Talk:Scientific consensus on climate change/Archive 2

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NREP Study

I added a link to a more recent study of the opinions of environmental professionals. These are accredited professionals that conduct research, perform analysis, and deal with environmental issues on a daily basis. I think their opinion just as valid, if not more so, than pure scientists (who, while experts in a particular fields, those fields may not be specifically environment-related). Take the results for what you will, but they are the facts.

My own personal opinion is that these results clearly indicate a lack of "consensus" on the issue of climate change. Examine the merits of greenhouse theory as an explanation for global warming, but don't pretend that there aren't differing theories. I have read studies that indicated strong correlation between warming and solar output, changes in the sun's magnetic field (this affects the amount of cosmic radiation that strikes particles in the atmosphere, whose impacts are seeds around which clouds form), solar flares and el nino (increased water vapor, a greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere). Temperature readings have shown that increased carbon dioxide follows warming, indicating the causality is flipped. The data from prior to the past century could have major variations from the "hockey stick" graph (which doesn't portray the statistical probability of measurements...hmm wonder why?), due to the error that is present in the methods used to determine historical temperature. These are just a few of the issues that have yet to be adequately factored into the hype.

Zoomwsu 03:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Public opinion

An interesting link which I'll put here about public opinion, from Roger Pielke's blog: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000054

And this (2004/12/20) from the Washington Times, on Oreske.

Political section?

Just deleted a weasel worded political section which tried to compare with eugenics and nazis. Such sensational garbage is not needed. The section was added by an economics blogger who essentially has declared war on wiki climate articles. -Vsmith 02:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you think that I declared war on climate articles. I meant that only in how I thought new ideas would be received (and I'm sorry to say I was right). The example of eugenics is meant to illustrate that sometimes the scientific consensus is wrong and it's a valid point made by those who are concerned about the politizing of science. I'm open to ideas on how to make it less offensive and/or more clear.--Atlastawake 04:16, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No. Don't see any new ideas just more of the same old stuff. And weasel refers to the vague some ... argue - Who are the some? Vague claims are weasel claims. As to the eugenics and Holocaust comparison - it is simply inflamatory bull****. Maybe you should write a politicians opinion article, this one is about science, and bull**** would fit better there :-). Vsmith 04:56, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:27, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Perhaps (Atlast) if you would add some actual *science* people might take it better. If you want politics, then edit political articles. Some (notably scientists, economists and politial scientists) agrue that the issue of climate change has been hijaxed.. is *weasel words* because of the some and the lack of any specific examples. Being able to spell hijacked would be good too. Regardless, though, this page is about scientific opinion primarily and it doesn't need a long political section.

Lots of things here. First, I'm very confused. You quote political agencies at length but refuse to entertain the politics of these agencies? The article is called "Scientific opinion on climate change" yet you are refusing to consider how that opinion is shaped. Second, I agree "some" is a poor choice of words and I was hoping the wikicommunity would offer ideas for better wording, not delete information out-right. Third, I fail to understand how the eugenics/GW comparison is inappropriate...no one has offered a reason beyond they don't like it. Finally, I don't see anything in the article that resembles what I added. How can you call my contribution "same old stuff?" (Added by user:Atlastawake at 22:24 who doesn't seem to know how to sign his posts.)

Your addition was full of vague they say and such. It appeared to be trying to build some kind of conspiracy theory about the players in the climate game. These kinds of vague accusations is an insult to the dedicated scientists working on the real problem and an attempt to mislead the readers. This article is about scientific opinion, not political shenanegans. Trying to link the work these scientists are doing by a vague analogy to the eugenics problem and especially by throwing in the Hollocaust reference with the unstated assumption that the science of global warming is equated to the evils of the nazis. That kind of deliberate attempted slur was totally uncalled for and has made me view any of your edits with suspicion. The material you want to add is not there for the simple reason that as presented it is irrelevant besides being insulting. -Vsmith 23:25, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've already conceeded on my "they say" language but you've still avoided my larger points. You haven't told me why the analogy is false. You haven't told me why poltics doesnt belong in an article about a scientific opinion that concerned global warming, which is politically charged.

--Atlastawake 02:03, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Did you read my comments above? At least you now list your main source as a novel. That was most impressive! Novelist, journalists, economists ... ? This is an article about scientific opinion, not conspiracy theorizing by politicians and diverse other non-scientists. And your analogy from that great source is still an irrelevant insult. Vsmith 03:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Agreeing with Vsmith, but also... this page is about scientific opinion. Not politics. Arguing that this is a politically charged issue, so politics belongs here, would end up filling every issue with politicial stuff. Most of the politics type stuff on GW tends to end up on global warming controversy... have you looked at that?

I have and it's rather large already. My section definately belongs in this article as it offered a different take on how the opinion formed. Linking is needed, true. Exclusion is NOT. BTW, my main source isn't State of Fear (you assumed that) and the novel has factual evidence in it, which is what I exclusively used. Read the page just before the pair of quotes that kick off the book.--Atlastawake 05:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:40, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)) This page is for *scientific* opinion. And SoF is trash: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74.

IPCC authors paragraph

Removed paragraph - see Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for discussion. Vsmith 02:21, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The content of the paragraph has been resolved, and now a statement should be made here regarding it. This page is about "scientific opinion on climate change", and in order to properly assess the scientific opinion on climate change, the readers need to know exactly whose opinion they are assessing. For the sake of making the readers informed readers in this manner, the paragraph about the IPCC authors should be available to them as part of this page's referencing of the IPCC's view. — Cortonin | Talk 21:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 23:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your position here is inconsistent. We need (you assert) to know how the IPCC authors are selected - but we don't need to know how US National Research Council are; or the AMS, or... I really don't know why you want this factoid in here, but its clear its inappropriate, though quite reasonable on the IPCC page.

Because a group whose authors are chosen by governments does not necessarilly reflect scientific opinion, but rather the scientific opinion chosen by governments. This is an important and key distinction, and clearly pertains to defining what the scientific opinion on climate change is, and the IPCC's role in clarifying that. You may disagree with this if you find the IPCC infallible, but it's worth providing for others to note and decide on. — Cortonin | Talk 10:19, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:11, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Right. In other words you're fighting tooth and nail to get that text in because you think it denigrates the IPCC. We can tell you're doing this, because you haven't bothered to do it for any of the other institutions quoted on the page. The selection process for IPCC is (briefly, but rather more fully than here) described on the IPCC page, where it should be.

I have not a particular strong feeling about the sentence "Authors for the IPCC reports are chosen from [...]". In general I would leave it out for the reasons WMC did mentioned.

Nevertheless I would add a short explanation about the IPCC at the very beginning of the article. IMHO it is good custom to a least briefly characterize a term (here "IPCC") which is probably not known to the average reader without forcing him to open yet another link. The last version before Willams revert was: "[the IPCC], which is a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members".

IMHO the given formulation hardly discredits the reputation of the IPCC in any way (in fact I believe that the contrary is true, i.e. it improves credibility). By all means it gives the average reader at least some short information about the IPCC. -- mkrohn 21:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Hmmm... I see your point. But "chosen by UN members" is a probably not an accurate view of the selection process. If you want to describe the IPCC itself, why not just "a group of climate experts"? Though this is pretty well implied by its name, anyway.

For the record, whether or not we describe information should ABSOLUTELY NOT be decided by whether or not it improves or discredits the credibility of an organization, and that appears to be exactly how the above conversation is going. Make information correct, on topic, and relevant, and let the reader form opinions rather than giving opinions to the reader. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to the IPCC, that is an accurate view of the selection process (although they say "governments and other organizations" rather than "UN members", but as it was formed by the UN the extrapolation can be made to fit the Marco Krohn description in order to provide more information about how it was initially formed (which was by the UN). I consider "a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members" to be more descript than "a group of climate experts." First, who decided which researchers were experts? Second, it's not a randomly selected group out of possible climate experts, but instead a consciously selected group. It would be inappropriate to imply that the group is randomly selected or a complete set of all climate experts, as it is neither. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:06, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I agree to this extent: that you shouldn't be putting in info to try to discredit the IPCC. But unfortunately, you are. As for the selection process: its clear that its rather more nuanced, from the very link that you originally provided.

(mkrohn) My main argument was about giving the average reader information about the IPCC in the introduction. On the other hand it is important in which context you use information because it has influence on the reader. This means that the criteria you gave ("correct, on topic and relevant") are necessary criteria for inclusion of material, but hardly are sufficient. There are many examples for using the same information and give a different picture to the reader, e.g. after an election the same information is presented in a very different way if one looks into a liberal and conservative newspaper.

That said, it does make sense to discuss how to the average reader will perceive the information. The IPCC is probably the most important and one of the most credible organization that deals with aspects of global warming and thus it makes no sense to me to discredit the organization by emphasizing the selection procedure as you did in one of your first versions. -- mkrohn 11:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Saying that the IPCC authors are chosen by governments is about clarifying who the position is coming from. If a pundit goes on the news, and is sent there by a government, then that news organization should reveal that the pundit was sent there by that government, or the news organization is being misleading. This is a normal part of full disclosure. If CNN does a story on Time Warner, they start or finish the story with, "a parent company of CNN", as part of full disclosure. This does not mean CNN is saying that they're biased or wrong in the story, but simply means that CNN is being up-front with its affiliations. This is just standard practice as part of informing readers, viewers, and listeners. When people violate this practice, it's considered deceptive. There were pundits that the whitehouse recently sent around to news organizations to pump up the Bush administration's new social security plan, and these were not correctly described as being sent by the whitehouse, and when this was discovered it was viewed very poorly as being deceptive, whereas the same situation would be viewed as acceptable if the affiliation would be revealed at the start. It's no different with the IPCC. They are not an independent organization which formed in a vacuum, but an organization whose authors were chosen by certain governments, and this information should be revealed up front as part of full disclosure. — Cortonin | Talk 06:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) You (Cortonin) remain utterly unconvincing, for the reasons I gave above: for some reason you only care about the IPCC. How are the other organisations mentioned on the page formed? You don't care. Why not? The text you've written above applies to the AMS as much as IPCC. And, of course, if anyone does have a deep and overriding interest in the IPCC... they can just click on the link and find out, in more detail.

