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The "97% Consensus" Deconstructed

Jack Hays

Jack Hays

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The Trump reference in the link is a bit misleading because the text isn't about Trump at all. It's about deconstructing the bogus "97% consensus" claim made by AGW advocates. That mission is thoroughly accomplished.

Consensus
President “Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change”… He’s right, Dana Nuccitelli is wrong

Guest rebuttal by David Middleton Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change. So do most Americans There’s a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, but most Americans are unaware Dana Nuccitelli Mon 22 Oct 2018 06.00 EDT […] The Guardian Back around 2009, I “crossed swords” with Mr. Nuccitelli a few times in…

Stenhouse et al., 2014 told us that atmospheric scientists are very divided on climate change over the past 150 years.

[h=3]Meteorologists' Views About Global Warming: A Survey of American ...[/h]
[url]https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1
[/URL]
by N Stenhouse - ‎2014 - ‎Cited by 24 - ‎Related articles
Published Online: 22 August 2014 ... To support this committee, in January 2012 we surveyed all AMS members with known e-mail addresses, ... CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Neil Stenhouse, George Mason University, 4400 ... Businger et al.
BAMS01_zpsnt76ioxa.png

89% × 59% = 52%… A far cry from the oft claimed 97% consensus. . . .

Stenhouse et al., 2017 tells us that there is conflict within the American Meteorological Society on the subject of climate change.
This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists. . . .
​


 
Confirmation bias after indoctrination is very difficult to break. They will still not see the truth.
 
Jack Hays said:
The Trump reference in the link is a bit misleading because the text isn't about Trump at all. It's about deconstructing the bogus "97% consensus" claim made by AGW advocates. That mission is thoroughly accomplished.

[FONT=&]Consensus[/FONT]
President “Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change”… He’s right, Dana Nuccitelli is wrong

[FONT=&]Guest rebuttal by David Middleton Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change. So do most Americans There’s a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, but most Americans are unaware Dana Nuccitelli Mon 22 Oct 2018 06.00 EDT […] The Guardian Back around 2009, I “crossed swords” with Mr. Nuccitelli a few times in…

[/FONT][FONT=&]Stenhouse et al., 2014 told us that atmospheric scientists are very divided on climate change over the past 150 years.

[/FONT][h=3]Meteorologists' Views About Global Warming: A Survey of American ...[/h]
[url]https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1
[/URL]
by N Stenhouse - ‎2014 - ‎Cited by 24 - ‎Related articles
Published Online: 22 August 2014 ... To support this committee, in January 2012 we surveyed all AMS members with known e-mail addresses, ... CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Neil Stenhouse, George Mason University, 4400 ... Businger et al.
[FONT=&]
BAMS01_zpsnt76ioxa.png
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]89% × 59% = 52%… A far cry from the oft claimed 97% consensus. . . .

[/FONT][FONT=&]Stenhouse et al., 2017 tells us that there is conflict within the American Meteorological Society on the subject of climate change.[/FONT]
This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists. . . .
​

[FONT=&]
[/FONT]
Click to expand...

Reminds me of someone on another thread not long ago who, when confronted with the facts behind such deceitful surveys, declared that such methodologies are how it's done and they produce the most reliable results.
 
bubbabgone said:
Reminds me of someone on another thread not long ago who, when confronted with the facts behind such deceitful surveys, declared that such methodologies are how it's done and they produce the most reliable results.
Click to expand...

If "reliable results" means "desired results" then yes.
 
Jack Hays said:
If "reliable results" means "desired results" then yes.
Click to expand...

Yes. That's what he meant. "Confirmation bias" was too many letters and not something they usually admit to in print.
 
Jack Hays said:
[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]Stenhouse et al., 2014 told us that atmospheric scientists are very divided on climate change over the past 150 years.
Click to expand...


So the author has evidently not even read the study, oh dear :( The results were from a survey of all AMS members, not just scientists. AMS members can be anyone with "demonstrable professional or scholarly expertise in the atmospheric or related sciences, technologies, applications, or services whether or not this expertise is a source of livelihood." In fact the Stenhouse et al explicitly hypothesized that "compared with professionals with less expertise in climate change, professionals with more expertise will have higher levels of personal certainty that global warming is happening, will be more likely to view it is as mostly human caused, and will be more likely to view it as harmful rather than beneficial."

It seems that Middleton has chosen to parade his ignorance, wilful or otherwise, about both AMS membership criteria and the study's explicit, key hypothesis that the members who are actual climate scientists would more widely recognize anthropogenic warming.

