34 thoughts on “The 97% “Consensus””

  1. The Hulme-Mahony paper that Real Science links to doesn’t even mention the 97% consensus, and that 97% didn’t come from the IPCC, it’s from papers that analyzed the conclusions in the published material and (IIRC) from surveys of climate scientists.

    1. Really, Andrew… beg, buy, or borrow a clue from somewhere. The jig is up. The world isn’t warming. None of the models anticipated this. Hence, they are wrong. AGW is yesterday’s panic. It’s over.

    2. Well, it wouldn’t matter if the consensus on predicting the Earth’s temperature was 100%, because the Earth’s vote overrides everybody, and the Earth has weighed in with a refutation of all the model predictions, thus proving them incorrect. Since those models were all based on peer-reviewed science, that too has been proven incorrect. In science, observational data outweighs opinion.

      1. Ten years ago I would have told you that the value of surface temperature measurements was limited because the energy in the surface temperatures is only a tiny fraction of the energy that is being accumulated, and that that surface layer, being a thin boundary between the continents, oceans, ice caps below it and higher atmosphere above, will be subject to comparatively huge fluctuations, compared to any total heat accumulation.

        The PDO, and El Nino – La Nina cycles do, indisputably, affect surface temperatures, and these cycles did, indisputably, caused higher surface temperature measurements in1998, and lower surface temperature measurements in more recent years than would have occurred without their effect.

        To ignore these effects – to ignore a big chunk of the available data – on surface temperature because they don’t fit with the beliefs you want to hold is not a scientists way of doing things.

        The reason why those surface temperatures became so popular as a measure of AGW is because they are relatively simple to measure and quantify compared to the other mediums where heat can be stored.

        Now of course, with the better tools available to measure what heat is being stored in the oceans – satellite sea level measurements and the Argo buoys, and with GRACE measuring changes in the ice caps, the latest information supports the claim that the Earths atmosphere and hydrosphere are continuing to accumulate heat.

        But hey, if that doesn’t suit your beliefs, like Flat Earthers, you can always look for outdated information sources that don’t include data that contradicts those beliefs.

        1. To ignore these effects – to ignore a big chunk of the available data – on surface temperature because they don’t fit with the beliefs you want to hold is not a scientists way of doing things.

          Wow. You actually typed that. Do you think ignoring observational data (that proves the models are worthless) because it doesn’t fit with your beliefs is somehow superior? If so, how exactly?
          Do you honestly believe that this mad scramble to find heat buried in deep places would be occurring if the surface record matched the models? Are you so lacking in self-awareness that the idea of “we don’t need to find any missing heat because it’s all been accounted for in the models” gives you no pause at all??

        2. I was with you, man, about the surface temperatures having limited utility. And I am also with you that the ocean heat measurements merit examination in light of the new data sets.

          But the remark about Flat Earthers flat out lost me.

          I mean, who is your intended audience for that remark? Whom are you trying to persuade?

          Yes, Rand serves up snark on a regular basis, but he is paying for the bandwidth and gets to do what he wants. The folks serving up confirmation of Climate Change offer up snark in huge, heaping helpings. The fact that they are doing this suggests to me that they are insecure in their beliefs, insecure in their interpretation of the data.

          On another thread, you were serving up snark about Rand’s lawsuit, which is about the temperature record and the proxy temperature record. Rand was celebrating, maybe even gloating, about what is arguably a minor procedural victory, and you were counter-gloating “Not so fast, pal!”?

          This is a controversy which now by your admission is a sideshow because the “real action” is in the ARGO data? So your remarks on the merits of a lawsuit on whether certain comments constitute libel or constitute protected free speech had nothing to do with your understanding of the validity of Climate Change but you were merely taunting Rand on his Web site?

          The old legal saying goes “If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the (technicality of the) law is on your side, pound on the law. If none of this applies, pound on the table.

          You have facts on your side, but you pound on the table. What am I supposed to make of your facts?

        3. “…the latest information supports the claim that the Earths atmosphere and hydrosphere are continuing to accumulate heat. “

          Which means they were not accumulating heat prior to the “pause”, but disgorging it. Which means that there is no significant warming in the 20th century which is not accounted for by these cycles. I.e., there is no evidence of significant warming due to CO2 at all.

          You are arguing against yourself, but apparently cannot maintain the thread of logic far enough to realize it.

          1. Which means they were not accumulating heat prior to the “pause”, but disgorging it. Which means that there is no significant warming in the 20th century which is not accounted for by these cycles. I.e., there is no evidence of significant warming due to CO2 at all.

            Utter nonsense.

