The Climate Change Thread

[Hydrogen]

Okay, so now everyone does not agree with the so-called consensus, even though earlier you asserted that

the scientific community as a whole believes that it does

Yet again, can this supposed consensus across the entire scientific community be shown? Does it matter at all if those scientists admit to no understanding of the subject they hold a belief in?

What search terms would you use? Have you found any review articles that do not indicate that there is a consensus that human activity contributes to climate change

As I have pointed out, there is considerable evidence that climate change is a natural activity. There are many articles relating to this fact. Ocean oscillations, solar activity, cloud cover - all are topics of interest that show correlations to slight variations in temperature observed over the last 100 years.

Since no one has ever done a survey of the scientific community as a whole there is no evidence of a consensus beyond the beliefs that there is a consensus.

 

[MisterF]

Yet again, can this supposed consensus across the entire scientific community be shown? Does it matter at all if those scientists admit to no understanding of the subject they hold a belief in?

What do scientists who have no understanding of climate change have to do with anything? They're not the ones studying the climate, so their work isn't included in literature reviews. Obviously. The supposed consensus can be found in the many review articles that ganjavih mentioned.

As I have pointed out, there is considerable evidence that climate change is a natural activity. There are many articles relating to this fact. Ocean oscillations, solar activity, cloud cover - all are topics of interest that show correlations to slight variations in temperature observed over the last 100 years.

Since no one has ever done a survey of the scientific community as a whole there is no evidence of a consensus beyond the beliefs that there is a consensus.

Why the italicized insistence on the scientific community as a whole? What does someone studying a cure for cancer have to do with climate change? Nobody's denying that natural activity has a part to play, so I don't know why you're bringing that up.

 

[ganjavih]

The scientific community as a whole = consensus = general agreement. And again, not every single scientist studying climate has to agree with the consensus for there to be a consensus. That's not how science works.

Since no one has ever done a survey of the scientific community as a whole there is no evidence of a consensus beyond the beliefs that there is a consensus.

The idea of there being a consensus doesn't come from surveys, it comes from literature reviews. And again, are there any review articles in peer-reviewed journals that dispute that human activity contributes to climate change? Not individual studies, but review articles. I have yet to find a single one. I was also curious as to what search terms you would use to do an unbiased literature review of climate change.

 

[Hydrogen]

What do scientists who have no understanding of climate change have to do with anything? They're not the ones studying the climate, so their work isn't included in literature reviews. Obviously. The supposed consensus can be found in the many review articles that ganjavih mentioned.

The least you could do before you post is actually read what has been written earlier. If you have an issue with the idea of scientists who have no understanding of climate change commenting on its source cause, take it up with ganjavih, as he is the one who used the phrase "the scientific community as a whole." One can presume that such a phrase is intended to mean all scientists - including those people outside climate research and its related fields if inquiry. I have already commented on this. You didn't read it.

Why the italicized insistence on the scientific community as a whole? What does someone studying a cure for cancer have to do with climate change? Nobody's denying that natural activity has a part to play, so I don't know why you're bringing that up.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not the one who is bringing it up. But you missed that, didn't you?

 

[Hydrogen]

The scientific community as a whole = consensus = general agreement. And again, not every single scientist studying climate has to agree with the consensus for there to be a consensus. That's not how science works.

I'll let you take up the "scientific community as a whole" issue with MisterF as it seems to be getting under his skin, and since it is you who has invoked this apparent knowledge of the whole scientific community. I'll leave it at that.

Fortunately not every scientists has to agree with the consensus, but it would also appear that those who agree with it do not have to actually understand anything of what they believing in to share that consensus. That does not stop them or anyone else from then citing that supposed consensus in their research, either.

When one raises the issue of climate change (literature survey or otherwise), there will often be a reference to anthropogenic causes - either when agreeing with, or disputing, such an assertion. The two (climate and human effect) now go hand in hand because there is a belief that this is so (not actual or final proof). That alone might explain why the relationship shows up so readily.

But then again, how many of the articles actually are concerned with showing direct evidence for anthropogenic causes for temperature increase? How many simply make reference to it, employing the supposed consensus for climate change as background? In the latter case, anthropogenic climate change is then being invoked as an assumed fact - regardless of the low levels of scientific understanding of climate.

