 Peter Nicholson
|
A new survey finds consensus among scientists about the reality of climate change and its likely cause. A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising, and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.
In trying to overcome criticism of earlier attempts to gauge the view of earth scientists on global warming and the human impact factor, Peter Doran and Kendall Zimmerman sought the opinion of the most complete list of earth scientists they could find, contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments.
Questions used were reviewed by a polling expert who checked for bias in phrasing, such as suggesting an answer by the way a question was worded. The nine-question survey was short, taking just a few minutes to complete.
Two questions were key: have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures.
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
Doran and Kendall Zimmerman conclude that “the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”
Not that skeptics will care. Anti-intellectualism, anti-science convictions reflect hangups ranging from creationism to the good old favorite – “Al Gore said it and I hate his suits”.
As a few have stated: Models don’t prove anything–at best they are best evidence.
I became agnostic on Climate Change when I read the first models did not include water vapor because it was too hard to model what with its positive and negative impacts all interacting. This was HIGHLY criticized because clouds/watervapor, etc are like 97% of the green house gases? So, the IPCC included water vapor and guess what?==no change from the previous predicitions. Is what I read true? I don’t know.
Seems there are just way too many unknown variables to model accurately AND new factors that are not in the model are mentioned from time to time.
I have also read a few articles that talk about “backloading” a model and when it doesn’t predict some known weather results, then they “tweak” the model to make it predictive. Again, I don’t know if that is true or not.
I have decided I am against pollution. Same result, harder to challenge.
Anyone have a link to how the models have proven their predictability? I have found a few but not happy with the sources.
Paddy,
Is that because computers predicted less warmth or more warmth? That tidbit might be helpful in your argument.
So after reading the replies here, I take it that a scientist with years of training in a certain expertise doesn’t know what he is talking about. Instead one should take the advice of the DU gang, whose only scientific knowledge was gained in their attempts to get cum stains out of the sheets before the old lady gets home.
Yeah, I know it’s winter, but still…
News Clippings during the past month
The Coldest Weather Possible in Nearly 15 Years
Record Snow Steals Spotlight from Frigid Temps
Snow in Marseille France
Slovenia with Record Low Temp -49
Sea Ice Ends Year (2008) at Same Level as 1979
Snow Traps Thousands At Madrid Airport
Rare Snow Covers Louisiana, Mississippi
Sharp Cold Wave Shocks upper Midwest with Temps -36
Canal Ice Returns to Holland
2008 The Year Man-made Global Warming was Disproved
How to Survive In Tok, Alaska -78F
#35 – Come on. Actual temps have nothing to do with actual temps… Or, so the global warming religion tells us.
Regardless of the cause of the change, it’s happening. It’s happening fast and hard and we had better damned well pray it’s our fault. The alternative is there’s nothing to do but weather the storm. You complain about fuel prices. Just wait till a loaf of bread costs 30 bucks, if you can find any. Climate change has the potential to challenge the human race like never before, but since we humans are party animals, nothing will be done till it’s too late. Which it probrably is already.
# 37 amodedoma said, “Climate change has the potential to challenge the human race like never before”
Umm, not really. Humans evolved during periods of harsher (both ways) climate than is even predicted by the High Priest Gore.
I’m not going to go through the whole list, but I looked over some of them.
regarding: “Snow in Marseille France”
Well, right now Marseille is in it’s ‘average temparature range’
I read the story “2008 The Year Man-made Global Warming was Disproved” thinking I might read about how it was disproved only to find that it hadn’t been.
You can plug in “record high temperatures” into google and see what you get, but you’ll see some stories from that side, too.
Looking at statistical outliers isn’t how you figure out if it’s going on. Averages.
Also, a not important piece of trivia:
google results for “record low temperatures”: 3.2M
google results for “record high temperatures”: 5.1M
@ #37
It’s happening fast?
This is the part I don’t know about.
I don’t feel sure about “global warming caused by man,” confident, but not sure.
I don’t feel at all confident that “manmade global warming is happening fast”
Paddy O, yeah I know, but our ancestors didn’t live in our society, did they? Most people don’t know shit about survival outside the context of modern society. I suspect things are gonna get that tough. Sure humans will survive, especially the clever ones.
Hack editor,
You could have doubled your post count if you included the words “Palin disagrees” in the headline.
Another weak article in a tired debate, because the headline is clearly in error. I’m sure someone can drag up someone in the field to disagree. Right or wrong ceases to matter.
#40
Glacial ice is disappearing, tundra melting, things that haven’t happend before that anyone recalls. Actually I think I’d like something like this if I didn’t have kids. It doesn’t have to be fast to be devastating. This planet can barely produce enough food for the people that can afford to eat. A couple of years of bad harvests and you’ll see what happens when starvation starts to set in in western nations and society breaks down. Ought to be real interesting in the US where they have so many guns.
# 44 amodedoma said, “Glacial ice is disappearing, tundra melting, things that haven’t happend before that anyone recalls.”
No one alive recalls the little ice age either. What’s your point?
Is there global climate change? Yes. Is it necessarily Global Warming? Given that the new adjusted numbers, etc., show that we’re going back into a cooling period over the last few years? Not necessarily.