I'm dealing with one thing at a time. I don't know why you find that so odd. One does not try to edit all of Wikipedia in a single night. As for the AMS, it is an open-membership scientific society. If I so choose, I can sign up right here. This policy of openness is standard in essentially every scientific society, as you should be quite familiar with. The IPCC has no such application form, because its membership is not open. Instead, its authors are selected by governments. This is fine to do, but we should not then present it as an open scientific society, because it is instead an organization with government selected membership. — Cortonin | Talk 10:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 12:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Well, you're finding the IPCC section quite controversial. Why not - since you really don't mind whether you do IPCC, or AMS, or whatever first - go on and do a less controversial one? But of course, thats laughable. We all know that in fact you care nothing for the others. And your version of the IPCC author seclection is wrong.

Your tendency to view every single edit as a "my side versus your side" war is extremely annoying. It makes talking to you very difficult, and makes finding a compromise with you extremely difficult, because you take every edit as either supporting your side or attacking your side. IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! Please stop treating this place as a petty warzone. Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I began by assuming your good faith, but you have long since eroded that, by your POV edits. Please stop your patronising remarks.

Perhaps you missed the part of Wikipedia policy that clearly explains that EVERYONE has a POV. That means I have one AND you have one. The people who think they don't have a POV are the ones who have the most difficulty accepting and including other POVs, and this is why we are encouraged to recognize our own POV. Good faith has to be applied regardless of whether someone supports your view or opposes it, otherwise it misses the entire point of good faith. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The IPCC author selection is, literally by quote, "from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works." [1] If that doesn't say to you that there is a government list selected with consideration of the views they have expressed in the past, then I'm sorry, but that's certainly what it says to me. It's an organization formed by a political body with government influence over the author list which writes down its views. It's necessary to mention that as part of full disclosure about the IPCC. — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Once again you are reading what you want to from a document, rather than whats in it. For one thing, the text you cite is for Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors - not all authors. In fact, numerically, its for a minority of authors. Now lets read the full quote:

Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors are selected by the relevant Working Group/Task Force Bureau, under general guidance and review provided by the Session of the Working Group or, in case of reports prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the Panel, from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works. The composition of the group of Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors for a section or chapter of a Report shall reflect the need to aim for a range of views, expertise and geographical representation (ensuring appropr iate representation of experts from developing and developed countries and countries with economies in transition). There should be at least one and normally two or more from developing countries. The Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors selected by the Working Group/Task Force Bureau may enlist other experts as Contributing Authors to assist with the work.

It becomes quite clear that the truth is far more nuanced than your bald "selected by govts"; and I shall continue to resist your crude attempts to politicise the article. Its actually quite unclear what role, in practice, govts have in selecting authors. For any outsiders reading this private spat, I'll point out that I have no objection to the info being in wikipedia: in fact, its in IPCC, and I've recently moved it up into the intro there. What I object to is Cortonins inaccurate paraphrase.

While we're in the business of quoting, lets keep going:

At the request of Working Group/Task Force Bureau Co-Chairs through their respective Working Group/Task Force Bureau, and the IPCC Secretariat, governments, and participating organisations and the Working Group/Task Force Bereaux [sic] should identify appropriate experts for each area in the Report who can act as potential Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, expert reviewers or Review Editors.

In other words, the whole team (not just lead authors) is restricted to those approved by the corresponding governments. It doesn't get much more clear. This is a government chosen team, not an independent or open research team. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Good grief: you can quote it, but you can't read it!

?? It says what I said it says. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On a side note, is that how you really think politically controversial science should be conducted?? In times past we had a lot of trouble when powerful religious influences dictated who were acceptable authorities to speak on science, and religiously controversial science suffered. It's not much better when powerful political influences do the same. I'm not the one who politicized the issue, I'm simply pointing out that it already is politicied, and needs to be openly so rather than silently so. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your tireles *assertion* of IPCC politicisation is tiresome. You would do far better to learn something about the science, and then try and write about that. The almost total lack of science input in your contributions is obvious. Alternatively, if politics is what interests you, write on political articles. But please don't put your political POV into science articles.

The IPCC is a body chosen and guided by governmental bodies. The politics is intrinsic in the issue, and I'm sorry that you can't seem to see that. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As for my contributions, I have contributed plenty of scientific information to Wikipedia (and I would kindly ask you to refrain from personal attacks if your horse-blinders cause you to feel otherwise), I'm just not of the view that you can pick one scientific conclusion and define it as true without acknowledging the other reasoned conclusions and the humanities and conflicts of the scientists involved when these show up as relevant issues. You clearly have a very different view on this, and think that once you have made a conclusion about a scientific topic, it is factual, and no one should dispute it, or else they are clearly wrong. Every single person in the past who has ever taken that view has been proven wrong, but maybe you're the first one. But whatever your view, you need to respect the other views on here, even on scientific topics. Because news flash: Science is not done, and its conclusions are not unchangeable. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The IPCC paragraph is only small problem when considered within the larger context of the original AMS statement. The current exccerpt from the Official AMS Statement has cleverly ommitted the sentence that reads "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability" (National Research Council 2001a)." When an organization like the AMS makes an official statement that includes an alternate theory, and open-endedness, you can't selectively publish only the portions of the statement that promote a single view, as if it were a definitive conclusion. That's called lying. 72.185.98.234 15:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the newly added text, except its somewhat selective, and it repeats the quote from the NRC report in the section just above, so I can't see the point of putting it in here William M. Connolley 16:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This whole thing has become so laughable and politically skewed, I would caution anyone against using for any type of scholary work. If you are looking for anything substantive on climate change, consult a source that is peer-reviewed by real scientists, not Wikipeida, the Fake Encyclopeida. 12.183.100.8 15:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

1992 Gallup poll

Sheldon Rampton 06:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC) The figures cited by Joe Bast et al regarding a 1992 Gallup poll are wrong. I took the trouble to do a Nexis search and found two reports from 1992. The first was a March 6, 1992 news release distributed by Greenwire and headlined "66% of climate scientists see greenhouse effect." I'll quote the relevant excerpts:

The Gallup Organization interviewed 400 scientists with memberships in the American Geophysical Union and/or American Meteorological Society by telephone 10/14-25, 1991. Margin of error +/- 5%. The poll was commissioned by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, which describes itself as "a nonprofit organization devoted to clarifying the dialogue between scientists and engineers, and the general public." The Center is funded by grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Richardson Foundation and the Philip McKenna Foundation.

Q. "Do you think that global average temperatures have increased during the past 100 years?"

Yes 60%

No 15

Don't know 25

Q. "In your opinion is human-induced greenhouse warming now occurring?"

Yes 66%

No 10

Don't know 24

Note: Of the 66% who said they believe human-induced warming is now occurring, 63% (or 41% of the total sample) said the current evidence substantiates the phenomenon, 32% said it doesn't and 5% didn't know.

Q. "What do you think is the percent probability of human induced global warming raising global average temperatures 2 degrees celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years?"

More than 50% 47%

Less than 50% 37

The second Nexis report on this poll consisted of the transcript of a February 13, 1992 press conference held by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, at which they discussed the survey. According to CSTM's Mark Mills:

We found through the Gallup poll that the majority of scientists believe that the global average temperature -- 60 percent being the majority -- believe that the global average temperature has actually increased over the past century. However, the Gallup poll shows that only 19 percent of the scientists believe that this temperature increase was due to human causes, was human induced.

Now, we've done something very deliberate and specific here. We're separating out history, the historic record, from the future, from this point forward. So, what we found in the Gallup poll is that scientists essentially are rejecting the possibility that human-induced global warming has occurred, thus far.

The poll also found, though, that a large share, a majority, 66 percent, believe that global warming is now underway, human-induced global warming, which is an intriguing result. But juxtaposed against that is the same group of scientists of which only 41 percent -- a minority -- will state that the scientific evidence supports that belief or assertion.

You'll note that the 19 percent figure claimed by Mills does not appear in CSTM's actual news release, and it in fact contradicts Mills' statement that 66 percent of scientists believe that human-induced global warming is underway. I suspect that the 19 percent figure reflects some more specific question, such as "Do you believe that human causes are the sole or main cause of the temperature increase during the entire twentieth century?" You'll note that he doesn't provide the wording for the question which he says drew the 19 percent response (whereas the news release provides the exact language of each question). The Scaife, Richardson and McKenna foundations which funded this survey are all right-wing U.S. foundations with a history of funding global warming skepticism, and it's quite possible that Mills was trying to find a nugget of detail from the survey that would satisfy his funders.

Moreover, the figures that Bast cites ("18 percent thought some global warming had occurred, 33 percent said insufficient information existed to tell, and 49 percent believed no warming had occurred") cannot be found anywhere in either the news release or the transcript of the news conference. Bast is also wrong about the date when the survey was conducted. He says it was conducted on February 13, 1992. That's actually the date when the news conference took place. The survey itself was conducted from October 14-25, 1991.

In any case, the Gallup poll is now more than 13 years old, and considerable new scientific data and research have appeared since then. Given that fact, I think the reference to this particular poll should simply be dropped from this article.

Article updated. (SEWilco 17:12, 3 May 2005 (UTC))

Glad to see that the nonconcensusu scientists have some company - I was afraid he was all by himself. Of course 1 against 1000000 wrong scientists is - ??? not sure, certaintyly not a concensus.

Peisner

(William M. Connolley 19:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)) I've removed Peisner. For a couple of reasons: firstly, his work hasn't been published: in fact, its been rejected. Secondly, there appear to be severe doubts as to whether his work has been done honestly: for more on that, and my own opinions, see http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/peiser.html?seemore=y#more. Including him before publication, or before this has settled down, is premature.