 

[ganjavih]

So you acknowledge there may be a consensus but it's a flawed consensus. It's due to sloppy review articles written by sloppy authors citing sloppy research by sloppy scientists?

I'm not interested in the semantics about what the "scientific community as a whole" means or arguing about how the research should be done. My point all along has simply been that there is a consensus among climate researchers that human activity causes global warming... that's it. Even a superficial analysis of the scientific literature will demonstrate that. You don't have to believe the consensus, but there is a consensus. If you don't trust science, scientists or the scientific process, that's another issue.

In addition to the vast majority of the scientific literature that supports global warming from human activity, almost every scientific body in the world endorses the idea, including all the national academies of science of the major industrialised countries.

Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change
http://royalsociety.org/displaypagedoc.asp?id=20742

Academia Brasiliera de Ciências, Brazil
Royal Society of Canada, Canada
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Académie des Sciences, France
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, Germany
Indian National Science Academy, India
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Science Council of Japan, Japan
Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Royal Society, UK
National Academy of Sciences, USA

Even the Bush administration has accepted humans contributing to global warming. That should cause some alarm bells to go off.

By the way, using unbiased search terms, did you manage to find a review article that disputes humans causing global warming? Here's another recent review from 2007.

In the four years since my original review, research has clarified and strengthened our understanding of how humans are warming the planet. So many of the details highlighted in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report and in CFK03 have been resolved that I expect many to be a bit overwhelmed, and I hope that, by treating just the most significant aspects of the research, this update may provide a road map through the expected maze of new information.

Keller CF. Global warming 2007. An update to global warming: the balance of evidence and its policy implications. ScientificWorldJournal. 2007 Mar 9;7:381-99.
http://www.thescientificworld.co.uk/headeradmin/upload/2007.03.91.pdf

 

[Hydrogen]

I'm not interested in the semantics about what the "scientific community as a whole" means or arguing about how the research should be done.

Of course you are not interested in the semantics, that is obvious. Consensus is one one of those words that suggests much, but tells little. You were the one who raised the issue of "the scientific community as a whole." So asking me to refute a supposed consensus across the entire scientific community is more than a little difficult if you can't prove such a consensus across that "community as a whole" exists in the first place. And as noted, the word "consensus" tells absolutely nothing of the depth, range or quality of that understanding, or how that supposed understanding is deployed. When, for example, does a consensus become a consensus? Is it 75% agreement? Is it fifty plus one? Who decides when consensus is achieved, how is that judgement arrived at, and by what criteria?

There are over 600 abstracts that can be found using just the search phrase "global climate change" between early 2004 and the start of 2007 (ISI). I certainly have not read them all to see evidence of a consensus. Have you? Has anyone? Has there been any systematic survey or measurement to see if there is, in fact, a consensus across the literature? Then again, how is this reference to "consenus" utilized in each of these papers. Is it in the form of directly examining actual anthropogenic effects? Or is it a reference to another paper, or to another reference (such as the IPCC - with its assumed high degree of understanding in light of an admitted low level of scientific understanding of most aspects of climate). There are an immense number of ways that such a phrase could be employed. Without a clear analysis, any statement on a consensus by way of a literature survey offers up opportunities to present nothing more than anecdotal evidence. People could simply be stating a belief in a consensus. It tells nothing of whether the science that underlies that belief is valid or not - in many cases it actually makes no direct reference to it at all.

With respect to all the academies listed, did all those academies survey their membership to find out what their members were thinking on the topic? Is scientific consensus arrived at democratically? Did these academies see whether each member actually understands the nature of what is being debated, or did those individuals achieve their membership within the consensual body by way of hearing that there is already supposed agreement in the scientific community? Are they just believing in the belief that there is a consensus? No one really knows, do they? Stating a consensus just glosses over that all.

That some scientists accept that there is an anthropogenic effect on climate is one thing; stating the supposed consensus in the state of thinking across the entire scientific community as a whole is quite another thing. There is an immense difference.

There is a consensus among religious people that god exists. The consensus tells nothing about the nature of god, the beliefs about the nature of god, the content or quality of those beliefs, or how or why such beliefs are held.

