Talk:Scientific consensus on climate change/Archive 1

On the merge-with-GW
(copied from the Village pump) I'd say it belongs in the global warming article. Have you asked him why he's seperated it? --Robert Merkel 00:43, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This page should be merged with Global warming. -- Cyan 01:15, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 13:04, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)) I still disagree, on the grounds that GW grows too big.

I won't make the change unless I have you on board, so let's discuss this. How big is too big? What should be done about other long pages? -- Cyan 18:50, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

OK, thanks. But I'm not sure about the meaning of your questions. Not long ago, GW was warning of the 32k limit: thats too big. The other long pages should be broken up, by people who understand those pages. Just because they are longer, doesn't mean GW is OK. Don't you think it would be nice if some of the people who actually contributed to the GW article would comment?


 * I like the idea of separation -- provided that it helps us make progess on the subject. I hope this page will attract contributors who have information on what scientists think about GW. If anyone's taken a poll, we could include that. If any group of scientists has issued a statement, or a government-sponsored scientific body, or a research lab connected with a university, etc.


 * In other words, what is the current state of scientific opinion on global warming? Is there a consensus? Is it based on a desire for fame, glory and continued funding? Is it based on carefully collected and analyzed data?


 * Are there any factors influencing scientific opinion? Are there any "interested parties" involved? How can/do they influence scientific opinion? ...or reports about scientific opinion? --Uncle Ed 21:28, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Large pages have been a problem to edit, but browsers for which this is an issue are increasingly rare. A feature was implemented to help with the problem: beside each heading is a small "edit" link, which permits one to edit just that section. Since sections are rarely larger than 32k, there should be no problem with merging the content back into the main article.

About the whole "actually contributed to the GW article" thing: although I could be wrong, I read this as an invitation to butt out. (If I have misread the message, then the following comments won't be germaine.) First, the issue has ramifications for all long pages, so any interested wiki contributor gets to comment. Second, even if the issue only concerned GW, the glory of wiki is that a person doesn't need a record of even one substantive edit to join any discussion. -- Cyan 21:39, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 15:28, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)) You can comment - anyone can - thats fine. But, yes, I did mean: LittleDan especially chose to merge the page, and then took my unmerging it to the village pump, all without any kind of history of contributions to the GW page. He can do this, of course. But my comment was intended to suggest, that the opinions of those who have contributed to the GW page should count for more. Pages do develop some kind of community of people who work on them. Having someone else jump in and rearrange the structure (whilst making no additions to the text) is, unsettling/unhelpful/a-waste-of-time/something-politer/whatever.

Welcome to Wikipedia, where people are bold. But back to the question of size - do you find my arguments convincing, or do you still prefer that this article remain separate? -- Cyan 22:20, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 20:32, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)) No, sorry, I'm still not convinced. But I'm mostly not convinced that this is worth too much discussion. Yes, pages *can* get big, but this is unlikely to be a great idea. Also: the info here is more a *comment* on GW than info on the topic itself; it contains no material facts about GW, just what people think about it.

Fair enough. -- Cyan 21:11, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. We can revisit this later if desired.

Eds intro
Ed: I don't like your new intro. To me, it reads like "opinion has varied widely, so why listen to what they say now, they will have changed their mind in 5 mins".

But just for once I'll discuss things before changing them...

A fairer start (IMHO) would be something along the lines of:


 * When interest in global temperature change (say that: no-one said "global warming" in the 1960's) began in the late 1960's, it was clear that predictions of future T change were not possible, owing to inadequate understanding of physics, forcing, and models. In the early 1970's, it was not clear if cooling (aerosols) or warming (from CO2) was likely in the next century. Since then, evidence for warming has grown stronger; all GCM simulations show warming and many scientific papers adopt the premise of global warming as a virtual certainty. (conclude perhaps with see IPCC or somesuch).

I'd have to dig out a few papers to support that last: but I think its quite common to see papers start: "Warming is predicted for the next century [ipcc]" os suchlike.

And I've just realised: is this supposed to be a history-of-historical opinions, or *current* opinion. In which case the intros are irrelevant. When I started the page, I intended *current* opinion. Though a section on shifting over the years might be relevant.