Perhaps even more disturbing - because it shows his ignorance not only of this study, but of climate science in general - is Middleton's failure to understand that attributing 50% of observed temperature increases since the 1860s to human activity is very much a consensus position since it implies that human activity has been the dominant cause over the past fifty years. Once again, the authors of the study explicitly addressed this issue:
"We asked respondents specifically about global warming that occurred over the last 150 years. However, the findings of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report state that human activity has been the dominant cause of warming since the mid-twentieth century (Pachauri and Reisinger 2007, p. 39). Six respondents sent e-mails to notify us that their answers would have been different if we had asked about the most recent 50-yr time frame rather than the 150-yr time frame; the time frame used in the question may have also influenced other respondents. Our results therefore may represent a more conservative estimate of the consensus on global warming than would have been obtained had we asked about a 50-yr time frame."​

How can you trust a blogger who makes such basic and obvious mistakes as these?

Or perhaps you also did not notice them?



When we look at the study's actual results (from Table 1) rather than an ignorant blogger's spin-doctoring, we see that ~83% of respondents who are active climate researchers (n=231) agree with the consensus that half or more of the warming has been caused by humans, rising to 88% in the case of actual climatologists who are active publishers in the field (n=124) - which, as the authors note above, may be an overly conservative figure.

Stenhouse2014.jpg

Middleton evidently prefers an appeal to popularity based on the responses of all the AMS members who may be weathermen, technicians, lecturers and so on rather than those who are actually studying the climate. That's dubious enough.

But his efforts to obfuscate that distinction - actively ignoring and denying one of the key hypotheses and findings of the very study he's citing - is little short of brazen dishonesty on his part... and disappointing gullibility on the part of those who've swallowed his tripe.
 
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Mithrae said:
So the author has evidently not even read the study, oh dear :( The results were from a survey of all AMS members, not just scientists. AMS members can be anyone with "demonstrable professional or scholarly expertise in the atmospheric or related sciences, technologies, applications, or services whether or not this expertise is a source of livelihood." In fact the Stenhouse et al explicitly hypothesized that "compared with professionals with less expertise in climate change, professionals with more expertise will have higher levels of personal certainty that global warming is happening, will be more likely to view it is as mostly human caused, and will be more likely to view it as harmful rather than beneficial."

It seems that Middleton has chosen to parade his ignorance, wilful or otherwise, about both AMS membership criteria and the study's explicit, key hypothesis that the members who are actual climate scientists would more widely recognize anthropogenic warming.

Perhaps even more disturbing - because it shows his ignorance not only of this study, but of climate science in general - is Middleton's failure to understand that attributing 50% of observed temperature increases since the 1860s to human activity is very much a consensus position since it implies that human activity has been the dominant cause over the past fifty years. Once again, the authors of the study explicitly addressed this issue:
"We asked respondents specifically about global warming that occurred over the last 150 years. However, the findings of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report state that human activity has been the dominant cause of warming since the mid-twentieth century (Pachauri and Reisinger 2007, p. 39). Six respondents sent e-mails to notify us that their answers would have been different if we had asked about the most recent 50-yr time frame rather than the 150-yr time frame; the time frame used in the question may have also influenced other respondents. Our results therefore may represent a more conservative estimate of the consensus on global warming than would have been obtained had we asked about a 50-yr time frame."​

How can you trust a blogger who makes such basic and obvious mistakes as these?

Or perhaps you also did not notice them?



When we look at the study's actual results (from Table 1) rather than an ignorant blogger's spin-doctoring, we see that ~83% of respondents who are active climate researchers (n=231) agree with the consensus that half or more of the warming has been caused by humans, rising to 88% in the case of actual climatologists who are active publishers in the field (n=124).

View attachment 67242795

Middleton evidently prefers an appeal to popularity based on the responses of all the AMS members who may be weathermen, technicians, lecturers and so on rather than those who are actually studying the climate. That's dubious enough.

But his efforts to obfuscate that distinction - actively ignoring and denying one of the key hypotheses and findings of the very study he's citing - is little short of brazen dishonesty on his part... and disappointing gullibility on the part of those who've swallowed his tripe.
Click to expand...

So you agree, then, that the "97% consensus" claim is bogus, as the author maintains.
 
Mithrae said:
Perhaps even more disturbing - because it shows his ignorance not only of this study, but of climate science in general - is Middleton's failure to understand that attributing 50% of observed temperature increases since the 1860s to human activity is very much a consensus position since it implies that human activity has been the dominant cause over the past fifty years.
Click to expand...

So, what do you make of the recent IPCC Special Report which attributes 100% of warming since 1850 to human activity?
 
