be a bit high, but I've never thought that the number would be less than 90%. If the 97% were dramatically off, you would think that a study would have come up with a radically different number, but I've yet to see that.
If 97% of climate scientists do not believe that mankind's contribution to the recent warming is real and significant, please tell us what the actual number is and what evidence you have for it--otherwise quit complaining about it.
EDIT: graphicconception, I used to have an office in a building with at least 100 climate scientists that would have agreed that mankind was a significant contributor to global warming, so I'm not gullible enough to think that the small number of respondents puts the Doran and Zimmerman study in doubt. Have you been to a scientific meeting of the AGU or the AMS? I have, and you'd be hard-pressed to find scientists on the "skeptic" side--although I did see talks by both John Christy and William Gray, so there's nothing that's stopping them from speaking.
And as been pointed out before, you and the Heartland Institute have been trying to mislead the public on what the AMS survey told us. When you break the survey down into active climate scientists, you find the same sorts of numbers as the other surveys. In fact, the survey said that more than 90% of active climate scientists believe that humans have contributed to the warming. Unfortunately there are lots people in AMS that are NOT scientists, so unless you discriminate between the scientists and non-scientists you may find that surveys will be dominated by TV and radio weather clowns, such as Anthony Watts and John Coleman.
When asked do humans produce CO2
Can CO2 have an effect on the climate
You me and Richard Lindzen would be forced to say yes, putting us in the 97%
< There are several errors and ambiguities on that web site. I would not use it as an authoritative source.>
OK! So check to see if what you read in the Guardian is correct. Like that about Richard Lindzen being "one of the approximately 3 percent of climate scientists who believe the human influence on global warming is relatively small ..."
Follow this link.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Dor...
And why are you bringing up the Oregon Petition. It is not a list of 31,000 scientists; it is a list of 31,000 University Graduates.
"Signatories are approved for inclusion in the Petition Project list if they have obtained formal educational degrees at the level of Bachelor of Science or higher in appropriate scientific fields."
http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifica...
Madd Maxx
Like a typical denialist, if you don't like the message, you attack the source. Skeptical =/= denialist. Skepticalscience is skeptical of global warming skepticism and so am I.
If you and Sagebrush were skeptics, you would be skeptical of the video of the graph taped to a see-saw and of the Great Swindle movie.
This has been discussed in this forum dozens of times, there is no 97% consensus of climate scientists that believe in man-made Global Warming --- it's a complete fabrication.
There have been three attempts to foist this lying claim on the public so far. The latest attempt was the Cook et al - 97% Fraud Study.
Cook ACTUALLY found a Consensus of 0.5% --- but of course he claimed 97%.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress...
Cook is the main guru of the infamous Warmist propaganda site SkepticalScience.com, the web site where even it's name is a lie.
The 'study' was a ridiculous travesty, just like the two goofy attempts to claim the same thing before this one.
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They like to confuse things like 97% of scientists think global warming is happening, to mean that 97% think humans contributed the majority of global warming.
Generally the Guardian is iffy when it comes to accuracy Here is more on the 97%
The 97% consisted of published climate scientists
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/20...
Flawed and extremely misleading.
I am not aware of any poll that was sent out to all of the scientists in the world.
I would be curious to see how many of the 'Man-did-it' scientists are receiving taxpayer dollars to provide research that must support 'Man-did-it' global warming.
The "97%" babble has been out there for a long time and has since been debunked.
Are you now studying to be a journalist, Ottawa Mike? Who gives a single care about how you would rate the credibility of this article? Why would you give a single care as to how anyone else would rate the credibility of the article? The truth is, you don't care at all. You just wish to create confusion and doubt simply because you CANNOT find any single, peer reviewed scientific data to back your claim as to being a skeptic. A skeptic? In what manner? Your belief that the warming will not be so bad or as fast as some have claimed that it could be? How arbitrary can you be with such a broad claim to skepticism, Ottawa Mike? Give it up, Ottawa Mike! We are all skeptical as to how bad or as to how soon it will become bad if does turn bad for us. You are looking for a broad claim to be called a skeptic when we all could be just as skeptical as you and for the same reason you have claimed to be a skeptic! You are just looking for a free ride and you give true skeptics everywhere a bad name by claiming to be one yourself. ... Define for us how small a warming will be induced by the CO2 and then show us the peer reviewed, scientific evidence that supports this degree of skepticism. You cannot do it or you would have done it years ago!!!
If you really want to rate the credibility of the article itself then you would also need to rate the credibility of the link that it sourced - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/c... . Then you would have to rate the survey - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/c... - Well, it all looks rather legit to me, Ottawa Mike. Not that you really care how any of us would rate it.
Here is the link to the Guardian article in question: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/06/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
Here are the examples of where the 97% consensus is used:
"Richard Lindzen is one of the approximately 3 percent of climate scientists who believe the human influence on global warming is relatively small ..."
"Is this more plausible than the alternative explanation that 97 percent of climate research is correct, and Lindzen, whose claims have consistently been disproved by observational data, is wrong?"
"Today's conservative media outlets are rarely willing to consider the scenario in which 97 percent of climate scientists and peer-reviewed research are correct."
From those statements, I get three very clear pronouncements. First, the "97% consensus" means that 3% feel the human influence is small. One can logically assume that the 97% must feel it is large. Second, "97 percent of climate scientists and peer-reviewed research are correct." Third, is that Lindzen is in the 3%.
Please rate the credibility of that Guardian article by linking and highlighting the conclusions of peer reviewed studies on any "97% consensus" to the Guardian's statements.
Trevor is exactly right? What is the point of continuing to argue the percent of climate scientists that accept AGW.? It is probably the same as the percent of scientists who think there is a link between cigarette smoking and cancer.
Better still, go to a meeting of any of these international science organizations and just ask everyone you see what they think:
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Brasil)
Royal Society of Canada
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Academié des Sciences (France)
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (Germany)
Indian National Science Academy,
Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
Science Council of Japan
Russian Academy of Sciences,
Royal Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences (US)
… or try one of these:
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Medical Association
American Meteorological Society
American Physical Society
The Geological Society of America