(William M. Connolley 20:02, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)) More: the intro should summarise the page, or at least lead into what is discussed there. What you've written doesn't. It should be removed, until the page *does* discuss what you're intro'd about: which will require you to find some stuff about what scientists though in the 1970's (and 1960's, though that seems to be pushing it back rather far. still, if you can find stuff from then, good). You'll find some useful quotes at http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/ ;-) ... and refreshing myself on that, I don't know of *any* relevant papers from the 1960's. What did you have in mind when you wrote your intro?


 * (William M. Connolley 19:30, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)) and so, I have substantially revised the intro to remove the "offending" sections. Since Ed mentioned statements, I've found some (please please please don't add random skeptic ones: I've been careful to add only those from orgs with scientific credentials) and since the texts are generally quite readable I've reversed the sense of his statements to the contrary.

William cut my intro because it sounded like "opinion has varied widely, so why listen to what they say now, they will have changed their mind in 5 mins"

I think you're right about how it sounds. But that's no reason to suppress the fact. Instead, let's find a way to express it neutrally.

Would it help to explain why scientific change has varied (i.e., from cold to hot)? Are there any reasons (which seem valid to you as a practicing scientist) for someone like Stephen Schneider changing his global cooling prediction to a global warming prediction? --Uncle Ed 21:17, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 21:52, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)) 3 points:


 * I'm not at all sure opinion *has* varied from hot to cold. I think you are leaning too heavily on SS as an example, and reading second hand acconuts of his work from sources that are doing their best to discredit him.


 * With respect to SS, his 1971 paper used a very simple model, and had the CO2 coefficients wrong by a factor of about 3 - if you didn't know that, you've got to wonder why whatever sources are using didn't tell you that.


 * In the 1960's, there was a cooling trend, sort of (sort of, because they were only just getting hemispheric/global records together: try http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/wcc-1979.html for example). It soon stopped.


 * So, I think the "fact" needs to be rather more carefully supported before it can be expressed. If you can find support for it, then the expression will likely be rather more obvious.

The partisan in me would l-o-v-e to pounce on the "coefficients wrong by a factor of about 3" thing. Because, to paraphrase (mangle?) a famous climate researcher recent remarks: why listen to what they say now, they can't even do high school math?


 * You're welcome to pounce as hard as you can: its not a problem. The answers to your question are: its not high school math, its more than that; and more than that, it was an error that was quickly corrected: thats the virtue of science. But I notice that you have no answer to my question: why didn't you already know this from your (reliable?) sources?

But I won't do that. I won't even mention it here. (Oops! I just did. ;-)

Seriously, though, Dr. Connolley: I only studied 2 years of physics, but I'm brilliant at math. I know enough statistics to discern whether a set of data provide enough information to extrapolate a trend. --Uncle Ed 00:56, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * If you're talking about your belief that the general scientific consensus switched from cooling to warming, what you seem to lack is not statistics, but the basic data to analyse ;-)


 * I never have held or expressed a "belief that the general scientific consensus switched from cooling to warming". I have merely noted that one or two scientific blowhards advanced a cooling hypothesis and then switched the sign of their hypothesis to warming. There was no consensus then, and there is still (I think) no consensus now. The only polls I've ever heard of indicate a 50-50 split. That's about as far from a consensus as you can get -- and it didn't even take high-school math to figure that out ;-) --Uncle Ed 21:31, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * This isn't much fun, you can't even quote yourself accurately. How do you interpret "Would it help to explain why scientific change has varied (i.e., from cold to hot?" (Ed Poor, above). What is "blowhards" supposed to mean? Once again, you quote "polls" but don't reference which. A 50-50 split? Where? Come on, enough of this anonymous rubbish, source something. --William M. Connolley 21:50, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Please forgive the typo which misled you. I was typing too fast (or thinking faster than I can type). What I should have typed instead of scientific change was "scientific hypotheses about temperature change", like this:


 * Would it help to explain why scientific change scientific hypotheses about temperature change has varied (i.e., from cold to hot)? Are there any reasons (which seem valid to you as a practicing scientist) for someone like Stephen Schneider changing his global cooling prediction to a global warming prediction?