 

[MisterF]

The least you could do before you post is actually read what has been written earlier. If you have an issue with the idea of scientists who have no understanding of climate change commenting on its source cause, take it up with ganjavih, as he is the one who used the phrase "the scientific community as a whole." One can presume that such a phrase is intended to mean all scientists - including those people outside climate research and its related fields if inquiry. I have already commented on this. You didn't read it.



As I mentioned earlier, I am not the one who is bringing it up. But you missed that, didn't you?

You really hang onto semantics don't you? Scientists who aren't studying the climate believe the consensus for the same reason I do - because they understand literature reviews and believe in the scientific process. But what scientists in other fields think really doesn't matter. What matters is what the studies on the climate say. That's the literature that's being reviewed, and that's what leads to the consensus.

Fortunately not every scientists has to agree with the consensus, but it would also appear that those who agree with it do not have to actually understand anything of what they believing in to share that consensus. That does not stop them or anyone else from then citing that supposed consensus in their research, either.

The work of scientists not studying the climate isn't included in literature reviews on climate change. Their work contributes nothing to the consensus. The consensus among scientists studying the climate is what matters.

When one raises the issue of climate change (literature survey or otherwise), there will often be a reference to anthropogenic causes - either when agreeing with, or disputing, such an assertion. The two (climate and human effect) now go hand in hand because there is a belief that this is so (not actual or final proof). That alone might explain why the relationship shows up so readily.

Are you suggesting that people doing literature reviews are being blinded by preconceived notions of what's causing climate change? Seriously?

But then again, how many of the articles actually are concerned with showing direct evidence for anthropogenic causes for temperature increase? How many simply make reference to it, employing the supposed consensus for climate change as background? In the latter case, anthropogenic climate change is then being invoked as an assumed fact - regardless of the low levels of scientific understanding of climate.

None. Literature reviews study primary sources, they don't just make reference to a supposed consensus. You yourself said that you do literature reviews as part of your work, you know that. Or are you talking about things like newspaper articles?

 

[Hydrogen]

You really hang onto semantics don't you? Scientists who aren't studying the climate believe the consensus for the same reason I do - because they understand literature reviews and believe in the scientific process. But what scientists in other fields think really doesn't matter. What matters is what the studies on the climate say. That's the literature that's being reviewed, and that's what leads to the consensus.

Semantics is concerned with meaning. You don't appear to think that is important.

So you believe in the consensus because you understand a literature review? What exactly does that mean? When someone states the phrase of "scientific community as a whole," I presume they mean something along the lines of all scientists, don't you? Besides, I didn't raise the notion of a consensus across the scientific community as a whole. If you have an issue with that, take it up with the person who first brought it up.

The work of scientists not studying the climate isn't included in literature reviews on climate change. Their work contributes nothing to the consensus. The consensus among scientists studying the climate is what matters.

Can you show accurately what that consensus is, the nature of it, its depth and so on? Can you answer any of the questions I raised in the above post? Again, I didn't bring up the members of the scientific community beyond climatologists, but the phrase "global climate change" shows up in scientific literature outside of climatology. Take a look.

Are you suggesting that people doing literature reviews are being blinded by preconceived notions of what's causing climate change? Seriously?

People doing literature reviews? I can't attest to what every person is thinking when they take up a literature review. Can you? I am saying there is no conclusive proof of a supposed consensus. The term itself is slippery. There is an assumption that such a thing exists, but no measures to tell exactly what the nature and content of that consensus (if it exists) is. People make references to a consensus; they maintain a belief in a belief that something is so.

If you do a search before 2000, you would probably find that "climate change" made relatively few references to any assumed human activity. Following 2001 and on, the phrase has become synonymous with the notion of human activity. Does that mean that climate change is now automatically a product of human activity by virtue of a change in the typical daily usage of the phrase?

 

[afransen]

""scientific community as a whole," I presume they mean something along the lines of all scientists,"

On the contrary, I think they mean a significant or overwhelming majority (ie, considering the class of scientists as a single body, what does that body say).

 

[MisterF]

So you believe in the consensus because you understand a literature review? What exactly does that mean?

Again, it's the literature reviews that establish the consensus.

When someone states the phrase of "scientific community as a whole," I presume they mean something along the lines of all scientists, don't you?