Restored. Science thinks that its being on the Internet is the equivalent to being in the journal, or that there are many similar results on the Internet. And your unsw.edu.au link only looks at the 33-34 in the "rejection" column, which still leaves quite a difference between Oreskes 75% and Peiser 38-41%. (SEWilco 20:38, 5 May 2005 (UTC))

The rejection didn't state that the work was invalid, but that the work was "not novel". (Of course, if it's "not novel", show me the other versions of this.) It's rather poor scientific practice to filter results in such a manner when they contradict earlier published results in the same journal. Rebuttal is an essential part of the scientific method, and it should not be carelessly discarded. — Cortonin | Talk 21:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that rebuttal is important. Wether information if filtered (as you say it) or the paper uses dubious scientific methods (as others say) is an interesting question, but it is out of the scope of Wikipedia. A work that is not published (for whatever reasons) surely does not belong here. -- mkrohn 01:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

It is published right here,

(William M. Connolley 21:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)) "published" in the context of science means, in a peer-reviewed journal, not on some web site. Otherwise I'll start quoting my blog as "published".

But this is not research, it is an analysis of published research. Thus, it does not need to be in a peer-reviewed journal to count as "published". It is a secondary analysis of primary sources. — Cortonin | Talk 22:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:20, 7 May 2005 (UTC)) Wrong. Peisner submitted it to science for publication. They didn't say: this isn't research, we won't publish it. They said it was junk, correctly. Peisner was unwise enough to reveal the 34-becoming-33 abstracts that he though rejected the consensus. Read them. Its quite plain from that that his categorisation is hopelessly wrong.

it just happens to have been rejected from the journal the original was published in. And it's not like this is new research which needs to go in a journal to count as "published", since it is an analysis of existing published research which is widely available. Go into ISI and search for yourself. Go through a few hundred yourself and you won't find the ratio that Oreskes says you will find. I called "bullshit" on that study a while ago, because the original data is right there to view, and it doesn't match what she says it should. — Cortonin | Talk 04:49, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

From your reference: "Obviously, your refusal leaves me no option than to publicise the results of my analysis somewhere else [...]". So, let's wait until it is published "somewhere else". -- mkrohn 10:15, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

P.S. by the way: the "argument" for rejecting the paper is mmh dubious to put it mildly.

So if an unpublished work does not usually belong in Wikipedia, then the reason for an exception should be in the article also? However, do the various quotes from politicians and newspaper articles also not belong in Wikipedia? (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Has anyone the reference to the Dennis Bray paper where the claims ("fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity") made in [2] are supported? I looked at his homepage and found a lot of results from a survey, but no statements like the 1 in 10 one. -- mkrohn 10:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone deleted what may be the relevant section Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Bray_and_Von_Storch.2C_2003, although we don't know whether Bray was referring to this. The "Papers" link contains rejected papers which may be relevant. (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Rm IPCC intro text

I've removed:

The IPCC is a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations, and under the auspices of the UNEP/WMO. [3]

ts major reports are based upon material from a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations. The original scientific literature is often inaccessible to the layperson (both literally, because they do not have access to appropriate libraries, and because the scientific writing style is unfamiliar), but the summaries and position statements are usually written to be intelligible to any reasonably informed individual.

It is common to see the assertion that the IPCC represents the consensus of opinion of climate scientists (such as [4]); it is also common to see this view disputed.

All this is from the IPCC page, and is unnecessary here. None of the other institutions quoted - AMS etc - are described, only linked to, where of course their descriptions are.

1991 Gallup Poll, 1990 and 1992 reports

Why are these included here? How are these relevant? I don't follow. Guettarda 18:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

They have been here historically. Probably they should go. William M. Connolley 19:02, 16 October 2005 (UTC).

I see. I could see them being here as part of a historical analysis of how scientific opinion has changed over the last 20 years as the science has developed...hey, that would make really interesting reading, to tell you the truth. It would also actually be a good context for the "opponents of..." page, since they people listed there disagree with different things. William? Are you old enough for that? ;) (Yeah, I know, it would be original research). Has anyone written a retrospective of how this has changed - might make an interesting case-study for the development of scientific thought... Yeah, I'm rambling. Guettarda 19:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not old enough, sadly. As part of a hist analysis, they could be useful. It may be in Spencer Wearts stuff, and if so wouldn't be OR. William M. Connolley 20:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC).

Given the questions raised about the Gallup polls numbers, we need a reference for the numbers before we can consider their inclusion. But the anon's edits are now headed towards vandalism anyway; I don't have much confidence left in her/his credibility. Guettarda 17:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The original phrasing was awkward to search on. I did find what looks like one contemporaneous source. (SEWilco 18:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

House of Lords

While there are scientists in the House of Lords, it is not usually considered part of the scientific establishment. So why should it be in an article about the scientific opinion? Can you explain why it is appropriate here? Thanks. Guettarda 22:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

They are politicians commenting on the science produced by the process of supporting an international treaty in which they are involved. (SEWilco 23:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

Then their comments perhaps belong in a political opinion ... article, but not here. Vsmith 00:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

They are referring to the IPCC science. Their involvement with the government gives them reason to be examining things involved with a treaty such as the UNFCCC, but this text is about the science rather than the political forces involved in the UNFCCC. (SEWilco 01:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC))

I suppose all the IPCC material could be moved to the IPCC article, and the IPCC can be summarized as "A UN organization, the IPCC, has issued reports about climate." (SEWilco 02:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC))

Sadly SEW is playing an unhelpful role os mischief-maker here. This page is for *scientific* opinion. If we allow "scientific opinion plus comments from politicians" it will get swamped with gunk (which is what the HoL report was). William M. Connolley 09:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC).

Sorry to bring this up at such a late date, but I just read this. It seems a lot of people aren't too fond of The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs 2nd Report of Session 2005-06 The Economics of Climate Change Volume I: Report (HL Paper 12-I) but I found some interesting things in it when I read the entire thing today. I thought it was an excellent overview of the conflicts and concerns of those looking at this all from an economic (and other) perspective that is not scientific, no. But it is pretty much how I view things myself. So that lead me to some thoughts.

First, the reason I often have a problem with some statements, is I'm evaluating them more from a synthesis of many of the factors and tend to not just evaluate the statements from a purely scientific viewpoint. Such as me not accepting something like "probably" unless I'm told the probability. So, in that respect, I am a skeptic, in that when I see "likely" that's meaningless to me, as it also could mean "likely not". It's too vague for me. In that respect, I'm more looking at it from a math, linguistics, statistical and business mix rather than one of climate science. Which I don't know if it's exactly skeptical, because it's more so I don't think any piece of information that's not a fact can be evaluated as a standalone entity. It's not so much that I think people in science aren't trying to be neutral, it's more so they are evaluating a single subject, and I don't think that's really possible with anything complex. At least if you want to comment on more than just that one aspect. Eh. The report does state, sure, everything's subject to what we can really do in the real world, so let's focus on what we can get done, regardless of what one thinks about any single point from their own POV. If you want to get things done, that is. Doing a survey of accountants tells you their viewpoint pretty well, but that doesn't mean they're correct or even if they are, that anyone will listen to them on their consensus with each other.

Second is that if I think of "Greenhouse Gasses" as they define it, gases that contribute in some way to the enhanced greenhouse effect, I include water vapor (right or wrong), since that's the principal absorbing agent. But this report doesn't count it as a greenhouse gas. If I don't count water vapor either, which seems to be the prevailing opinion, I have no issue with almost any GW/AGW statements, except, perhaps, some of the absoluteness or degree. But basically, nothing much to argue against. From a science perspective, at least. Except for perhaps that if we have a technology that as a by-product produces water vapor, that may be contributing to the greenhouse effect.

(Indent fix/subject separation, see below)

I've learned a lot around here from the skeptical points brought up by others, and more importantly, the answers to them; so I think that at least helps get an honest debate and some sort of understanding of what we're talking about going on. That's the purpose of discussion, right?

But for all that, it's without doubt that the report is not science. It's talking about politics, which is like talking about religion; never do it in polite company, because somebody's going to get their knickers in a knot about it. So it doesn't belong here in a place where it's about scientific opinion. Sln3412 01:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Re water vapour: That has been discussed over and over again, you can probably find my explanations if you search for them a bit. In short, water vapour is a greenhouse gas (in that it absorbs infrared). However, water vapour is in a dynamic equilibrum in the atmosphere (due to all those big open oceans evaporating day and night). To a reasonable approximation, the relative humidity stays constant (by balancing evaporation and precipation), thus the absolute humidity and hence the greenhouse effect depends on the temperature of the atmosphere. Hence water vapour acts as a amplifier of climate change, but not a primary cause. The extra water vapour we inject into the atmosphere just increase precipation a tiny bit, it does not accumulate like CO2.--Stephan Schulz 08:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, yes sir, I do remember reading something like that that you wrote in one of the comments someplace here. (I think I had said if all vehicles had something where the exhaust was all water vapor, that might be a bit of a problem; but that's mere conjecture anyway of course.) Yes, an amplifier, so a greenhouse gas (absorbs infrared) but not a Greenhouse Gas (an enhanced effect). That keeps confusing me, it would be nice if that term didn't mean two things. You are certainly correct; why would something that's normally liquid accumlate in the air like C02 and methane do? I should have said may be contributing a small bit but nothing long-term. Cool! Sln3412 16:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, this is probably part of my confusion: Greenhouse_gas "Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are gaseous components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect... The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes between 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes between 3-7%."

Yes, water vapour is a greenhouse gas (or Greenhouse Gas, whatever you prefer). It's just one one which is in equilibrum, i.e. any extra water vapour is removed (via precipation) very fast, and any lack is made up via evaporation. That's why our "emissions" of water vapour are fairly irrelevant (again, there is open water over more than 70% of the Earth surface, evaporating all of its own). Now adding CO2 to the atmosphere will increase the atmosphere's temperature, which means that this equilibrum shifts (constant relative humidity, higher temperature -> more absolute humidity) and we will have more water vapour in the atmosphere, further enhancing the overall greenhouse effect and the warming. Thus, it is not a primary "cause" of warming, but contributes to the magnitude. --Stephan Schulz 00:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand. Not a primary cause, an amplifier. And in such large quantities naturally on the Earth that we can't really add much ourselves (even say if all factory and automobile exhaust was water vapor) compared to the atmosphere, clouds, oceans, seas, lakes and rivers.