 * (William M. Connolley 19:45, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC))The answer is mostly in the global cooling pages. I had to fight SEWilco for the wording there, so its not as clear as it be, but he's gone so I'll add something to tie together why cooling is now near totally neglected (not that there was ever consensus on cooling: just that in the early days it wasn't clear). Its all on the page, but the dots haven't been joined.


 * (later) OK, see what you think...

I can see why you may have thought I was referring to a change of consensus - it's my fault, not yours.

Anyway, getting back to the point: when I heard about global cooling back in 1968, I was skeptical and my dad thought it was amusing. Now there's a media consensus on global warming, but this time it's not funny. Hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions, are at stake -- not to mention millions of human lives.


 * If you, or your Dad, heard about cooling in 1968 or whenever, the chances are you heard a version distorted through the media. I don't know whether or not there is currently a media consensus on GW (oh all right then: I doubt that the media can ever bring themselves to agree on anything): I'm more (nearly exclusively) interested in the science.

For the record: I don't believe there is a scientific consensus on the global warming hypothesis. If there is, please write an article about it.


 * Thats what this article is about.

Also: I believe that the slogan the science is settled is motivate mostly by partisan politics and economic opportunism. I have yet to read anything, scientific or otherwise, to convince me otherwise. --Uncle Ed 18:57, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Slogans are politics: I'll leave that to those interested in writing about it.


 * Consensus was, however, apparent regarding the utility of the knowledge at that date: climate science provided enough knowledge so that the initiation of abatement measures was warranted.

The above statement is sheer poppycock: it contradicts the survey it's talking about!

The mean of 1 and 7 is 4.0 -- results between 3.5 and 4.5 are precisely 50-50!!

I'm so furious I can't even type straight, so I'll sign off for now, but whoever thinks 50-50 = a consensus is [snip thoughts better left unexpressed] probably making a math error. --Uncle Ed 21:52, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 18:44, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)) Ed, lay of the tedia re maths errors. I've reverted your changes, because your summary of the paper - as a 50-50 split - is too simplistic (ie, wrong). The paper isn't an all-or-nthing on one question - support for GW, its lots of sub questions. For example:

...a response of a value of 1 indicates a strong level of agreement with the statement of certainty that global warming is already underway or will occur without modification to human


 * behavior... ...the mean response for the entire sample was 3.3 indicating a slight tendency towards the position that global warming has indeed been detected and is underway. ...Regarding global warming as being a possible future event, there is a higher expression of confidence as indicated by the mean of 2.6.

(William M. Connolley 20:19, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)) With you so far Ed, except I've removed "official" - what does it mean in this context anyway?


 * Oh, nothing I guess. Good catch! --Uncle Ed 23:11, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Bray and von Storch

 * Surveys of climate scientists and meteorologists don't lend much credibility to the argument that a consensus exists either:


 * A survey of over 400 German, American and Canadian climate researchers conducted by Dennis Bray of the Meteorologisches Institut der Universitat Hamburg and Hans von Storch of GKSS Forschungszentrum and reported in the United Nations Climate Change Bulletin, for example, found that only 10% of the researchers surveyed "strongly agreed" with the statement "We can say for certain that global warming is a process already underway." Further, 35% of those surveyed either disagreed with the statement or were undecided. Perhaps even more interesting, 67% of the researchers either disagreed or were uncertain about the proposition that climate change will occur so suddenly that a lack of preparation would devastate certain parts of the world -- the underlying assumption on which the talks in Kyoto, Japan were based. Close to half of the researchers -- 48% -- indicated that they don't have faith in the forecasts of the global climate models, the strongest argument in favor of quick, decisive, international action to counter the threat of global warming. Another 20% expressed uncertainty about these models.

I guess it depends on who reads the survey. The folks at the National Center for Public Policy Research say Bray and von Storch's survey DISPROVES the notion that there's a scientific consensus in favor of the global warming theory. --Uncle Ed 21:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 21:37, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)) A quick look at the NCfPP makes it clear that they aren't even attempting to be unbiased.

Eds Eds
(William M. Connolley 09:38, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)) For no reason that I understand, User:Ed Poor cut a whole pile of this article out and put it into Global warming survey. I just don't see the point. The original point of *this* page was to hold just that text. So whats up?

However, my rv's have stripped out some more of Ed's text. That wasn't terribly kind of me but its hard for me to paste where I am now. Maybe I can fix that later. I really don't understand why Ed added text from IPCC 95 though, when 2001 is available.