          2. “Utter nonsense.”

            I know, right? Yet, according to the alarmists, natural variability can only be used to explain a “pause”, but not the original “rise”.

            When nothing can contradict the warming hypothesis, it isn’t science.

      2. So, contrary to everything the peer-reviewed scientists predicted, the heat is actually hidden in places that humans can’t look, which is at this point like believing in fairies, leprechauns, and angels flapping their little angel wings. Thermometers are good to about 1 degree accuracy, while the ocean heat content nonsense requires us to believe that sparse sample points with 1 degree accuracy can produce 0.001 degree accurate data for the entire ocean, 99.99% of which wasn’t sampled. The reason they said the heat must be getting stored in the deep ocean is that the error bars mean we can’t rule that out, because the error bars on ocean heat content swamp anything else we can measure.

        Did global warming theory predict that the heat would be stored in the oceans? No, it did not. There’s not even a mechanism by which heat can move from the atmosphere to the deep ocean without first passing through the shallow ocean, an area which somehow missed the sleight of hand.

        1. Ocean heat content can be determined if we know how much thermal expansion and ice melt is happening:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1870-2008_%28US_EPA%29.png
          See, small error bars.

          Did global warming theory predict that the heat would be stored in the oceans? No, it did not.

          Of course it does.

          There’s not even a mechanism by which heat can move from the atmosphere to the deep ocean without first passing through the shallow ocean,

          Upwelling and downwelling as a result of ocean currents forced to follow the submarine contour, wind pushing water across the width of an ocean can force surface waters to considerable depth.

          Thermometers are good to about 1 degree accuracy,

          Where the heck did you get that from?

          while the ocean heat content nonsense requires us to believe that sparse sample points with 1 degree accuracy can produce 0.001 degree accurate data for the entire ocean, 99.99% of which wasn’t sampled.

          While I claim no expertise in statistics, obviously neither can you, it’s sample size, not the size of the population that the samples come from that’s important, a sample of 100 from a population of 10,000,000,000 is as good as a sample size of 100 from a population of 10,000, as long as both samples are random.

          A large enough sample will return a far lower level of uncertainty than a smaller sample, and a lower uncertainty than the individual samples.

          1. Of course it does.
            Which explains why the pause was predicted by the 97%, right?
            I’m guessing if you continue to go in circles like this you’ll get dizzy eventually. Not good for you but thanks for providing entertainment for the rest of us.

          2. Kurt, its been moving into the oceans for decades, just the rate varies. So if George as trying to claim that the rate of heat moving into the oceans over the last decade has been higher than previously, he’s right.

            This change is hardly surprising given the La Nina conditions that have predominated in recent years.

        2. Andrew, none of the model predicted that all the heat would be going into the ocean instead of the atmosphere, or else their predicted atmospheric temperature projections wouldn’t have looked like hockey sticks. Since the real temperatures flatlined, they had to come up with an ad-hoc explanation that couldn’t be immediately refuted because of the error bars on the data.

          You can’t measure 0.001 degree changes in ocean temperatures by sea level, because an a 1 km deep section of ocean at the usual bottom temperature of about -2C, that would only change the sea level by about 0.04 mm, and our sea level measurements are only accurate to several centimeters, and besides, the thermal expansion is non-linear, and in fact reverses at about the temperature of water in the deep ocean. The method could even mistake warming for cooling, because either one could cause the same change.

          Nor does our statistical sampling give nearly that accuracy, because you not only have to measure temperature, you have to measure the volume of the water that’s at that temperature. For example, suppose you have a very cold arctic current running deep, traveling through a surrounding layer that’s 2 or 3 degrees warmer. To determine the average heat content to four significant figures, you’d have to measure the relative volumes of the two currents to four significant figures. And there are hundreds such currents, spanning the globe in three dimensions, and so you’d have to characterize each and every one of their dimensions and temperature profiles with extreme accuracy – in the deep ocean – with a few probes that aren’t very mobile.

          If you don’t do that, and just assume that all the currents are always the same size, you’ve screwed up because if a current slows down where it picks up or loses heat, thus explaining why it would be hotter or cooler than normal, and then it once again moves along down deep at the usual speed (due to salinity), the current itself will have narrowed, so you could have exactly the same heat content with the current showing a significantly different temperature.

          The problem is like one of trying to calculate exactly how much water is held in the Earth’s clouds, using a few hundred balloons floating around. The answer you get depends on which balloons actually floated through a cloud, and a tiny afternoon cloud or a tropical storm would show up about the same.