This might be part of the entire problem; besides me mixing up what I'm talking about as to import of factors, think of somebody just starting to read Wikipedia. They read the main article on greenhouse gasses, and it says water vapor is 36-70% of it, plus clouds (say, total, up to 90%, minimum 40%?). Then they start reading about global warming and or the debate and statements by such as the IPCC and HoL saying CO2 is the largest part.

Sounds like we need the terms changed, or every time used make distinct '(natural) greenhouse gasses (GHG)' or 'Persistant Greenhouse Gasses (PGhG)' comparisons, or define them out as being two different things, such as water vapor (WV) not being a forcing agent (or not being 'persistent'). The section on greenhouse gasses Global_warming#Greenhouse_gases_in_the_atmosphere should mention something like that probably, don't you think?

Not even the HoL is totally clear or correct, but at least mentions it: "But some of this re-radiated energy is absorbed by water vapour and by “greenhouse gases” which exist in the atmosphere. The principal greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, but the principal absorbing agent is overwhelmingly water vapour." That's not totally true, it doesn't explain WV as a GHG; although they say it contributes to the greenhouse effect; well then, it's a GHG. However, it's not a PGhG. Something like that. A distinction needs to be made.

We should explain that "water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but it's not counted in the climate change subject as one, because it's in dynamic equilibrum in the atmosphere, extra is removed quickly, and it does not accumulate like CO2, methane and the others." (Just like CO2 isn't as much of a problem as methane as far as how greatly CO2 forces, but is more of a problem due to the quantity of it; similar to how the quantity of water is not a problem because of how little it forces).

The global warming article talks about WV one way, the page that defines a GHG another way, and neither really mentions the other. They should both mention both of these matters I would think that would be very helpful to clarify it for everyone, and be much more accurate. Or we need new phrases.  :) Maybe something like your Re water vapour: paragraph or one mixed with the Yes, water vapour is a greenhouse gas paragraph? Sln3412 17:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Individuals

On removing Yuri I's statment, I did it because he was an individual (and not just because he is a nutter on GW...). But then I noticed we had Peter Barrett in there too, so I took him out as well. And removed the "and individuals" tag line.

This on the basis that there are probably too many individuals who can be considered to have "made a statement" (if we include YI) and the cut-off for "is too marginal to be worth including" would be too much trouble to try to make.

William M. Connolley 22:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Lancet; from GW

I cut this from global warming:

according to a leading Britigh medical journal, The Lancet (Reuters, February 9, 2006, archived here), although some scientists have expressed doubt.

Maybe it belongs here. Not sure. Haven't read the original. William M. Connolley 22:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC).

GW verses AGW

I think a distinction is necessary between the scientific actuality (or otherwise) of global warming and scientific theory regarding the causes of global warming (ie anthroprogentic or otherwise). Just because a scientist identifies with evidence of Global warming (GW) it does not mean they have demonstrated or believe in anthroprogentic global warming (AGW). Although of course it is clearly possibe to believe in both.

The warming of the earth is essentially non-controversial: only a tiny minority dispute that (even prez Bush accepts it). The dispute, such as it is, is over attribution, which this article concentrates on. global warming and links therefrom discusses the more basic evidence for warming. William M. Connolley 11:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC).

You left out the other aspect of the dispute, which is whether it's significant. --Uncle Ed 14:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

? What do you mean? In what sense? William M. Connolley 20:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that means if it's insignificant if it's GW v. AGW, or insignificant as to the warming itself. (or both) It would be nice to have it clarified. --Sln3412 01:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I'm pretty sure it means if the amount of warming is significant, perhaps even regardless of the cause. I'm not saying it's not insignificant, and I know the views on it, and the reasons to believe it is of significance. But I have said before, when you compress the ice core data etc over a period of time as long as they show , any 50 or 100 or 200 etc year period of thermometer readings may tend to get "swamped" in the "blizzard" of the long time-line of the proxies. Not that I'm saying it has, just that it's possible. Sln3412 23:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Breaking News

The global scientific body on climate change is expected to report soon that emissions from humankind are the only explanation for major changes on Earth.

Count Iblis 13:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

To avoid repeat discussion, see Talk:Global warming William M. Connolley 16:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Surveys

Via Tim Lambert, I find http://www.norvig.com/oreskes.html by Peter Norvig, googles director of research. Clearly not a science source, but a person of some prestige perhaps? William M. Connolley 12:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The article makes it sound like Orestes really did find scientific consensus on the global warming hypothesis. It also makes it sound like the other guy was wrong, for two reasons:

• He used a different set of abstracts
• His letter was rejected by Science magazine

Whatever it sounded like, the article says it found that the peer-reviewed article abstracts they reviewed from that database didn't disagree with what the IPCC says was its view. Sln3412 01:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's rewrite the section so that the reader can decide who if anybody performed a meaningful literature search. This is especially important as most laymen only have Internet search engines like Google. Is there any way they duplicate the abstract search described in the article? --Uncle Ed 14:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Peiser calimed to replicate Oreskes. But, he didn't. So he was wrong. That isn't POV, its fact William M. Connolley 20:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

He was wrong about replicating it, that doesn't equate that he was wrong that she was wrong about what she found in it or what it meant. Sln3412 01:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

We know Peiser got it wrong, because he surveyed the wrong abstracts. Thats why he has the wrong number. Its all on TL's site. Also on TL's site are the ones P things are consensus-breaking, and its very clear he has categorised them wrongly. And (Ed) you have the cooling dates wrong too. Sigh William M. Connolley 21:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Your only source for "Peiser is wrong" is a blogger. I found another blogger whose point of view is opposite. We should have both points of view. --Uncle Ed 14:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No Ed, the source isn't the blogger, its the *facts*. Peiser got a different number of abstracts to Oreskes - this is a *fact*. Even he admits that. Why? Because he used a different search criterion. That by itself destroys his replication. The problem is that P didn't stop and think "err, why have I got the wrong number" he just assumed O was wrong. Secondly, from TL's website you can read the abstracts that P categorised, and see that he got it wrong. Thirdly, the objective difference in credibility between a paper published by Science, and one rejected, is very large William M. Connolley 15:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

There are links to her essay, Lambert's blog, his letter, etc, but not to that other blog. http://www.norvig.com/oreskes.html Nor to her rebuttal op-ed in The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html I think links that add to the information (non-encyclopedic or not) are good, probably most of these don't belong inline, though.

In any case, I agree, the reader can connect the dots, but I also agree that Peiser did not recreate her study. So if the claim is she's wrong, but he has different material, it can't be used to do that. And while that essay reads more like an editorial, it's still in Science, although it doesn't seem they did anything but publish it, given the issues with it. So yes, he did not recreate the study and she's published in Science. But instead of focusing on what he did or didn't create, why not focus on the work?

Then, at least for the purposes of this discussion, we could ask exactly what the 34 abstracts show, regardless of where they came from. We could also ask if including science, social studies and arts&humanities invalidates the search, if all documents is better or worse than just articles, or if anything that comes out of industry research (versus government research and academic research) is 100% wrong no matter what. That might help write a better and more balanced discussion of this, rather than focusing on Peiser or what he did or didn't do. Just because he got it wrong doesn't mean that she got it correct.

On the point of the 34 abstracts, using a blog on the abstracts is fine, yes, but does a blog really constitute "an examination of the relevent abstracts" as verifyable? Or even better, what does a sample that is the opinion, of those people, that commented, at that blog, prove? (pro or con) It's not official, it's not published, it's not peer reviewed, it's a biased sample. I don't know what else to say about that.... --Sln3412 21:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is the blog less verifiable than Peiser? All is stuff is self-published. Are you arguing that P should be removed entirely? William M. Connolley 21:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you can extract the two people from each other. I don't know if the fallout from not mentioning it will make controlling of the issues it would bring up worth it. His role in this is written about in a few news stories online and in print, and there is text of email on the issue to/from Science itself. So I don't know. Probably not removed. It seems the way what P has claimed is written is different than the way what the blog says about what it found is written. I'm more saying the wording of the examination proving 'his review of the abstracts themselves, doesn't hold water' should be more descriptive of who found it false and how, it seems too absolute as is. --Sln3412 21:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Lastly, Oreskes' essay. It's not peer-reviewed, it's not more than an editorial, and it's very unreliable. I don't even know if it belongs here at all. Why unreliable?

• As published, the essay was incorrect 3 times on the search terms, 2 times as to what she even searched for, and 1 time about how she deleted abstracts from analysis (paragraph 5 and footnote 9).
• The study (read the entire paragraph 5) was trying to test the hypothesis dissenting opinions might be downplayed in the reports and statements of societies, and these abstracts don't do that, especially knowing now what she supposedly searched for (articles, in science, that had abstracts, that dealt with "(global) climate change", in that database.))
• The later, not in that article, correction was on the search terms. We don't know if the articles deleted from analysis had to be about which of the two phrases.
• The essay itself does not tell us what the search criteria is.
• Paragraph 8 starts out "...shows that scientists publishing..." and then "...among climate scientists..." And the last paragraph does this also.
• Paragraph 1, 6, 9 and 10 specifically mention "anthropogenic climate change" which is not what she searched for.

