Climate Climate & Energy

Flawed new analysis purports to show that there’s no scientific consensus on climate change

If those opposed to action on climate change are like Ahab, the scientific consensus is their white whale. The reason is simple: as Frank Luntz's famous memo pointed out, if they can convince the general public that the science of climate change is uncertain, they can drag the debate over policy to a grinding halt.

Thus, every so often, another argument emerges that purports to prove that scientific consensus on climate change does not exist.

This week, it's a blast from the past: an analysis of the "Web of Science" that shows that no consensus exists and only a minority of scientists support the views of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

First, some background. For those who aren't familiar, the Web of Science (WoS) is a massive database that includes the title and abstract of essentially every scientific paper published since the early '90s. There's also a ton of ancillary information in the database, such as how many times a paper has been cited. It's an invaluable tool to the scientific community, one I use on an almost daily basis to find papers in the peer-reviewed literature.

Naomi Oreskes, a Professor of History and Science Studies at UC-San Diego, searched WoS for papers that include the phrase "global climate change" in the title or abstract and found that basically none of these papers explicitly reject the consensus position (i.e., the earth is warming, humans are very likely responsible for most of the recent warming, etc.). See Coby Beck's writeup for more details.

A medical researcher, Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, has revisited Oreskes' analysis. Oreskes looked at papers published between the mid-1990s and 2003, while Schulte looked at papers published after 2004. I have not actually seen a copy of this new paper, but I've reconstructed its salient points from a description of the analysis found here (PDF). The abstract of Dr. Schulte's paper:

Fear of anthropogenic 'global warming' can adversely affect patients' well-being. Accordingly, the state of the scientific consensus about climate change was studied by a review of the 539 papers on "global climate change" found on the Web of Science database from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes (2004), who had reported that between 1993 and 2003 none of 928 scientific papers on "global climate change" had rejected the consensus that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. In the present review, 32 papers (6% of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7% do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to "catastrophic" climate change, but without offering evidence. There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm that now harms patients.

This analysis is rubbish. First, consider the following abstract, from a paper entitled, "An analysis of the regulation of tropical tropospheric water vapor":

W. Va. editorial says mining coal should be easier

This editorial is from 2007, not 1877: " First Things First: Let's Mine the Coal." Maybe there's something to the inbreeding jokes ...

We can talk about windmills, solar panels and biomass, and they undoubtedly are in our future. But those energy sources cannot meet the nation's growing energy demands now or in the foreseeable future. Nuclear energy may take on an expanded role, but not everyone will welcome it.

Our leaders must step up and tell the nation the truth: We need coal. It must remain a major source for electricity, and it certainly could and should be a source for motor fuels.

Global warming will spawn severe storms and tornados, reports NASA

We have known for a while that global warming is making our weather more extreme, especially extreme heat, drought, heavy rainfall, and flooding. Now we have more predictions:

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth's climate warms.

Perhaps that is why we have been setting records for tornados lately. This is especially bad news for this country because, as the study notes: "The central/east U.S. experiences the most severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on Earth."

U.N. climate meeting ends with a whole lotta nothin’

We are psychic, if we do say so ourselves. As leaders from 158 countries gathered this week at a U.N.-convened meeting to discuss post-Kyoto Protocol climate targets, we claimed doubt that anything of substance would come out of it. And voila! Deadlock and vagueness abounded. The E.U. and developing nations pushed for an indication that […]

Is climate change an artifact of computer models?

Electric Politics has an audio interview on measuring climate change that might be of interest to many here.

Thoughts on Chris Mooney’s Storm World

I recently finished Chris Mooney's great new book Storm World. There have been lots of reviews (see Chris's blog for a pretty complete list), so I won't write another one here. Instead, I thought I would highlight the part I particularly appreciated, and what I think needed more emphasis in the book.

First, the high point: The book does a great job of detailing the turbulent interface between knowledge and ignorance where science operates. Science is a contact sport, and it is not for the faint of heart. New ideas, especially bold ones, have to survive in the crucible of science -- where they are subject to bombardment by every imaginable criticism. Good ideas survive this test and help us push back the frontiers of knowledge. Bad ideas crumble.

On the other hand, one of the points that I thought could have been better explained was the unique role that Bill Gray played in the debate. All scientists, regardless of their true motivation, want to be seen dispassionately pursuing truth. And in order to do that, it is generally accepted practice that scientists never personally attack other scientists. At least, not in public. You might believe that a scientific competitor of yours is a dishonest scumbag and a hack, and you might even tell a close colleague in private, but you would never, ever stand up at a scientific meeting and say that. It is simply not done.

U.S. aims to map mineral-rich Arctic seafloor

Update on the race to despoil the Arctic: This week, U.S. Coast Guard researchers set out on their third venture since 2003 to map the mineral-rich Arctic seafloor. There’s a lot to be learned about the watery depths; overall, maps of Mars are about 250 times better than maps of the ocean floor. The U.S. […]

Aspen, Colo., unveils its own carbon-offsetting program

Aspen, Colo., home of many insanely rich folk, has become the first municipality in the nation to sell its very own brand of carbon offsets. check out the offsets: <a href="

Climate change could cause more flooding than currently predicted, says research

Do you like news of the “If you thought you were screwed, it’s even worse!” variety? Then with no further ado: a new study in Nature suggests that climate change brings a higher risk of flooding than previously thought. Researchers say that current predictions overlook the fact that rising levels of carbon dioxide decrease plants’ […]

The Wall Street Journal contradicts itself on global warming

The Wall Street Journal is universally admired among journalists for its news and analysis; for its editorial page, not so much. A spectacular example of the latter's ability to mislead appeared yesterday, under the cute title Not So Hot, in which the anonymous editorializers adroitly attacked NASA, environmentalists, climate change models, and climatologists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt over a statistically insignificant data correction. The misleading editorial was rewarded with great popularity, as the piece was the second-most emailed of the day, right after a feature on beer pong.

But interestingly, two weeks ago the number-crunchers at the WSJ ran a feature analyzing the exact same controversy in the column called The Numbers Guy, prosaically entitled "Global Warming Debate Overheats with Bad Numbers." This gives Grist readers a unique opportunity to compare the WSJ news-and-analysis team versus the WSJ editorial team. Judge for yourself.