          So the heat content they measure, calculated out to 0.001 degrees, is swamped by the issue of where they choose to sample, since the sparse sample points will be varying be several degrees, and are taken from a vast dynamic three-dimensional current system that changes its flow patterns on all timescales.

    3. The Hulme-Mahony paper that Real Science links to doesn’t even mention the 97% consensus

      Why is that relevant? Is it unacceptable to speak of related topics without having an explicit research article linking the two? Do we have to cite our reasoning now?

      1. Do we have to cite our reasoning now?

        It’d be nice, but just citing some evidence would be a good start.

        1. It’d be nice, but just citing some evidence would be a good start.

          No, citing reasoning wouldn’t be nice. It would be irrelevant.

          As to citing evidence, we have the link to the Hulme-Mahony paper and to Steve Goddard’s article. Goddard’s linkage of the 97% consensus with the centralized nature of climate change research is rhetorical, but in a way that implies a certain reasoning – that we should be dubious of a claim of consensus of a lot of scientists that ends up being the consensus of a few dozen scientists who actually are in the field combined with a group one to two orders of magnitude larger who aren’t.

          1. As to citing evidence, we have the link to the Hulme-Mahony paper and to Steve Goddard’s article.

            How are those evidence? Goddard’s article contains no evidence and the Hulme-Mahony paper doesn’t even address the 97% Consensus claim, or the papers that make the claim.

          2. How are those evidence? Goddard’s article contains no evidence and the Hulme-Mahony paper doesn’t even address the 97% Consensus claim, or the papers that make the claim.

            Goddard’s article contains evidence of Goddard’s claims, rhetoric, and reasoning. There’s no point to your demand for evidence when it’s all there.

  2. Does anyone here want to discuss the topic and support Steve Goddard’s claim that “The 97% “Consensus” Actually consists of just a few dozen people”?

    No?

    1. Whatever the actual number of people or percentage, we know that you only get to 97% from cherry picking and being overly broad in what is under discussion, not to mention that science is not done by counting noses.

    2. Does anyone here want to discuss the topic and support Steve Goddard’s claim that “The 97% “Consensus” Actually consists of just a few dozen people”?

      It appears to me that Mr. Goddard’s observation is that this 97% consensus is based on the work of a few dozen people. In itself, that’s not terrible. I can think of areas of mathematics where there are far fewer experts (often because the area just isn’t that sexy). But in those cases, if one is interested in verifying the claims made, they can walk through a demonstration of the computations and proof. It might take a few years, but an active mathematician can become another expert in the area with some work.

      The problem with the climate change claims being made is that this stuff is more opaque than that. Inability to reproduce results and claims is a common problem in the area. Further, there is an obvious conflict of interest that continues to be brushed off. There’s more funding and publicity to be had in showing that climate change is a problem than in research that doesn’t show that.

      It goes as far as to encourage researchers with no connection to climatology to routinely claim that their subject area is being effected by climate change. For example, oyster spat die offs are blamed in part on ocean acidification from climate change despite having happened decades before (I’d look at oceanic volcanism first). This claim originated with the researcher and was eagerly scooped up by the journalist reporting.

      1. Inability to reproduce results and claims is a common problem in the area.

        The “Journal of Irreproducible Results” was (is?) a scientific humor publication, not a how-to guide for science. When the computer models don’t agree with reality, it isn’t reality that’s wrong.

      2. The 97% has nothing to do with authors of the IPCC reports, it’s from analysis of published papers in leading journals and the conclusions reached in those papers.

        1. It’s only “analysis” in the most charitable sense of the word. And, ultimately meaningless in any case. It would have some weight if it were true that majority scientific opinion on the frontiers were usually correct. However, that is not the case. It is typical for most scientists to hold the wrong opinion on the cusp of a paradigm shift.

        2. Andrew, a lot of wildly skeptical “denialist” scientists were astonished to find out that the 97% consensus studies was counting their papers as agreeing with the consensus.

    3. What’s the point? We’ve always known the “97%” was a made-up number; a fabrication; a lie – just like most of the other “facts” of the AGW religionists.

      When I read what George writes regarding reputable climate scientist denialist’s names being on the “97%” list (which was revealed very early on) I knew that was a scam as well.

  3. Maybe I didn’t check the blog back far enough, but I’m surprised nobody mentioned the fiasco of the Akademik Shokalskiy, on a research expedition/junket to Antarctica, stuck in ice during the Southern hemisphere summer. Two icebreakers, one from China and another from Australia, have failed to reach the ship.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/29/saving-the-antarctic-scientists-er-media-er-activists-er-tourists-trapped-by-sea-ice/

    I swear, this year my schadenfreude cup runneth over.

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