By the way, I'm not going to ask what anyone thinks about the above, since nobody's commented about it (I forgot to sign it, also btw). But I will say my point is, as I've said many other places, the essay is not much better, if it even is as 'good'. I was more arguing they both needed to go, sorry if I didn't think to say that specifically. I do say it about the essay in the dissent section [Talk:Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#dissent] . Also, one thing; IF what the ice cores show is meaningless (a period of 50 or 250 year is hidden in the rest of the data, the details covered by the length of the measurements, to put it in common language), then the consensus doesn't matter anyway, because the data is then flawed (ice core CO2/temperature != current CO2/thermometer readings). So if the consensus is even important at all, that's up for at least some debate. Sln3412 23:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Will there be an update to this section to include the The National Registry of Environmental Professionals' Global Climate Change Survey from November 2006?Sbdivemaster 00:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been doing some searches on NREP and it's not entirely clear who they are. According to their web page they will (for a fee) give a test that certifies someone as an "environmental professional", whatever that is. It looks like they focus on compliance with regulatory provisions -- what kinds of records need to be kept in order to fill out a certain form, what kinds of tests have to be done to comply with a certain regulation, and the like. I'd be curious to know more and in particular if they are well regarded by third-party sources. Raymond Arritt 00:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what kind of third-party sources you are looking for. I do know they recently partnered with The Aarcher Institute. Their list of 2006 Conference Sponsors includes, among others, the US EPA. Are these the kind of sources you are looking for? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sbdivemaster (talk • contribs) 23:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Recent changes

I'm not going to revert again today, unlike Ed "pushing the 3RR" Poor. However, I think the current version [5] is badly flawed:

1. since the 1970s, when most discussion focused on natural global cooling - this isn't really true. For a start, as the GC article makes quite clear, there was no scientifc consensus re warming or cooling - indeed, people made it wuite clear they didn't know. Also, unlike now, the level of public awareness was very low.
   • Good point. Perhaps we should make a Public opinion on climate change article. Then we can include all the loudmouths and blowhards who predicted a new ice age in the late 60s to mid 70s. --Uncle Ed 20:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
     • You're still missing the point. There just wasn't the level of scientific or public interest in climate then as there is now. Every week - practically every day - there is an article in the paper about GW. That wasn't true in the 70's. William M. Connolley 21:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
       • Prehapes that might have some tiny bearing upon others, maybe possibly perhaps, could be, may cause, might be a factor?
2. Since the early to mid 1990s, prominent climatologists and scientific bodies have asserted that there is a "scientific consensus" on global warming - no, this isn't true. Concern over GW has grown, but assertions of consensus were thin on the ground in the early 1990's. Everyone knew that inc CO2 would inc T, of course; but thats not the same thing.
3. This isn't the place to give the sponsorship of the IPCC - thats black-helicopter stuff. Also, why give its remit here? There is an entire IPCC article to do that
   • Sponsorship is crucial, so readers can determine whether IPCC is an objective body or not. --Uncle Ed 20:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
     • Then they can follow the IPCC link. You are, I fear, still on the black-helicopters. William M. Connolley 21:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
       • Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
4. Kyoto was the result - sez who?
   • I didn't put that in (although I don't dispute it)

In short... why is the current version an improvement? William M. Connolley 18:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This rather proves some sort of point. So are authors in published science books at war with each other at how many books they've written or co-written? Do they fight hand to hand (mano a mano) over what their training is versus what job they are doing or the title of the position as to who's better? Do people in a program for a degree fight the system or go along with it? Is going along with the crowd and keeping safe preferred, or is or fighting out of your field and falling into the in-crowd's boobytraps a better idea? Do we assume good faith here and expect the real world to act the same? Is discretion the better part of valor or is caution preferable to rash bravery? What's better, to be in 'history' or 'social science'? Does a consensus in media reporting on an issue, and the resulting public opinion influence academia, industry, politics and policy?

I hear meterology calling me. There's just two words to really describe this. Although at first, you may think I mean something like (but a bit more crass than) "really silly". Don't worry I won't swear here. What was going to say was "social instability".

--Sln3412 02:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Intro reversion

What part of this is so bad that it must be reverted to your previous version, doc?

The scientific opinion on climate change has changed considerably since the 1970s, when most discussion focused on natural global cooling. Since the early to mid 1990s, prominent climatologists and scientific bodies have asserted that there is a "scientific consensus" on global warming. ["The evidence became more and more compelling—it wasn't a coincidence that the scientific community reached a consensus on the issue in the mid-1990s.... By the late 90s, what skepticism remained generally amounted to misleading arguments that may have made for good sound bites on Crossfire but which didn't stand up to any bit of scientific scrutiny." [6] --Michael Mann, climatologist, University of Virginia]

Your buddy MM says that it wasn't untly the mid-1990s that "the scientific community reached a consensus on the issue". Surely you don't abjure his word? --Uncle Ed 16:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm baffled. Why have you started a new section to discuss *exactly the same thing* as the section above? The answer to your Q is in the section above. William M. Connolley 17:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted again per William's reasoning above. I don't see how that version is an improvement, particularly the part that implies a consensus 180 from cooling to warming, where the former had relatively no certainty at all. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 17:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Survey of US state climatologists

There's been a little back and forth on this, so I figured I would clarify some of this.

I replaced the arbitrary and insufficient designation of CSE as "an organization that lobbies against the adoption of policy measures to slow global warming" with words from the horses mouth (with "a grassroots lobby whose aim is "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom" from http: //www.freedomworks.org/know/index.php). Before the change, it was like calling the UN--in its first mention in an article--"an organization that pushes for the adoption of policy measures to slow global warming." I realize that the intent is to give context to the survey, but it is colored with subjectivity. To quote a fellow editor, it smacks as "black-helicopter stuff." Since we're linking to the survey questions, surely the reader can be trusted to assess its value without our adding "color". Maybe find a better way to say it?

I also monkeyed with William M. Connolley's changes, which had the second sentence "The organization surveyed America's 48 official state climatologists of whom 36 responded" Sorry, but that's just unnecessarily awkward wording. It now reads "The organization surveyed 36 of America's 48 official state climatologists . . ." Among other things, I believe (I might be wrong) that one is not considered as having been "surveyed" if they don't respond; that would make his wording redundant. The edit I made works well.Edbanky 04:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Calling them a "grassroots" organisation contradicts what their Wikipedia article says; in addition, sourcewatch calls them "a powerful industry-funded think tank, promoting deregulation...founded by Koch Industries interests and continues to maintain strong links". Their current incarnation is chaired by Dick Armey, hardly a "grassroots" activist.

Regarding the 36/48 issue - as originally phrased, the article said that they surveyed 48 state climatologists, 36 of whom replied. The current wording says that they surveyed 36 of the 48 climatologists - which means that they did not survey 12 of them. Your own wording here suggests that they surveyed all 48. Which is accurate? (And yes, if someone doesn't reply to your survey, you still surveyed them.) Guettarda 04:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I can see that the "grassroots" thing might bother some. Maybe remove that, but the group's own classification as set up "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom" is accurate, and isn't as loaded. Or maybe delete the whole description of the organization. The problem is, it's inconsistent with other mentions of sources of scientific opinions, where no "qualifiers" are tacked on as color commentary. Sourcewatch as an objective source? an arm of an organization founded by "environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber"? This is precisely why the link to the survey should stand on its own. We can play the he said/she said thing. I know the CSE isn't lobbying behind Greenpeace; the point is, the RELEVANT content is already there.

My wording suggests that they surveyed all 48? My wording says "they surveyed 36 of the 48". Can it be any clearer?Edbanky 05:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm restoring my wording; surveyed 36 of... does indeed imply that 12 were deliberately left out, and is inexplicable. William M. Connolley 07:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The "48 of whom 36 responded" is still awkward. I will try to come up with something mutually agreeable. Meanwhile, I removed a semicolon and repaired some formatting.

Part of the question is that we seem to be assuming that all 48 were interviewed, but 12 of them didn't answer questions, or something of that nature. Could someone direct us to a reference that explicitly explains that "surveyed" means "asked to participate in a questionnaire" or something similar? This is simply elementary thinking--but if I leave a shopping mall survey situation with 1 completed survey, having asked 100 people to participate, do I tell my sponsor, "Yeah, I surveyed 100 people"? I doubt it. Frankly, if that were true, wouldn't a "conservative think tank" like CSE claim that they surveyed all 48?

If others still object to the "36 of the 48" wording, perhaps I'll come up with something in the realm of "surveyed the 48 official US state climatologists. Of the 36 respondents, . . ." Really, either they surveyed 48 or 36. If 48, then we say they surveyed 48; if 36, then we say 36.Edbanky 14:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see changes and comment.Edbanky 15:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Current version is OK by me. What makes you think they were interviewed? Rather than by-post William M. Connolley 18:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the OK. They were contacted directly (presumably by phone), per the linked survey, which includes script instructions, such as:

(IF RESPONDENT SAY HE/SHE DOESN'T HAVE TIME, SAY: Because you are among a select group, your confidential opinions are very important to this study. When is a good time to call you back? This should only take about 15 minutes.) Edbanky 19:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Survey of US state climatologists section should be deleted

This survey is a joke. An industry-funded right wing think tank asks under 50 hand-picked (i.e., not randomly selected) scientists a set of incredibly leading questions and presents the results as objective. Here are some examples:
1. 58% of the climatologists disagreed or somewhat disagreed with...Clinton what does "somewhat disagreed" mean?
2. Eighty-nine percent...agreed that 'current science is unable to isolate and measure variations in global temperatures caused ONLY by man-made factors'" no-one is seriously suggesting global temperatures are affected only by anthropogenic sources. This is a straw man argument.
3. As for the suggestion in the next paragraph that reductions of X amount won't stop temperature increases, that statement is implying that if CO2 reductions don't cause a drop in temperature global warming isn't caused my man-made CO2. That does not follow logically.
4. Finally more climatologists agreed evidence exists to suggest that the earth is headed for another glacial period again, it does not follow logically that anthropogenic global warming is a myth, though that's clearly what is being implied. The ice age and global warming are 2 completely different processes that are unrelated to one another. Excused the tortured metaphor, but it's like if a person were driving a car towards a cliff (cliff=ice age), but a large tree (global warming) was in the car's path. The tree doesn't stop existing because "X number of scientists agree the car is heading towards a cliff"
I would like to remove this survey entirely from the article. I don't throw phrases like this around casually, but the survey is the height of intellectual dishonesty and has no business being here. Discuss. --Osbojos 02:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The survey is sufficiently well known and remarked upon that a brief discussion of it belongs in the article. If you can find independent analysis of the survey that raises the points you bring up, then of course those can be included as well. I couldn't find any sources along those lines although this article touches on state climatologists and global warming. Raymond Arritt 03:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

A lexisnexis search turns up very little on the topic, mostly wire stories basically plagiarizing the CSE press release; however, I did find this: Citizens for a Sound Economy asserts that "the vast majority" of "state climatologists, who are the real experts," believe that "reducing carbon dioxide levels to 1990 standards will not prevent warmer temperatures on earth." True enough, but entirely misleading. The limits agreed to at Kyoto are intended to slow, but not reverse, global warming. [John B. Judis Global Warming and the Big Shill The American Prospect January, 1999 - February, 1999]--Osbojos 04:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The neutrality tag should be removed and the study should stay. You can challenge the neutrality of the study if you wish, but, unless you believe that the summary is misleading, the neutrality tag doesn't belong. The study is published and fits every definition of a reputable source. If you can find a reputable source that disputes it, by all means include it. But the study has to stay. Oren0 17:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

What about Mars?