Mithrae said:
So the author has evidently not even read the study, oh dear :( The results were from a survey of all AMS members, not just scientists. AMS members can be anyone with "demonstrable professional or scholarly expertise in the atmospheric or related sciences, technologies, applications, or services whether or not this expertise is a source of livelihood."
Click to expand...

Abstract of Stenhouse et al 2014, linked in the post:

Meteorologists and other atmospheric science experts are playing important roles in helping society respond to climate change. However, members of this professional community are not unanimous in their views of climate change, and there has been tension among members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) who hold different views on the topic. In response, AMS created the Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication to explore and, to the extent possible, resolve these tensions. To support this committee, in January 2012 we surveyed all AMS members with known e-mail addresses, achieving a 26.3% response rate (n = 1,854). In this paper we tested four hypotheses—1) perceived conflict about global warming will be negatively associated, and 2) climate expertise, 3) liberal political ideology, and 4) perceived scientific consensus will be positively associated—with 1) higher personal certainty that global warming is happening, 2) viewing the global warming observed over the past 150 years as mostly human caused, and 3) perception of global warming as harmful. All four hypotheses were confirmed. Expertise, ideology, perceived consensus, and perceived conflict were all independently related to respondents' views on climate, with perceived consensus and political ideology being most strongly related. We suggest that AMS should attempt to convey the widespread scientific agreement about climate change; acknowledge and explore the uncomfortable fact that political ideology influences the climate change views of meteorology professionals; refute the idea that those who do hold nonmajority views just need to be “educated” about climate change; and continue to deal with the conflict among members of the meteorology community.
 
Mithrae said:
So the author has evidently not even read the study, oh dear :( The results were from a survey of all AMS members, not just scientists. AMS members can be anyone with "demonstrable professional or scholarly expertise in the atmospheric or related sciences, technologies, applications, or services whether or not this expertise is a source of livelihood."
Click to expand...

Abstract of Stenhouse et al 2017, linked in the post:

This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists.
 
Jack Hays said:
So, what do you make of the recent IPCC Special Report which attributes 100% of warming since 1850 to human activity?
Click to expand...

If we indeed have 100% control over the climate then there is nothing to warry about. we will just cool it back down when needed.
 
Jack Hays said:
So you agree, then, that the "97% consensus" claim is bogus, as the author maintains.
Click to expand...

I've posted many times on the forum that it's a misleading figure, albeit accurate and perhaps even an understatement for the question "are human actions a 'significant' contributor to warming?"

I've also pointed out many times that - for a more useful/relevant question like "are human actions the dominant contributor to current warming" - it makes no practical difference to how we should view and respond to the issue whether undecided and contrarian scientists make up a tiny fraction or a tiny, tiny fraction of the total. An overwhelming and growing majority of experts, in the range of 80-95% as survey after survey has proven, recognize the dominant human influence, so basing our future decisions on the wishful hope that they're wrong would be obviously stupid.

An important summary is provided by this diagram, which shows the percentage of agreement among climate scientists that a warming would occur (manifestation), and that this warming is related to GHG emissions (attribution).
manfestation-attribution.jpg



Jack Hays said:
So, what do you make of the recent IPCC Special Report which attributes 100% of warming since 1850 to human activity?
Click to expand...

I think that's something else that you've got from an ignorant and/or dishonest blogger.
 
Mithrae said:
I've posted many times on the forum that it's a misleading figure, albeit accurate and perhaps even an understatement for the question "are human actions a 'significant' contributor to warming?"

I've also pointed out many times that - for a more useful/relevant question like "are human actions the dominant contributor to current warming" - it makes no practical difference . . .
Click to expand...

So your answer is that you agree with the author. Thank you.
 
Mithrae said:
I think that's something else that you've got from an ignorant and/or dishonest blogger.
Click to expand...

#SR15 UNDER THE LOOKING GLASS, PART I: IPCC CLAIMS ALL WARMING IS NOW ANTHROPOGENIC

Posted on 09 Oct 18 by JAIME JESSOP • 32 Comments

. . . After the Introduction, the authors get straight down to business with this statement:
A1. Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence) {1.2, Figure SPM.1}

So straight away, we have an attribution statement with regard to the net warming (approximately 1C) since 1850. SR15 ‘estimates’ that humans caused all of it! Where did this come from? There is no precedent in AR5 WG1, which talks mainly about attribution of warming since 1950. Note that, unusually for the IPCC, there is no level of confidence attached to this statement. . . .

