Sunday, July 12, 2015

97% Figure Isn't Correct

As has been well reported, studies have found 97% of climate scientists, and 92% of all scientists in general, agree that manmade emissions are causing climate change. To the utter dismay of climate change deniers. It really irks them to think the people who know the most about climate science are telling them they're wrong. Well, it just got even worse for them. A new study which reviewed 24,000 scientific papers on climate change published between 2013 and 2014. The study, conducted by James L. Powell, director of the National Physical Sciences Consortium, identified 69,406 authors of those papers and found only four authors who rejected climate change.

That comes out to an incredible 99.994% of published authors agree manmade climate change is real!

At least, the deniers can claim .006% of the climate scientists are on their side and that is consistent with their oft-quoted Petition Project which has .3% of all scientists rejecting climate change.

If that is an example of how they view percentages I have to guess it would be fun to play poker with these guys.

11 comments:

  1. I know this doesn't exactly relate to this topic, but I came across an article about recent research involving models predicting reduced sunspot activity resulting in cooling temperatures by 2030. I haven't noticed this website to be denialistic before, and I would like to hear what you make of this article and the quoted research. Thanks!
    http://www.iflscience.com/environment/we-could-be-heading-mini-ice-age-2030

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  2. I've seen this claim. Space physics was my research area in grad school and I published some papers on the subject. I am skeptical anyone can make a valid claim as to knowing what the Sun will be doing 15-20 years from now. Also, I am not clear on this part, but it seems to me they are saying there will be a 60% drop in magnetic field activity, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a drop in solar output. The solar output was determined over 100,000 years ago when the energy presently being radiated out was generated in the core and it takes that long for it to reach the surface. Consider a large pot of boiling water. If you turned off the heat, the pot will continue to radiate heat for a long time due to the stored energy. The same with the Sun. The large mass and volume of the Sun means the solar output has to be fairly steady, even if there is a change in the generation of energy. We can 'see' the core of the Sun using neutrinos (which pass right through the mass of the Sun unhindered) and we see no indication of a change in the core. So, I have to say, pending peer review and more data, I am very skeptical of their claim.

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  3. Thanks. That makes sense. It will be interesting to see the peer review response. My feeling is that anything that distracts from weening us off of fossil fuels is unfortunate.

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  4. David: Here is an analysis from And Then There's Physics: https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/mini-ice-age/

    And another from Joe Romm: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/13/3679662/global-warming-speed-up-not-ice-age/

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  5. I haven't seen that site before. Thanks for turning me onto it. I see IFL Science tried to clear up its error, but did a lousy job of it. http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mini-ice-age-not-reason-ignore-global-warming

    One of my favorite bloggers, Sou, has a little insight into Zharkova: http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/07/theres-only-two-year-reprieve-if-sun.html#more

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  6. Sou's writing seems like a great combination of thorough, humorous, and respectful. Another good place to bookmark for when I need to check in with reality. Thanks for the link.

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  7. She's great. And she just hates Anthony Watts, which is the mark of all the best people...

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  8. I love her work and refer to her frequently. She also hates Roy Spencer, another mark in the plus column.

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  9. And, despite her hatefulness, she's a total charmer! If I were an idiot,or a Congressperson (redundant I know), and my WUWT comment wound up on Hot Whopper, I'd be pleased to be excoriated by her.

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  10. A little late for the parade, but I did come across this:

    “In the press release, we didn’t say anything about climate change,” Valentina Zharkova told USA TODAY. “My guess is when they heard about Maunder minimum, they used Wikipedia or something to find out more about it.”

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