It appears that there's data showing global warming on Mars... How much of that is due to human activity? Does Halliburton have some secret Mars base in the Face on Mars or something?

See the RC article linked from Mars William M. Connolley 20:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

A better article link would behere, wouldn't you say?

Of course, Halliburton has a secret base on Mars, who doesn't? They also have the largest army on Earth, and they hold the patent for creating water. --Sln3412 03:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The evidence for global warming on Mars is there but it's even more tentative than for the Earth. That should be no surprise, there's just a lot less data available to show anything, one way or another. It's amazing though how obfuscatory some editors become. They have a narrative and they do not take kindly to intervening facts. I tried to make a global warming on mars article and had multiple attempts to eliminate it. Eventually it got merged as a section in the Climate of Mars article. I can't go to motivation but if there were global warming on planet X articles, Wikipedia rules would force a disambiguation page and such a page's very existence would hurt the Al Gore bandwagon on the popular front by implying the question "is there a common cause?". Can't have that now, can we. TMLutas 16:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The evidence for global warming on Mars is over a few year period, to the best of my knowledge. I think an in-depth article about it would be interesting, as there is very little information that I've been able to find about recent (2005-2007) Mars climatic data. If you assume there is not a common cause, then you would still expect about half the planets in the solar system to be experiencing global warming (over sub-decade timescales) and about half to be experiencing global cooling. Unfortunately, the law of large numbers does not work for numbers around 7. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It is also very interesting how some people who are very skeptical about the temperature record on Earth seem not to be as skeptical about the temperature record on other planets. Brusegadi 17:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Literature search

There's a big discrepancy between the 75% claimed by historian Oreskes and the 1.4% of scientist Lindzen.

Also, the section on Peiser is mixed up with retorts by Lambert:

Soon after, Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist, claimed to replicate the Oreskes study (but actually used a different set of abstracts [7]) and to have falsified it,[8] writing a letter to Science [9] that was rejected for publication because "the basic points of [his] letter [had] already been widely dispersed over the internet." The letter stated that only one percent of the papers explicitly endorsed the "consensus position," and that less than a third -- not three-quarters -- accept it implicitly. He also identified 34 articles which "reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of "the observed warming over the last 50 years". Critics respond that an examination of the relevant abstracts [10] shows that they do not support Pieser's claim.

It should be:

1. Peiser's findings, followed by
2. Lambert's rebuttal

What I've read about the historian's literature search indicates that she is the one who "used a different set of abstracts". Science had to publish a correction about that.

It is not clear why Science refused to publish Peiser's objections. Something about it being too long for a letter, at first. But then when he finally got it trimmed down to size, their objection changed to "No fair! You already published your objections, and we only print Original Unpublished work" (paraphrasing for discussion page)

Some advocates (not here at WP, of course) cite the refusal of Science to publish Peiser's objections as PROOF that his objections are spurious. However, if Science has a pro-GW bias, then their refusal simply provides additional evidence of their bias.

Lindzen seems to agree with Peiser, anyway.

As far as Evolution and Intelligent Design go, an argument can be made that no "serious" journal has ever published an anti-Evolution or pro-ID paper. But that makes sense, since ID objects to the materialism inherent in the Theory of Evolution.

But no such issue is involved here. --Uncle Ed 15:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well Ed, thats a nice start "historian oreskes and scientist lindzen" - not trying to get in any subtle digs are you? But in fact, for literature analysis, you might be better off with a historian. Meanwhile, we're not actually relying on L - just L paraphrasing Peiser. The page here should reflect the difference between something published in Science, and something rejected, and give far greater weight to the published. Science was probbaly being polite. Look at the Lambert link, and its perfectly clear that Peisers assessment is junk - many of the 34 abstracts he claims reject the consensus do no such thing. Peiser also got the wrong set of abstracts - if he ever corrected that mistake, I haven't seen the update. Have you?

Some advocates (not here at WP, of course) cite the refusal of Science to publish Peiser's objections as PROOF that his objections are spurious. Its just a matter of verifiability, really, which is wikis criterion (not truth...). Published stuff scores higher than rejected.

William M. Connolley 16:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

If many of the 34 abstracts he claims reject the consensus do no such thing (but not all), that means some reject the consensus. Would you please identify these for me? If it's more than 0, this means that the historian was incorrect. --Uncle Ed 16:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess its too much trouble for you to follow the Lambert link? As I recall, only a few could be considered as "reject", and those were all from the wrong database - Peiser included ?the social sciences? in his list of abstracts. One was an op-ed from the american petroleum geologists, who oddly enough think there is no problem. But it wasn't a paper William M. Connolley 16:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I assumed the abstracts were only in a database accessible to real scientists like, you, Dr. Connolley. But I found a link here which mentions:

• Review and Impacts of Climate-change Uncertainties
• Fernau ME, Makofske WJ, South DW
• Futures 25 (8): 850-863 Oct 1993

  "More and better measurements and statistical techniques are needed to detect and confirm the existence of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change, which currently cannot be distinguished from natural climate variability in the historical record."

Tell me, do you think this is an endorsement, a "go along", or a rebuttal of the standard GW theory? --Uncle Ed 17:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an example of an abstract that Oreskes didn't consider because it appeared in a social science journal. As previously noted, Peiser's sample was larger by about 200 abstracts as a result of including social sciences / humanities publications and non-peer reviewed materials. Dragons flight 17:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Also... that was 1993. It was completely consistent with the 1993 consensus anyway. For example, the 1992 IPCC supplementary report says, in the overview: ...the size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but is also of the same magnitude as natural cliamte variability. Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this nat var... William M. Connolley 20:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, DF. That's the kind of information I can't find by googling. I assume that a climate science journal would be more interesting to our readers than a social science journal, if they're trying to get to the bottom of the GW debate. --Uncle Ed 17:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are Benny Peiser's unpublished claims discussed in this article? What makes them notable? --Denis Diderot 18:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point... William M. Connolley 20:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, not all that notable, but notable. They're discussed in great detail multiple times on multiple blog sites, they've been in a number of news stories, they are a huge subject of debate here, and Dr. Oreskes even tackles this subject herself in a Washington Post op-ed. --Sln3412 21:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Dissent

This article inadequately represents dissenting views on global warming. It implies that Attribution of recent climate change as mostly due to human actions is a "consensus" agreed to by all but an insignificant minority of sciences. That is the view of the Democratic Party, environmentalists and other partisans and should be labelled as their POV, in accordance with WP:NPOV.

Please don't remove the tag until this dispute is resolved. --Uncle Ed 14:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Its the overwhelming view of the reality-based community. DMorpheus 14:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

By overwhelming, do you mean a 75% to 90% majority? If so, that still leaves a significant minority.

The last survey I saw should just under 60% of climate scientists "sure" that most GW is human-caused. Are there other surveys showing more support? --Uncle Ed 14:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That begs the question: 60% sure that what percentage of climate change is anthropogenic in nature? If, for example, 60% of scientists are sure that 80% of the climate change is caused by humans, then that would mean, by logcal extension, that only 48% -- or a minority of scientists -- believe that GW is caused by humans. Moreover, I don't believe you will find a scientist out there who believes that GW 100% anthropogenic in nature. Besides, what is the definition of "sure"?--The Outhouse Mouse 18:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

This survey business is bizarre to many of us in the climate community. Are physicists surveyed to see how many accept the theory of relativity, or are biologists surveyed to see how many accept the theory of their field? Best to let the peer-reviewed literature speak for itself. And of course there are the IPCC reports -- which DO reflect the broad consensus of the climate science community. If you want a number, judging from the literature, people I meet at conferences, and so on I'd estimate >90% of climate scientists accept the AGW hypothesis. Those that do not accept it tend to be concentrated in the older demographic, for whatever reason. Raymond Arritt 15:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That's another way of saying that the 'controvery' is nonscientific. DMorpheus 16:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Or another way of saying that science isn't just about science, any more than economics is just about economics or government is just about government. The controversy is scientific, in that it involves science. Do some scientists discount the equating ice core readings to direct measurements? Do some point out inconsistent readings of temperature vis-a-vis CO2 levels? Do some look at the incomplete data on the effects of cloud cover? Do the articles on Wikipedia call water vapor the major greenhouse gas one place and CO2 the major greenhouse gas another? Is there debate on the role and extent of aerosols in the atmosphere? The absorbtion of CO2 into the oceans? The political aspects of scientific testimony? Who is consensusing how much on what, where? Sounds like a scientific controversy to me. Sln3412 00:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

So how shall this POV be labeled? To whom shall we attribute it?

1. Climate scientists
2. the climate community
3. the UN's climate panel (UNIPCC)
4. scientists who have published articles in the peer-reviewed literature

We also need a source which says who supports this POV. The recent Oreskes editorial, maybe?