No. We've been through this.

Besides, I didn't raise the notion of a consensus across the scientific community as a whole. If you have an issue with that, take it up with the person who first brought it up.

I've already explained why scientists who haven't done primary research on climate change would believe the consensus. There's no reason to repeat myself.

Can you show accurately what that consensus is, the nature of it, its depth and so on? Can you answer any of the questions I raised in the above post? Again, I didn't bring up the members of the scientific community beyond climatologists, but the phrase "global climate change" shows up in scientific literature outside of climatology. Take a look.



People doing literature reviews? I can't attest to what every person is thinking when they take up a literature review. Can you? I am saying there is no conclusive proof of a supposed consensus. The term itself is slippery. There is an assumption that such a thing exists, but no measures to tell exactly what the nature and content of that consensus (if it exists) is. People make references to a consensus; they maintain a belief in a belief that something is so.

A literature review is undertaken to look at recent work done on climate change. It's found that the vast majority, if not all, of the work concludes that climate change is mainly the result of human activity. Review after review after review has the same findings. Case closed. There's your consensus. No assumptions, no preconcieved notions. Just the proof you seem to think is so elusive.

If you do a search before 2000, you would probably find that "climate change" made relatively few references to any assumed human activity. Following 2001 and on, the phrase has become synonymous with the notion of human activity. Does that mean that climate change is now automatically a product of human activity by virtue of a change in the typical daily usage of the phrase?

This argument is specious.

 

[Hydrogen]

Again, it's the literature reviews that establish the consensus.

There have been almost 13,000 peer-reviewed papers since 1993 that mention the words "climate change." Do you know everything about the content of all of these papers? It is a mixed bunch in terms of how the phrase is employed. For example, some of them describe climate changes over various periods of the Holocene, and over certain regions of the globe, indicating wide-ranging temperature shifts due to natural causes. Some, for example, discuss climate change due to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation. By the way, these are the same natural causes that the IPCC states a low-level of understanding of, and are drivers of climate that have existed long before any potential human signal was in effect, and are no doubt natural drivers that exist and are in effect to this very day. Climate has always been variable, and it is not well understood as to why. Others papers are restricted to the period of time for when thermometer measures of surface atmosphere temperatures have been available (since about 1870). Yet others employ the idea of human-caused climate change as a fact without question, as they are discussing things other than how such a consensus was arrived at.

No. We've been through this.

I then suppose that the academies that were mentioned in an earlier post don't matter to you as their members are not restricted to climatology or climatologists. How did the governing members arrive at their conclusion (and are they all climatologists)?

A literature review is undertaken to look at recent work done on climate change. It's found that the vast majority, if not all, of the work concludes that climate change is mainly the result of human activity. Review after review after review has the same findings. Case closed. There's your consensus. No assumptions, no preconcieved notions. Just the proof you seem to think is so elusive.

Has anyone done such a wide-ranging review of the most recent work in order to assess the state of publication? Can you cite such a review? A vast majority, if not all? Do you know this for a fact? I'd be fascinated to see such a wide-ranging meta-survey and its analysis.

The last attempt at such a wide-ranging survey was undertaken in 2003 and was carried out by Naomi Oreskes and published in Science in 2004. Oreskes, who is a historian of science, examined 928 papers published between 1993 and 2003 in order to assess whether there was a "consensus" on whether 1). human activities had modified concentrations of atmospheric constituents, and 2). whether most of the observed warming over the last 50 years had likely been due to increases in greenhouse gases.

On the basis of her study she claimed that a positive consensus existed, with 75% of the papers explicitly or implicitly accepting a consensus view. The other 25% expressed no such view. Her findings were (and still are) controversial among many scientists for a variety of reasons (for example, paleoclimate temperature records show many positive and negative variations in temperature long before any human effects). Also worth noting, all the papers that mention climate change or any of the variations for expressing this natural fact have to be put aside in order to define those that discuss human activities and climate change.