New Articles: Global climate change and Climate forcings
Please read the new articles and consider commenting on them and/or moving some material to either one. Note that climate forcings is not specific to global climate forcings, so if it makes sense to create a separate section please do.

I hope this helps get this part of Wikipedia sorted out.

Posted to all discussion pages listed in the "See Also" section of global climate change. --Ben 03:48, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Science 2004
(William M. Connolley 09:46, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)) I've cut this to talk for discussion:


 * Note, that the author overstates the conclusions based on the survey he performed. There are many parts of the consensus position that are not in dispute by most of the critics.  Most of those articles that are inferred to "implicitly" accept the consensus position may only be accepting a noncontroversial portion, such as that there is an anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse warming.  It is the proportion and predominence of that warming that is the most hotly and effectively disputed issue.  Most of the peer review literature cited by the critics would not have "climate change" as keywords, and thus would not have been found by this essayists selective screen, the articles are at the more basic physics level and are difficult to dismiss by consensus.

First of all, the name of the author of the piece in science is "naomi" which suggests to me the author is female. Your using "he" above suggests that you haven't read it as carefully as you should.

Secondly, there is an awful lot of speculation in what you've written: "may only be accepting a noncontroversial portion, such as that there is an anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse warming". Maybe, maybe not. And acceptance of an anthro component is hardly non-controversial.

The science article says: The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.... Thus, when it describes articles as accepting the consensus, we have to assume (unless you are accusing her of fraud or misrepresentation) that this is the consensus they are accepting. The septic position is varied, but one thing they all agree on is that the IPCC is wrong.

You said "It is the proportion and predominence of that warming that is the most hotly and effectively disputed issue". This (if it stays) needs to be clarified to make it clear that its the septics that dispute this: the consensus is to accept it.

You said "Most of the peer review literature cited by the critics would not have "climate change" as keywords". In my experience the septics are rather thin on citing things, and very selective on what they do cite. But if you want to maintain this statement, you need some evidence, such as some semi-reputable skeptics (Lindzen perhaps) and some papers that they cite.


 * Look at the cosmic ray and cloud physics papers and see how many have "climate change" as key words.


 * (William M. Connolley 17:57, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Its your assertion, not mine. If you want to back it up by actually looking at papers, please do so. To qualify that: I'm unclear as to whether a wikipedian-conducted survey of the keywords of papers would be permissible within the article pages: it might well count as original research: wikis rules can be regrettably restrictive sometimes.


 * Non-expert results are usually accepted, even in courts if the involve common knoledge and skills, easy to check, such as counting.--Silverback 06:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 12:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) This isn't a court. Wiki has rules. Exactly how they would apply in this case I am unsure.


 * If you read the essay, you will see that there are, three components "she" cites to the consensus view. Since she is claiming that a large percentage of the articles support the consensus "by inference", she is obviously willing to infer quite a bit, such as acceptance of some greenhouse contribution to warming as support as if it is support for the whole consensus.

Most papers will take climate change and the IPCC position as a given, and proceed from there. It would be very uncommon to start a paper by "We accept the IPCC consensus; therefore...". So explicit endorsement is an unnreasonable requirement.


 * We don't have access to her methods and the standards she applied, but she does claim to have found explicit support, although she does not note was that support was for, she implies it is for the 2001 IPCC consensus, although how she find that in publications prior to 2001 is a mystery, there is no way to reproduce her work, given the lack of provided detail.--Silverback 06:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 12:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) The TAR and SAR don't really differ that much. The same few people disagree with it.


 * Note, she would have classified it as explicit if it were at all clearly stated. I was going to insert qualifying phrases instead of appending an analysis but you inserted all the overstated claims as a quote, and I naturally felt that I shouldn't insert qualifiers into that.  However, this non-peer reviewed essays pseudo-scientific conconclusions should not be cited here without signficantly questioning its credibility.  Since it has been questioned elsewhere, I propose we just delete the reference here.  Otherwise, lets remove the quote marks and let me insert qualifiers as I have elsewhere.--Silverback 09:58, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 17:57, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Clearly, you don't like this survey. But it seems to me more because it upsets your preconceptions rather than anything about the survey itself. Calling it psuedo-scientific is just silly. You say it has been questioned elsewhere: I don't know what you are referring to.