• An editorial in Science historian of science Naomi Oreskes

Recall that Richard Lindzen and others either deny that there is a 'consensus' or assert that the proportion of dissenters is significant. --Uncle Ed 17:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

A couple of remarks: (1) You removed the words "the peer reviewed literature" from my comment. Editing someone else's comments, especially in a way that affects their meaning, is not to be done. I hope that this was accidental. (2) I'd say "climate scientists" is the most appropriate qualifier. (3) Lindzen is wrong. (He was also wrong when he said that 98% of the greenhouse effect was attributable to water vapor, btw.) If WP has to address every contention by a specific individual the whole enterprise falls of its own weight. Again, let the peer-reviewed science speak for itself. Raymond Arritt 17:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Ed seems to be playing silly games again. I took out Peiser entirely, following a suggestion higher up. Peiser is (a) only self-published and (b) error-prone; so there is no clear reason to include him. William M. Connolley 17:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Trouble is, Peiser's analysis has taken on a life of its own unrelated to its merits or validity. It's something that a person interested in the topic is likely to run across and have questions about. For that reason I'd be inclined to leave it in, if only to explain what a shoddy piece of work it is. Raymond Arritt 01:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not any more or less shoddy than Oreskes' is, I think it's just you don't agree with his. Have you read all the letters? I interpreted it as critical of her work (as I am, no bones about it, I think her essay sucks as far as proof of anything) and not anything else. As I've said here on this page in this section and in 'Surveys', and other places on talk pages, the letter disputes the conclusion based upon what's said in the essay. The only thing anti-consensus or anti-AGW in those letters is nothing he said, it's a quote from an abstract in that database being used to show there is not scientific unity (total agreement) on this. The point of contention seems to be that quotes from organizations involved with the energy business are assumed to be totally false no matter what they say. And that if he quotes it, he agrees with it. Nope. In the same letters he says he agrees there's a consensus! But also that he disagrees it's a total one, or that she's proved it. So I ask you and everyone two things. Is it total? Has she proved it's total? Sln3412 01:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The point of all this is, there is still an ongoing debate if being published an essay in Science is any more indicative or not of reliability than being published in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. There's also some contention about what worth blog discussions, copies of email to and from the primary people involved, and similar things have. None of that matters, though, that's not the criteria by which we judge entries, is it?

And I agree, Peiser is not published, unless you count stories on Internet news services like CNS. Which I really don't. But then again, if you can't get into the inside track at point A, maybe you can only publish on-line to get an alternative point of view out there. It doesn't mean (or not mean) you're a nut-case, nor that you don't have (or not have) something valid to say, but it probably says you don't understand the dynamic of where you're writing/posting and the often merciless nature of the rhetoric involved in such places.

Ignore that. Why is Oreskes here under the heading “scientific surveys”? It wasn't one, at least as far as what I take that to mean; anyone have a definition of that phrase someplace? It was an opinion essay based upon some research that wasn't even documented well in the essay. (Not very scientific, is that?) Was it not a review of peer reviewed articles under the science category in a certain database that was searched for with the later corrected the words “global climate change”? It was more a summarization, yes? Regardless of the two of them personally, holding up a seemingly biased and fairly unspecific piece of writing doesn't really prove much, and neither does debate on the blogs and personal sites. Probably, they both of them two people belongs here, or more likely, neither does. (although a link to the debate page(s) might be in order if it's left as it is) Aside from that, published papers agreeing simply proves one thing; the clique involved agrees. That's almost like talking about a consensus position between Republicans or Democrats or the wealthy or airline pilots or NASCAR fans or tenured professors or actors.

I go into this entire annoying mess more on my talk page, if you'd care to comment User_talk:Sln3412. Other than that, well. As far as to global warming, what's the major greenhouse gas? To quote from the article on WP for that: “The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds), but that can be converted to rain by nature...” And as far as I'm concerned, this entire debate is about silly word games (not just here) – I'm guilty too of course, I admit it freely – it can't help but be about that, word games. At least not in my opinion.

The question is simple. Does neutrality and verifiability mean we want to be citing dubious biased sources just because they are published on paper? Or not published on paper? Sln3412 03:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

there is still an ongoing debate if being published an essay in Science is any more indicative or not of reliability than being published in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal - no there isn't. For the point of view of science, Science scores far highly that WSJ. Obviously. William M. Connolley 07:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the way you think. I just don't agree with it on this subject. It's not obvious, at least from the standpoint of editorial pages. Point being that opinion pages are opinion pages are opinion pages. It seems that at least the WSJ publishes things they don't agree with. Not that it matters, just that they seem to. It might be because Science has a strict rule about proof, but they didn't say that in the email responses I read. Nobody has proven that the emails from Science to Peiser aren't real and nobody has contested what Oreskes (or Peiser for that matter) on the blogs have said or been quoted as are not real. It's fairly a matter of common public knowledge on this entire thing, it's all out there. I'm not commenting on what I think of it, except that it's a mess, just saying that anyone caring to read it can know what's going on or find either of those two refuting the points being made by the others in print or web sites or blogs. It's just there for anyone to see, read or comment on anywhere. I've done it on my talk page for example. Also, not that it matters (I don't know, I'm just bringing up points to think about or discuss) I wonder why the original essay is available on the Science site freely, but the retraction article isn't. I also wonder about publishing a letter supporting their view (including a bit about the AAAS itself) is inherently better or worse than being funded by oil companies or if not publishing other ideas is because they're not peer reviewed. But we are talking about editiorials and essays and letters, not studies. I'm really not trying to get into any sort of angry annoying fight about it all, I'm just trying to put this all into a place where if there is POV, it's countered by another POV to put it into a NPOV. Sln3412 01:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Sln3412, I'd like to respond to your statement, but with all due respect you do not express yourself sufficiently clearly to allow a meaningful response. Is your main concern whether or not the Oreskes material belongs in the article? If you can summarize your main points more clearly and succinctly I'd be glad to address them. Raymond Arritt 02:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Raymond, it is most definite I am of the opinion that particular essay doesn't belong in this article as a survey of anything but if the abstracts support statements of the societies or not. Sln3412 01:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I keep getting wrapped up in the talk pages, yes. Sorry. I'm saying an editorial in x is about the same as an essay in y in a lot of ways. I didn't say the WSJ v. Science itself, just the opinion sections. Okay.

As far as the citation. My only point was is that it's not a survey, it's not science. It's more an editorial. There was not much methodology detailed in the essay I didn't think. It's more a study of published works on a subject that's looking at their focus. It's more about society (look at the section of the magazine it was in). I suppose it's okay as an example, but it's not really what I could call a 'scientific survey'. And no, sorry, I was just bringing it up as an idea, I don't have any better ideas of what to call a review of peer-reviewed articles under the science category in the ISI database that was searched for 'global climate change' where the articles were about the subject. A summary? Sampling? I don't know. Sln3412 03:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Surveys of scientists. Oreskes is under this section. It's not a survey of scientists. It's a review of scientific literature. It seems to lead to the published statements of the large organizations mentioned in the prior section of this article. The essay uses the status quo to "prove" there are no dissenters, when more than likely the dissenters don't get anywhere in the political system that tends to grind out the abstract's publishers into the status quo itself. She starts it with "Beyond the ivory tower" and supports it with abstracts seemingly from within something similar. It's published in a science and society section and doesn't seem to be about climate science as the first sentence and/or first paragraph start out with. It's in a magazine from one of the organizations mentioned in the essay, as proof they support their own views it seems. It shows that those that are trying to make it agree with those that have made it, more about politics and organizational systems. It's about 'anthropogenic climate change' but she didn't even search for that. She got her own search terms wrong as published, corrections are in the same magazine (membership required to read) and in an email from the magazine to a detractor (so I won't link it). Reference #9 wasn't corrected. Her last two paragraphs are a study in opposites within the paragraphs and make no real sense. She quotes the IPCC but she doesn't quote the science group, Working Group I. Her reference is the entire report, not what she quotes from, Working Group II technical summary 1.2 first paragraph[11]. She cuts out meaningful parts of what she quotes. It's in an article about scientific opinion but the essay is about scientific organizations and scientific literature. But it does show that there is a consensus about humans impacting their environment, just not how she's trying to show it. Sln3412 02:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

So if you're trying to show the literature doesn't dissent from the statements of the organizations, that's fine, other faults with the essay notwithstanding. But it doesn't really belong in that section, as it's not a survey of scientists. That could be a matter of interpretation, though, if you consider peer-reviewed abstracts of articles on (global) climate change in that database from 1993 to 2003 as being a survey of scientists. Sln3412 18:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm taking it we consider reviewing abstracts 3-13 years old as being a survey of scientists. Okay. Seems rather a strange thing to consider it as, but so be it. Sln3412 21:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

New Singer para cut

TOHM added:

The FCCSP study "is based on the best current information on temperature trends."[12]; yet, according to Fig. 5.4G (p. 111)[13] of the study, observations are at odds with the predictions of greenhouse models.

I don't have a WSJ subs, so can't check this, but judging by the search terms this is Fred Singer being quoted, not the report itself. Its true that the *tropical* trends are only consistent with RSS (itself different from the quote above) but globally, fig 5.3 paints a different picture. So I don't think the quote above is any kind of fair summary, which is what you'd expect from Singer. Also, the study *isn't* based on the best current, because it fails to factor in the Sherwood stuff on tropical biases in the radiosondes William M. Connolley 18:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh...so I guess that the work expended by 13 government agencies[14] who over the last 16 years have collectively spent some $20 billion [15] researching the issue is meaningless. --The Outhouse Mouse 18:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Your guess would be wrong - I'm not quite sure what you're basing it on. Also though it did not state what percentage of climate change may be anthropogenic in nature. is rather petty sour grapes, and rather close to OR. In fact its rather clear you've never read the report, and are just relying on Singers biased reports, or you'd have seen it starts with:

Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of humaninduced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies.

I wonder if you think we should include that in the article? William M. Connolley 19:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It would depend on what your time horizon is. It's my understanding that the observational data sets do not encompass enough data over a long enough period of time in order to be authoritative. Besides, satellite data has only been around for the last 40-something years. --The Outhouse Mouse 19:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Do try to be at least self-consistent. If the obs data isn't authoritative, shouldn't you have noted that in the "contradicts models" bit? Its clear you're cherry-picking. You've added in text of your own that isn't in the report. But text from the very start of the exec summary isn't welcome to you, because it doesn't fit your biases. Oh, and the satellites have been around since 1979, can you count? William M. Connolley 19:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. Weather satellites have been around since Vanguard 2 was launched in 1959. 2006 - 1959 = 47. See also weather satellites. My biases? Wow. You should really take a look at the sociological studies done by Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University. In addition to debunking the hockey stick, Mr. Wegman attempts to answer why Michael Mann's mistakes were not exposed by his fellow climatologists. Instead, it fell to two outsiders, Messrs. McIntyre and McKitrick, to uncover the errors.