Is man involved in climate change? Probably. Are we warming or cooling the Earth? Yes. The pollution between India and China can often be seen from the space station, and it is cooling the earth in that region.
How will global warming impact us, compared to previous warming and cooling periods? Well, during the warm periods, some animals went extinct, but the vast majority thrived. Meanwhile, during the cooling periods, many animals went extinct, and most struggled to survive. The mini-Ice Age of the 1300s brought about the Black Plague, killing 1/3 to 1/2 of all people in Europe. It forced the closure of Viking settlements in Greenland, Vinland and elsewhere. Many starved to death.
Given the choices, and the real evidence, I think I’d prefer warming things up than to keep them cooling down.
Finally, while I agree that man is involved in global climate change, I am uncertain of the level of that involvement. I am also suspicious of those experts that are trying to suggest changes that will destroy jobs and growth around the world, while not really fixing any of the problem. Kyoto Treaty would have tortured the economies of industrialized nations, while not making any dent in the temperature over the next century! That being the case, what good is the Kyoto Treaty???
Why not make incentive-based treaties to develop good practices and clean fuels, instead of the cap-and-trade that only hurts businesses and enriches Al Gore?
And if you wish to cool the earth, isn’t it cheaper to just shoot a lot of particles into the air to reflect the sun’s rays, rather than spend trillions of dollars trying to cut back?
ArianeB #28 blabbed …
> Well the usual naysayers are out in force today.
>
> You want motives? Every single “scientist” who has denied AGW has >turned out to be a shill for the oil companies. There is more money in >denying than in accepting the evidence.
Well I gota tell what happened recently in NZ a month or so back.
Because of the recent raising of skeptisim in the vines a whole hoard of AGW activists alighted to our glorious carbon-crunched air-many-miles distant country.
All screaming the concensus mantra, nothing else, their strategy is to bound this message into the media stream.
My immediate image is the Wizard of OZ scene where the flying munchkins who have grabbed ‘dorothey’ (the denier) returning her to the wicked witch of the west (an IPPC board member).
And think about the numbers, where are the oil-funded denier activists, those tarred and feathered. Please if anyone knows the oil company sponsors number pass it on, someone has to battle the munchkins.
In the local media/TV boredom nothing-on listing rag ‘the listener’ the resident eco columnist brain stated that the deniers were ‘micro’ and consensus rains, the debate is OVER…
This is the rein of ideology because the person has no analytical skills in ‘basic natural conservation rules’, the back of the envelop stuff that science and engineered trained minds do by habit. The problem is that we who can do that think that a lot of those whose most basic requirements of their privileged elite job (i.e., the eco column in ‘the Listener’ ) surely must be able to so. Major mistake on our part.
How many agreed and how many were asked?
simple math
# 49 Bush said, “How many agreed and how many were asked? simple math”
30% agreed.
“contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world”
“A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree”
Have global temperatures changed? Yes, have they ever every stayed the same? No. Has man ever ever been the cause of the changes in the weather? No. Air temperature, amount of Nitrogen/Oxygen has changed – one of those changes brought Oxygen to the atmosphere in the first place. Water levels have changed, – risen even in the years before we came to be. Did we cause all of that? I’m thinking not. But you all go ahead and blame/credit yourselves for it.
Notice that they did not poll any physicists. Guess their afraid of people who actually know something about the subject tell them their models are re#$%$# and unphysical.
Wow Eideard, you’re getting desperate. Now you post a link that shows 10% or 18% of scientists in the relevant field disagree with the global warming ‘consensus’. I thought no reputable scientist could possibly disagree?
So if the recent cold still means global warming is happening, then I guess the economy is still growing.
Bobbo, it’s called perfecting the models.
If the model you made doesn’t predict things accurately, then you have to adjust it to meet the data you have.
Ideally you take some of your data to create the model, then you test it on the rest of the data, and this tests the model. Here they haven’t been able to do that.
“Al Gore said it” and of course you can believe him after all he’s the father of the internet.
Don’t worry, Michael Mann is already at work fudging some more numbers to tell us how the planet is warming. And of course it will take a non-climatologist to correct him.
No, no deowll, he merely took the initiative in creating the internet.
I don’t ask the mailman to read my X-Rays.
I don’t ask my doctor if the oil needs changing.
I don’t ask my neighbor for hot stock tips.
And I don’t ask a TV weatherman to predict climate change.
If I want to know about a specific subject, I ask an expert in the field. I don’t see any experts here at DU.
Antarctic Warming Detected by Scientists
Bloomberg News
http://tinyurl.com/bau3hh
New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/9fe468
2005 Was The Warmest Year In A Century
http://tinyurl.com/aelg7k
Apparent Problem With Global Warming Climate Models Resolved
http://tinyurl.com/5268h6
Of course, the idiots with their minds frozen in that Bush Memory won’t bother. But, I didn’t notice any of them backing up what they claimed.
# 61 Mr. Fusion said, “If I want to know about a specific subject, I ask an expert in the field. I don’t see any experts here at DU.”
Okay, so let’s ask an expert:
Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service
http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
“A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising”
“contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world”
10,200/3,146 = consensus
Makes as much sense as Global Warming being caused by humans