 * It upsets my scientific sensibilities, because she uses a methodology of assessing papers only through abstracts, and apparently inferring support for any part of the consensus as support for the consensus. The paper was already cited on other pages and disputed there, as I have done here,.


 * (William M. Connolley 12:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) It only looks at abstracts. Thats incomplete but not obviously biased, in either direction. The reason is obvious: she wasn't going through the journals but using the citation indices, which contain the abstracts.


 * I think it has great potential for bias, since explicit comments leave less room for doubt and are uncommon in abstracts, she is left with far more abstracts to classify by her "inference". Furthermore abstracts emphasize their positive results or contributions and the doubts and reservations are more likely to be in full text, so there is a bias toward misclassifying on the side of support of the consensus rather than doubt.  Note she never "inferred" disagreement with the consensus.--Silverback 13:01, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * You've also said in an edit comment: this non-peer reviewed and poorly researched survey is already covered on other pages. Firstly, you're wrong: the first reference in wiki to this survey was on this page, by me. Secondly, this is exactly the page for it. Thirdly, your assertion that its "poorly researched" tells us more about your prejudices than about the survey.


 * I don't know which reference was first. I had read it in Science some time ago, and this page was not on my watch list, I saw it when it was added to other pages.  Perhaps you have not read much scientific literature,


 * (William M. Connolley 12:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Oh dear, you're not going to do a Ben on me are you?


 * No, but I am surprised you are so drawn to this essay, and your antenna are raised by the reliance on abstracts and the bias that introduces and the other problems I have noted.--Silverback 13:01, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * but you don't trust the abstracts very far at all, a significant percentage are wrong and don't really support the conclusions they claim to support. In this particular instance, she is evidently surveying them for information that is not typically even put in abstracts.  The papers are definitely better evidence of this, especially since the qualifications and caveats in the papers would point to areas that the authors and peer reviewers believe require more research or are not controlled for.  I am disappointed when presumably respectable scientific journals publish politicized junk.--Silverback 06:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 12:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) I agree! The recent GRL publication of rubbish by Michaels was a mistake. In general though I think you're simply looking for excuses to ignore a result you don't like.


 * Frankly, I thought nothing of the result until I saw people taking it seriously and misportraying it's quality. But since I have a stronger interest in the physical sciences, I'm not used to science by consensus.  In the physical sciences, if a maverick theory can be considered in the running until it can be ruled out or distinquished by experimental results.  yes, they can be parameterized or tuned so they cover all previous results, but they have to make predictions that will someday be differentable from competing theories,  or if all predictions are the same, that is a proof of equivilence and the new theory can be used interchangably and just viewed as a new way of looking at things, that have some advantages or explanatory insights.--Silverback 13:01, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have another problem with this study. If, as some skeptics allege, there's an institutional bias toward anthropogenic global warming, mainstream scientific journals might be unwilling to publish studies that deny its validity. This would cause global warming skeptics to go to another part of the field or publish pro-global warming essays, rather than waste grants on something that they'd have so much trouble getting published. Obviously, that would completely skew the results.

Any way you slice it, possible problems with the study should be noted, as with all objects of controversy. I notice that the write-up for the Citizens for a Sound Economy study is already skeptical (as it should be&mdash;that's a dubious piece of work if I've ever seen one). &mdash;Simetrical (talk) 06:37, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On adding "non peer reviewed"
(William M. Connolley 13:35, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Compare this to Silverbacks presentation of the Kerr piece: Talk:Global_warming

Yes, I can be critical of peer reviewed work too. --Silverback 14:28, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 16:07, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)) Were you under the impression that the Kerr piece was PR? It wasn't.


 * Sorry, the "#" thing does not work right so I wasn't thinking of the right piece. I think the Kerr stuff is a good comparison.  I abandoned his dark cloud characterization the minute you said he got it wrong, and his report on a meeting of climate modelers, I also knew was not peer reviewed, and although I disagreed with his conclusion that the models were mutually confirming each other despite the extreme differences in their local detail, I accept is report of those differences, unless there is good reason to think he also got those wrong.  Was there something else you had in mind?--Silverback 04:43, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)