Sigh. See satellite temperature record. The record begins with MSU, in 1979, since earlier satellites didn't provide a temperature record. But its nice to see you proving that you don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you could learn from it? William M. Connolley 19:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Here might be the appropriate place to remind you that personal attacks are a violation of Wikipedia's Code of Conduct. --The Outhouse Mouse 20:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Here might be a good place to ask you if you're going to admit that you're wrong about the satellite temperature record, to ask whether you're going to be grateful for having your mistakes corrected - or would you have preferred to continue in your ignorance? Oddly enough, for someone sooooo keen on Wegman, and resistance to having mistakes corrected, you don't seem too kenn on having yours corrected. Isn't that odd? William M. Connolley 20:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. "As analyzed in our social network," Mr. Wegman writes, "there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis." He continues: "However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility."

In other words, climate research often more closely resembles a mutual-admiration society than a competitive and open-minded search for scientific knowledge. Mr. Wegman's social-network graphs suggest that Mr. Mann himself -- and his hockey stick -- is at the center of that network. --The Outhouse Mouse 19:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

In other words, you're changing the subject William M. Connolley 19:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

William, please try to be more civil, and Wikipedia:avoid personal remarks. The subject of these talk pages is "how to improve the article". Anyone would think you're talking about "how to prove that all scientists agree with Dr. Connolley". (Isn't this the month you're scheduled to re-read Wikipedia:POV pushing? :-) --Uncle Ed 20:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

We won't improve the article whilst people are editing it based on gross mistakes like thinking the satellite T record streches back 40 years. See above. Or are you going to start inserting language like "some people say the satellite t record begins in 1979 (actually late 1978, but 1979 is the first full year), but others say..."? William M. Connolley 20:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

From browsing the reports executive summary [16] about the tropics:

Although the majority of observational data sets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, some observational data sets show the opposite behavior. Almost all model simulations show more warming in the troposphere than at the surface. This difference between models and observations may arise from errors that are common to all models, from errors in the observational data sets, or from a combination of these factors. The second explanation is favored, but the issue is still open.

So note that they are unsure, but what they *favour* as an explanation is an error in the obs (which is plausible, given Sherwood and the multiple errors in UAH). Which is another reason why the para I cut is inappropriate William M. Connolley 18:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I might note that it says SOME observational data sets. That taken in conjunction with Fig. 5.4G on page 111 would indicate that observations are not fitting the model predictions irrespective of what Sherwood says. --The Outhouse Mouse 18:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Different obs show different things. Theory and models are consistent. How to explain this discrepancy? You, of course, would throw out GW theory and the models. The report suggests that some of the obs may be wrong, but of course you don't want to hear that and so you don't. Your test now is to find out who Sherwood is and why he is relevant and what he actually said William M. Connolley 19:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Elgog says: This article is very short on Scientific Opinion of Climate Change. It seems that the Scientific opinions were cherry picked. It is hardly an exhaustive study of the scientific community. This article reads more like a Time Magazine article (read that as Yellow Jounalism) than an abstract of real scientific thought. My guess is who ever started this page is not a scientist. My research shows that real scientist, those that work on the Climate field, have not committed to Human responsibility for Global Warming. Many show studies and statistics that global warming cannot be found in the data. As far as I am concerned, this article is mostly a prospective argument for Global Warming and does not contain valid data. Shame on you for promoting fear mongering and sham data to prove your point. I want to know but your article here does not further the science behind the research.

Well, "Elgog" is wrong. There is essentially no-one left in the field who does not agree that there is warming. There are very few left who contest anthropogenic emmissions as the main cause. Feel free to give us your "research" and don't forget to list the sources. --Stephan Schulz 09:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Water Vapor, greenhouse gas, greenhouse effect et al

I think it might be helpful (well, actually I think it's essential) if the pages centering around climate change, global warming, the greenhouse effect and water vapor and so on were to be consistent in classifying or mentioning Water Vapor (WV) as being a (natural) greenhouse gas because it is part of the greenhouse effect, but not being a (persistent) greenhouse gas because it's passive/minimally-forcing/easily-absorbable (etc) and so therefore is not a large part of (anthropogenic) global warming. That would also include not using just "greenhouse gas" to explain both the type where WV is the main one and where CO2 is the main one. It would also include being consistent in describing forcing vs feedback vs influences vs degree. Probably be best served by the same person or group crafting it. Here are the pages/sections:

GW - summary: "The increased amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the primary causes of the human-induced component of warming. They are released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and agriculture, etc. and lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect." (WV not considered a GHG here)

GW - Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere: "Greenhouse gases are transparent to shortwave radiation from the sun. However, they absorb some of the longer infrared radiation emitted as black body radiation from the Earth, making it more difficult for the Earth to cool. How much they warm the world by is shown in their global warming potential." (WV is considered one here)

CC - Greenhouse gasses: "Current studies indicate that radiative forcing by greenhouse gases is the primary cause of global warming. Greenhouse gases are also important in understanding Earth's climate history. According to these studies, the greenhouse effect, which is the warming produced as greenhouse gases trap heat, plays a key role in regulating Earth's temperature." (Both considered and not considered)

CC - Interplay of factors: "Water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide can also act as significant positive feedbacks, their levels rising in response to a warming trend, thereby accelerating that trend. Water vapor acts strictly as a feedback (excepting small amounts in the stratosphere), unlike the other major greenhouse gases, which can also act as forcings." (Includes, then defines, but now we add "major" to GHG, feedback defines how it's not like the other major ghgs which can cause forcing, rather opaque way to say it, better to use active voice as to what it is, not by what it's not)

GHG page: "Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are gaseous components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Like the glass of a greenhouse, greenhouse gases are transparent only to some wavelengths of light. ... It is the downward part of the longwave radiation emitted by the atmosphere that comprises the "greenhouse effect." The term is something of a misnomer... The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes between 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes between 3-7%. Note that it is not really possible to assert that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. (The higher ends of the ranges quoted are for the gas alone; the lower ends, for the gas counting overlaps.)[1] [2]" (Includes WV, but now we add "natural" to GHG, no mention of forcings, etc)

WV page: "Gaseous water represents a small but environmentally significant constituent of the atmosphere. Most of it is contained in the troposphere. Besides accounting for most of Earth's natural greenhouse effect, which warms the planet, gaseous water also condenses to form clouds, which may act to warm or cool, depending on the circumstances. In general terms, atmospheric water strongly influences, and is strongly influenced by weather, and weather is modified by climate." (ditto)

Sln3412 21:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems as if nobody much is interested in making pages like those match each other in terminology and focus as to what GHG are, as a basis of understanding or for some other reason, like, oh, I don't know, making things clear. Normally I'd just be very skeptical and confrontational about it, but I believe everyone's acting in good faith, along with having a totally balanced neutrality to everything in all points of view, and verifiable reliable well-sourced references to every claim made. So I wouldn't say anything like "Maybe everyone is having more fun with endless edit wars and pointless arguments about side subjects or minutiae, and are not really concerned in making the articles give something cohesive and understandable and consistent." or anything like "Perhaps some would rather attribute to everyone else a POV while at the same time changing the subject, ignoring, or removing things that don't match their own view, instead of trying to make all viewpoints unemotionally reflect the relative merits of other arguments, even those that might be contrary to their own ideas or worldviews." So I just suppose I'll just myself try and make them all match, since I'm fairly sure everyone totally respects my views, methods, ideas, and writing skills, as well as my neutrality, motives, and ability to balance things. Sln3412 06:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Peiser again

[17] makes interesting reading: "Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact" and "Undoubtedly, sceptical scientists are a small minority." and "some of the abstracts that I included in the 34 "reject or doubt" category are very ambiguous and should not have been included." (see-also [18]) William M. Connolley 23:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I read this in that reference: "The vast majority of abstracts in her sample do not deal with anthropogenic global warming at all." I think that makes it clear that Pieser maintains the original study was completely invalid, regardless of his personal views on the subject. William do you think you are the best person to be editing contributions here? Wouldn't it be more honest if you left it to someone impartial? JG 6.1.07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.8.162.59 (talk • contribs).

Someone like you? Ho ho. The point is that Peisers opinion isn't very interesting. He did a bad survey; and later realised it was wrong. What other credentials does he have to comment? William M. Connolley 15:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Those of us who are parents are familiar with Peiser's tactic: "Benny, you shouldn't have done that." "But Naomi did it too!" Raymond Arritt 16:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

William. No not someone like me - I have not edited here - but not someone like you either. It seems more sensible to actually rely on asking the scientists involved rather than accept a controversial 3rd party interpretation isn't it? It is clear her peers didn't repeat the work. Pieser did and said he found flaws. If he is right - and prove him wrong - then the much vaunted peer-review was flawed. But since it is all subjective and not scientific at all, quite why it was published in the first place is beyond me as it seems to have no purpose other than as propaganda. The only reason for citing that study here without Pieser's criticism is presumably because of the impressive number, but the polls are the only figures that matter! Furthermore, on realclimate.org someone recently produced a very good list of seven separate but viable positions on global warming, most of which were skeptical about something or other, so exactly what everyone is in a consensus about is really quite unknown. It seems for example that the so-called 'tipping point' of 10 years is something virtually every scientist is skeptical about and the idea that extreme weather events are caused by AGW is apparently more believed by the public than by climate scientists owing to somewhat alarmist press coverage. JG 13.1.07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.8.162.59 (talk • contribs).

Indeed - no-one has repeated Oreskes work. For the obvious reason: people think that she was right, and that repeating it would be dull. If people thought she was *wrong*, it would be repeated, or rather proved wrong. Peiser, of course, was proved wrong multiple times: see http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/ for example. someone recently produced a very good list of seven separate but viable positions on global warming, most of which were skeptical about something or other - could you be a bit vaguer please, your precision cuts like a razor and its uncomfortable :-). Sure, there are people skeptical about tipping points. Me, for example. So what? William M. Connolley 20:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

William, please could you explain your removal of all references to Peiser. You say you removed my revised piece 'reluctantly', what are your reasons for preventing all presentation of facts counter to the Oreskes essay? At least can I be permitted to add back in The bare fact of Science's publication of Piesers criticim and the link to the material collated by him so that people can assess the merits of the argument for themselves?

I've explained myself in the very last section - see there. We seem to have *3* Peiser sections on this talk. The bare fact of Science's publication of Piesers criticim - what makes you think it was published? William M. Connolley 13:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

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