So obviously, if say, anthropogenic warming only contributed about a quarter to the early 20th century warming (which is not an unreasonable guesstimate given the available scientific literature on this subject), natural forcings then contributed approximately 0.6-0.15=0.45C to the total post industrial warming, i.e. nearly half. SR15 reduces this to zero in favour of anthropogenic warming!
So the very first sentence of the SR15 Summary for Policy Makers, after the Introduction, consists of a statement which is not well supported by the totality of the available scientific literature and which is at odds with the IPCC’s own findings in the AR5 Working Group 1 Report of just 5 years ago! Not a good start.
 
Jack Hays said:
Abstract of Stenhouse et al 2017, linked in the post:

This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists.
Click to expand...

Your Stenhouse link didn't work for me, but I found it.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

This is also of interest:

https://www.ametsoc.org/cwwce/index...tions/ams-member-survey-preliminary-findings/
 
Jack Hays said:
#SR15 UNDER THE LOOKING GLASS, PART I: IPCC CLAIMS ALL WARMING IS NOW ANTHROPOGENIC

Posted on 09 Oct 18 by JAIME JESSOP • 32 Comments

. . . After the Introduction, the authors get straight down to business with this statement:
A1. Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming[SUP]5[/SUP] above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence) {1.2, Figure SPM.1}
Click to expand...

Your source has deleted the footnote from his quote (I've replaced it above) and ignored what it says in his commentary. Due to thermal inertia, the warming which human activities to date have caused has not all been manifest in the surface temperatures yet. Therefore, as the footnote says, "Present level of global warming is defined as the average of a 30-year period centered on 2017 assuming the recent rate of warming continues." Not surprisingly, the SPM isn't as clear on all the details as I'd like, but it could be inferred that perhaps as little as 0.1 degrees of the ~0.3 degrees net warming from 1850 to 1960 is attributed to humans.



In any case, this is a bit of a tangent: It doesn't change the fact that Stenhouse et al 2014 shows an overwhelming majority (>83%) of active climate researchers acknowledging the dominant human influence on recent warming.

Are you going to accept this fact from a study which you yourself promoted?
 
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Mithrae said:
Your source has deleted the footnote from his quote (I've replaced it above) and ignored what it says in his commentary. Due to thermal inertia, the warming which human activities to date have caused has not all been manifest in the surface temperatures yet. Therefore, as the footnote says, "Present level of global warming is defined as the average of a 30-year period centered on 2017 assuming the recent rate of warming continues." Not surprisingly, the SPM isn't as clear on all the details as I'd like, but it could be inferred that perhaps as little as 0.1 degrees of the ~0.3 degrees net warming from 1850 to 1960 is attributed to humans.



In any case, this is a bit of a tangent: It doesn't change the fact that Stenhouse et al 2014 shows an overwhelming majority (>83%) of active climate researchers acknowledging the dominant human influence on recent warming.

Are you going to accept this fact from a study which you yourself promoted?
Click to expand...

The footnote changes nothing.
Of course I accept "this fact" since it means you have conceded my point.
 
Mithrae said:
So the author has evidently not even read the study, oh dear :( The results were from a survey of all AMS members, not just scientists. AMS members can be anyone with "demonstrable professional or scholarly expertise in the atmospheric or related sciences, technologies, applications, or services whether or not this expertise is a source of livelihood."
Click to expand...

From the link:

[FONT=&quot]What, exactly, is a “climate scientist”?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]35 years ago climatology was a branch of physical geography. Today’s climate scientists can be anything from atmospheric physicists & chemists, mathematicians, computer scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, oceanographers, biologists, environmental scientists, ecologists, meteorologists, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists to economists, agronomists, sociologists and/or public policy-ologists.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NASA’s top climate scientist for most of the past 35 years, James Hansen, is an astronomer. The current one, Gavin Schmidt, is a mathematician.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It seems to me that climate science is currently dominated by computer modelers, with little comprehension of the natural climate cycles which have driven climate change throughout the Holocene.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Climate scientist seems to be as nebulous as Cook’s definition of consensus.[/FONT]
 
Mithrae said:
Due to thermal inertia, the warming which human activities to date have caused has not all been manifest in the surface temperatures yet.
Click to expand...
So...'global warming' is not happening? It happens in the future???
Mithrae said:
Therefore, as the footnote says, "Present level of global warming is defined as the average of a 30-year period centered on 2017 assuming the recent rate of warming continues."
Click to expand...
1) Statistics does not the power of prediction.
2) There is no data. You are making up numbers. It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
3) Why are these points in time significant? Why are any other points in time NOT significant?
4) You can't define 'global warming' with 'global warming'. You can't define a word or phrase with itself!
Mithrae said:
Not surprisingly, the SPM isn't as clear on all the details as I'd like, but it could be inferred that perhaps as little as 0.1 degrees of the ~0.3 degrees net warming from 1850 to 1960 is attributed to humans.
Click to expand...
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
Mithrae said:
In any case, this is a bit of a tangent: It doesn't change the fact that Stenhouse et al 2014 shows an overwhelming majority (>83%) of active climate researchers acknowledging the dominant human influence on recent warming.
Click to expand...
Science doesn't use consensus. Only religions and politics do.
Mithrae said:
Are you going to accept this fact from a study which you yourself promoted?
Click to expand...
Irrelevant. No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth using surface infrared.
 
