Written in 2015 and revised in this link in 2016. Cut and pasted some interesting points. Enjoy.
https://www.heartland.org/_template...tists Disagree Second Edition with covers.pdf
Admissions of Lack of Consensus
Even prominent “alarmists” in the climate change debate admit there is no consensus. Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, when asked if the debate on climate change is over, told the BBC, “I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view” (BBC News, 2010). When asked, “Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860–1880, 1910–1940 and 1975– 1998 were identical?” Jones replied,
Temperature data for the period 1860–1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860–1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As
NO CONSENSUS 29
for the two periods 1910–40 and 1975–1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975–1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Finally, when asked “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically significant global warming” Jones answered “yes.” His replies contradict claims made by IPCC.
Mike Hulme, also a professor at the University of East Anglia and a contributor to IPCC reports, wrote in 2009: “What is causing climate change? By how much is warming likely to accelerate? What level of warming is dangerous? – represent just three of a number of contested or uncertain areas of knowledge about climate change” (Hulme, 2009, p. 75). He admits “Uncertainty pervades scientific predictions about the future performance of global and regional climates. And uncertainties multiply when considering all the consequences that might follow from such changes in climate” (p. 83). On the subject of IPCC’s credibility, he admits it is “governed by a Bureau consisting of selected governmental representatives, thus ensuring that the Panel’s work was clearly seen to be serving the needs of government and policy. The Panel was not to be a self-governing body of independent scientists” (p. 95). All this is exactly what IPCC critics have been saying for years.
***
As this summary makes apparent, there is no survey or study that supports the claim of a scientific consensus that global warming is both man-made and a problem, and ample evidence to the contrary. There is no scientific consensus on global warming.
Doran and Zimmerman, 2009
In 2009, a paper by Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, at the time a student at the University of Illinois, and her master’s thesis advisor Peter Doran was published in EOS. They claimed “97 percent of climate scientists agree” that mean global temperatures have risen since before the 1800s and that humans are a significant contributing factor (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009). This study, too, has been debunked.
The researchers sent a two-minute online survey to 10,257 Earth scientists working for universities and government research agencies, generating responses from 3,146 people. Solomon (2010) observed, “The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification
14 WHY SCIENTISTS DISAGREE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a Ph.D., some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.” Only 5 percent of respondents self-identified as climate scientists.
Even worse than the sample size, the bias shown in its selection, and the low response rate, though, is the irrelevance of the questions asked in the survey to the debate taking place about climate change. The survey asked two questions:
“Q1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
Q2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?”
Overall, 90 percent of respondents answered “risen” to question 1 and 82 percent answered “yes” to question 2. The authors get their fraudulent “97 percent of climate scientists believe” sound bite by focusing on only 79 scientists who responded and “listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50 percent of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change.”
Most skeptics of man-made global warming would answer those two questions the same way as alarmists would. At issue is not whether the climate warmed since the Little Ice Age or whether there is a human impact on climate, but whether the warming is unusual in rate or magnitude; whether that part of it attributable to human causes is likely to be beneficial or harmful on net and by how much; and whether the benefits of reducing human carbon dioxide emissions – i.e., reducing the use of fossil fuels – would outweigh the costs, so as to justify public policies aimed at reducing those emissions. The survey is silent on these questions.
The survey by Doran and Zimmerman fails to produce evidence that would back up claims of a “scientific consensus” about the causes or consequences of climate change. They simply asked the wrong people the wrong questions. The “98 percent” figure so often attributed to their survey refers to the opinions of only 79 scientists, hardly a representative sample of scientific opinion.
https://www.heartland.org/_template...tists Disagree Second Edition with covers.pdf
Admissions of Lack of Consensus
Even prominent “alarmists” in the climate change debate admit there is no consensus. Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, when asked if the debate on climate change is over, told the BBC, “I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view” (BBC News, 2010). When asked, “Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860–1880, 1910–1940 and 1975– 1998 were identical?” Jones replied,
Temperature data for the period 1860–1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860–1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As
NO CONSENSUS 29
for the two periods 1910–40 and 1975–1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975–1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Finally, when asked “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically significant global warming” Jones answered “yes.” His replies contradict claims made by IPCC.
Mike Hulme, also a professor at the University of East Anglia and a contributor to IPCC reports, wrote in 2009: “What is causing climate change? By how much is warming likely to accelerate? What level of warming is dangerous? – represent just three of a number of contested or uncertain areas of knowledge about climate change” (Hulme, 2009, p. 75). He admits “Uncertainty pervades scientific predictions about the future performance of global and regional climates. And uncertainties multiply when considering all the consequences that might follow from such changes in climate” (p. 83). On the subject of IPCC’s credibility, he admits it is “governed by a Bureau consisting of selected governmental representatives, thus ensuring that the Panel’s work was clearly seen to be serving the needs of government and policy. The Panel was not to be a self-governing body of independent scientists” (p. 95). All this is exactly what IPCC critics have been saying for years.
***
As this summary makes apparent, there is no survey or study that supports the claim of a scientific consensus that global warming is both man-made and a problem, and ample evidence to the contrary. There is no scientific consensus on global warming.
Doran and Zimmerman, 2009
In 2009, a paper by Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, at the time a student at the University of Illinois, and her master’s thesis advisor Peter Doran was published in EOS. They claimed “97 percent of climate scientists agree” that mean global temperatures have risen since before the 1800s and that humans are a significant contributing factor (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009). This study, too, has been debunked.
The researchers sent a two-minute online survey to 10,257 Earth scientists working for universities and government research agencies, generating responses from 3,146 people. Solomon (2010) observed, “The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification
14 WHY SCIENTISTS DISAGREE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a Ph.D., some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.” Only 5 percent of respondents self-identified as climate scientists.
Even worse than the sample size, the bias shown in its selection, and the low response rate, though, is the irrelevance of the questions asked in the survey to the debate taking place about climate change. The survey asked two questions:
“Q1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
Q2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?”
Overall, 90 percent of respondents answered “risen” to question 1 and 82 percent answered “yes” to question 2. The authors get their fraudulent “97 percent of climate scientists believe” sound bite by focusing on only 79 scientists who responded and “listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50 percent of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change.”
Most skeptics of man-made global warming would answer those two questions the same way as alarmists would. At issue is not whether the climate warmed since the Little Ice Age or whether there is a human impact on climate, but whether the warming is unusual in rate or magnitude; whether that part of it attributable to human causes is likely to be beneficial or harmful on net and by how much; and whether the benefits of reducing human carbon dioxide emissions – i.e., reducing the use of fossil fuels – would outweigh the costs, so as to justify public policies aimed at reducing those emissions. The survey is silent on these questions.
The survey by Doran and Zimmerman fails to produce evidence that would back up claims of a “scientific consensus” about the causes or consequences of climate change. They simply asked the wrong people the wrong questions. The “98 percent” figure so often attributed to their survey refers to the opinions of only 79 scientists, hardly a representative sample of scientific opinion.