In other words, from the start, the potential for purely natural causes based on historical trends are largely removed from the study sample. To discuss the potential for human effect you have to look just at a human time frame, (and not at climate change as a natural phenomenon over time). Right from the start there is an assumed presupposition that the two are automatically linked. Add to that, there is no attempt to attribute how much change is caused by human activity or by natural variability. The over-emphasis on stating (and reiterating) a consensus obscures the important fact that there is no way to delineate natural from assumed anthropogenic effects. That means there is no way to forecast the future climate with any degree of accuracy.

This argument is specious.

This answer is meaningless.

 

[MisterF]

There have been almost 13,000 peer-reviewed papers since 1993 that mention the words "climate change." Do you know everything about the content of all of these papers? It is a mixed bunch in terms of how the phrase is employed. For example, some of them describe climate changes over various periods of the Holocene, and over certain regions of the globe, indicating wide-ranging temperature shifts due to natural causes. Some, for example, discuss climate change due to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation. By the way, these are the same natural causes that the IPCC states a low-level of understanding of, and are drivers of climate that have existed long before any potential human signal was in effect, and are no doubt natural drivers that exist and are in effect to this very day. Climate has always been variable, and it is not well understood as to why. Others papers are restricted to the period of time for when thermometer measures of surface atmosphere temperatures have been available (since about 1870). Yet others employ the idea of human-caused climate change as a fact without question, as they are discussing things other than how such a consensus was arrived at.

You're getting hung up on the way I phrased it. Just because I said climate change that doesn't mean that someone reviewing work on the subject uses that as a search term. The rest of this really has no relevance. It's all straw man arguments.

I then suppose that the academies that were mentioned in an earlier post don't matter to you as their members are not restricted to climatology or climatologists. How did the governing members arrive at their conclusion (and are they all climatologists)?

Again, we've been through this. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

Has anyone done such a wide-ranging review of the most recent work in order to assess the state of publication? Can you cite such a review? A vast majority, if not all? Do you know this for a fact? I'd be fascinated to see such a wide-ranging meta-survey and its analysis.

The last attempt at such a wide-ranging survey was undertaken in 2003 and was carried out by Naomi Oreskes and published in Science in 2004. Oreskes, who is a historian of science, examined 928 papers published between 1993 and 2003 in order to assess whether there was a "consensus" on whether 1). human activities had modified concentrations of atmospheric constituents, and 2). whether most of the observed warming over the last 50 years had likely been due to increases in greenhouse gases.

On the basis of her study she claimed that a positive consensus existed, with 75% of the papers explicitly or implicitly accepting a consensus view. The other 25% expressed no such view. Her findings were (and still are) controversial among many scientists for a variety of reasons (for example, paleoclimate temperature records show many positive and negative variations in temperature long before any human effects). Also worth noting, all the papers that mention climate change or any of the variations for expressing this natural fact have to be put aside in order to define those that discuss human activities and climate change.

In other words, from the start, the potential for purely natural causes based on historical trends are largely removed from the study sample. To discuss the potential for human effect you have to look just at a human time frame, (and not at climate change as a natural phenomenon over time). Right from the start there is an assumed presupposition that the two are automatically linked. Add to that, there is no attempt to attribute how much change is caused by human activity or by natural variability. The over-emphasis on stating (and reiterating) a consensus obscures the important fact that there is no way to delineate natural from assumed anthropogenic effects. That means there is no way to forecast the future climate with any degree of accuracy.

Nobody has ever disputed that there are natural variations in climate. This isn't new information. Of course work that studies what's causing global warming is going to examine the link with human activity, that's the whole point. It's not some blind assumption that there's a link, it's been supported by the vast majority of work done on the subject. And of course it's been compared to the natural climate variations in the past and present. Why would you think it hasn't?

Looks like you've taken up Ganjavih's challenge to find a review in a peer reviewed journal that disputes the consensus on global warming. Looks like you haven't found one.

This answer is meaningless.

No, it just points out a fact.

 

[ganjavih]

The last attempt at such a wide-ranging survey was undertaken in 2003 and was carried out by Naomi Oreskes and published in Science in 2004.

Very outdated. There has been a lot of new research and several review articles published since then (ie. Keller, 2007). And if there was a consensus back then, there's a much stronger one now.

 

[Hydrogen]

Do you mean Klaus Keller, a contributing author to the the IPCC's Fourth
Assessment Report 2007 (chapter on “Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risk from Climate Changeâ€)?