Jack Hays said:
Why didn't I think of that?:doh
Click to expand...

See no worries and I will spell it right this time. When I turn spell checker off I misspell words and when I turn it on it creates unwanted words out of my misspelled words. I guess that is why I am much better working with tools rather than words.
 
Jack Hays said:
From the link:

[FONT="][B]What, exactly, is a “climate scientist”?[/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#404040][FONT="]35 years ago climatology was a branch of physical geography. Today’s climate scientists can be anything from atmospheric physicists & chemists, mathematicians, computer scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, oceanographers, biologists, environmental scientists, ecologists, meteorologists, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists to economists, agronomists, sociologists and/or public policy-ologists.[/FONT]
Click to expand...

A climate scientist is a scientist who is engaged in studying climate :roll: I'm not sure why think that highlighting yet another example of Middleton's deliberate ignorance is a good idea? A technician involved in calibrating and operating weather balloons is not a climate scientist, even if she is an AMS member. A meteorologist employed to provide seven day forecasts for a TV network is not a climatologist, even if he is an AMS member. A scientist who is actively researching and publishing studies about the earth's climate is a climate scientist, even if their graduate education was in a loosely-related field of science.

This really is not difficult to understand, but Middleton knows that it completely undercuts his effort to spin the survey's results as showing anything but the overwhelming expert agreement which it actually does: He's desperate to include the technicians and weathermen, so he puts on this act of mind-numbing stupidity to try to blur that distinction and ignore the results... and you're lapping it all up, as usual.


Another 2014 survey found almost exactly the same results as Stenhouse et al, from a larger (and global) sample size of climate scientists specifically: It found that among scientists with 4-10 self-reported peer-reviewed articles on climate science (n=480), 83-84% acknowledged that half or more or warming since the mid 20th century was caused by anthropogenic GHGs, rising to 89-91% in the case of scientists with 32+ published articles (n=379).

Verheggen et al 2014, with precise figures from supplementary pages S7 and S8.

Considering both the slight differences in questions (Verheggen et al asked about a shorter time-frame, but also excluded warming factors such as soot from their quantitative question, asking about GHGs only) and the latter's global scope, those figures are surprisingly consistent with Stenhouse et al's 83% for all AMS climate publishers and 89% for AMS climate specialists who continue to publish in the field.
 
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Mithrae said:
A climate scientist is a scientist who is engaged in studying climate :roll: I'm not sure why think that highlighting yet another example of Middleton's deliberate ignorance is a good idea? A technician involved in calibrating and operating weather balloons is not a climate scientist, even if she is an AMS member. A meteorologist employed to provide seven day forecasts for a TV network is not a climatologist, even if he is an AMS member. A scientist who is actively researching and publishing studies about the earth's climate is a climate scientist, even if their graduate education was in a loosely-related field of science.

This really is not difficult to understand, but Middleton knows that it completely undercuts his effort to spin the survey's results as showing anything but the overwhelming expert agreement which it actually does: He's desperate to include the technicians and weathermen, so he puts on this act of mind-numbing stupidity to try to blur that distinction and ignore the results... and you're lapping it all up, as usual.


Another 2014 survey found almost exactly the same results as Stenhouse et al, from a larger (and global) sample size of climate scientists specifically: It found that among scientists with 4-10 self-reported peer-reviewed articles on climate science (n=480), 83-84% acknowledged that half or more or warming since the mid 20th century was caused by anthropogenic GHGs, rising to 89-91% in the case of scientists with 32+ published articles (n=379).

Verheggen et al 2014, with precise figures from supplementary pages S7 and S8.

Considering both the slight differences in questions (Verheggen et al asked about a shorter time-frame, but also excluded warming factors like land use from their quantitative question, asking about GHGs only) and the latter's global scope, those figures are surprisingly consistent with Stenhouse et al's 83% for all AMS climate publishers and 89% for AMS climate specialists who continue to publish in the field.
Click to expand...

So, again, you concede my point and Middleton's.
 
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