gw is a LIE!

[ScienceRocks]

Wont be within the top 15 this year at the rate it is going.

 

[Bern80]

What kind of bullshit are you pedeling?

Climate Change

National Policy
07.1 CLIMATE CHANGE(Adopted by Council on November 18, 2007)

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

So they say it's inconvtrivertible (a statement I find unikely any true scientist would make) yet say they need to do more research as to what effect man has on the climate. If it's so fucking incontrevertible that what man did caused it, why the need to do more research on how man caused it?

 

[westwall]

Post from a known liar and you appear to be a liar. The APS is has been one of the strongest voices concerning AGW, and remains so. As do almost all scientific societies. For they deal in reality, not in "the way things ought to be".
APS Council Overwhelmingly Rejects Proposal to Replace Society’s Current Climate Change Statement « Physics Frontline

APS Council Overwhelmingly Rejects Proposal to Replace Society’s Current Climate Change Statement
The Council of the American Physical Society has overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to replace the Society’s 2007 Statement on Climate Change with a version that raised doubts about global warming. The Council’s vote came after it received a report from a committee of eminent scientists who reviewed the existing statement in response to a petition submitted by a group of APS members.

The petition had requested that APS remove and replace the Society’s current statement. The committee recommended that the Council reject the petition. The committee also recommended that the current APS statement be allowed to stand, but it requested that the Society’s Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) examine the statement for possible improvements in clarity and tone. POPA regularly reviews all APS statements to ensure that they are relevant and up-to-date regarding new scientific findings.

I love the comments section below the report, did you bother to read any of them olfraud? Here's the first one.....

"Henry A. Miranda, Jr.
Posted December 6, 2010 at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Reply
I commend George White for his 9/2009 piece entitled, “Testing the AGW Hypothesis” that was accessed through your ‘comments’ on the subject entry of 3 Dec/10. It is a concise, cogent, and eminently logical independent analysis of this important topic utilizing 25 years of satellite data, (from the NASA GISS website), as referenced therein.
He directs attention to the seasonal variability of relevant atmospheric parameters extracted from these voluminous data, as opposed to the yearly average values thereof, (which has lead to the gratuitous assumption by the IPCC analysts that all such seasonal changes, when integrated over the Earth’s surface over any given year, are so small as to be ignored). Instead, by examining the Earth’s Albedo —and its components— on a seasonal basis, (as well as hemispheric asymmetry and other oceanic temperature considerations), he derives an atmospheric feedback parameter value that differs markedly from that on which the IPCC analysis is based.
His results —which not only strongly dispute the IPCC position but also indicate the origin of the error— need to be explored further, rather than relegated to oblivion, as AGW activists are wont to do in this politically-charged atmosphere.
In this vein, I urge all interested scientists to read “The Great Global Warming Blunder”, by Roy W. S;pencer (Encounter Books, 2010), which expands on the above short-term atmospheric feedback mechanism by presenting an admittedly heuristic study utilizing satellite data in which atmospheric water content, (in the form of cloud-cover) is used to derive a similar positive feedback value. Another tome, “Unstoppable Global Warming, by S. Fred Singer and Tennis T. Avery, (Lowell and Littlefield, 2007), provides a much broader perspective on this controversy by shedding light on the several overlapping epochal Solar Flux variations as the ultimate determinant of global warming, (and cooling), over many, many millenia of the Earth’s thermal history."


The third comment is likewise illustrative of the general feeling of the membership of the APS....

The APS is wildly misdirected by insisting CAGW is something to worry about. The reason is misunderstood feedback, as Lindzen described in his recent congressional testimony. In the final analysis, the difference between CAGW alarmists and CAGW skeptics is that an alarmists believes the climate system has a gain of 1 and 11% positive feedback, while the skeptics believe that the climate system has a gain of about 1.4 and about 18% negative feedback.

From Bode, 1/Go=1/Gc+f, where Go is the open loop gain, f is the feedback fraction and Gc is the closed loop gain. Solving for Gc, Gc=1/(1/Go-f). For Go=1 and f=+0.11, Gc=1.12 and for Go=1.4 and f=-.18, Gc=1.12. Applying a gain of 1.12 to the average solar constant of 341.5 W/m^2 results in 382 W/m^2, corresponding to about 287K. The data tells us that the open loop gain is certainly greater than 1 and would be 1 iff the Earth had no atmosphere and an intrinsic albedo of 0.


And let't take a look at the fourth comment shall we?....

As an APS member I feel uncomfortable with the Society statement on climate. It appears to be politically charged and does not stand up to the standards of scientific proof that we require in physics.


And then we have the most damning of all....

Tom Fuller
Posted November 12, 2009 at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Reply
Could someone clarify for me who voted on this? Was it the membership or just the Council?

Tawanda
Posted November 13, 2009 at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Reply
The Council voted for it.


So you see olfraud, real scientists who didn't vote for the political statement of the APS. The COUNCIL voted for it, not the general membership...just like I have pointed out to you all along. Thank you for posting a link that makes it crystal clear that it is the leadership and NOT THE SCIENTIFIC MEMBERSHIP who vote for this sort of nonsense.

 

[parkinson1963]

2010 Study By Arctic Experts Refutes AGW Hypothesis of Polar Warming Amplification From CO2
The nine researchers [White et al. 2010] examined all the evidence and research related to Arctic temperatures and determined that current Arctic temperatures are well within natural variability and no CO2-induced "polar-amplification" is to be found.

no it doesn't

Quote from actual article
"Climate is continually changing on numerous time scales, driven by a range of factors. In general, longer-lived changes are somewhat larger, but much slower to occur, than shorter-lived changes. Processes linked with continental drift have affected atmospheric circulation, oceanic currents, and the composition of the atmosphere over tens of millions of years. A global cooling trend over the last 60 million years has altered conditions near sea level in the Arctic from ice-free year-round to completely ice covered. Variations in arctic insolation over tens of thousands of years in response to orbital forcing have caused regular cycles of warming and cooling that were roughly half the size of the continental-drift-linked changes. This “glacial-interglacial” cycling was amplified by the reduced greenhouse gases in colder times and by greater surface albedo from more-extensive ice cover. Glacial-interglacial cycling was punctuated by abrupt millennial oscillations, which near the North Atlantic were roughly half as large as the glacial-interglacial cycles, but which were much smaller Arctic-wide and beyond. The current interglaciation, the Holocene, has been influenced by brief cooling events from single volcanic eruptions, slower but longer lasting changes from random fluctuations in the frequency of volcanic eruptions, from weak solar variability, and perhaps by other classes of events. Human-forced climate changes appear similar in size and duration to the fastest natural changes of the past, but future changes may have no natural analog.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well Walleyes, once again you prove yourself unable to read. How many times does this make that you post an article you claim disproves AGW, only to find that authors are stating a position 180 degrees from what you claim they are?

 

[Old Rocks]

What kind of bullshit are you pedeling?

Climate Change

National Policy
07.1 CLIMATE CHANGE(Adopted by Council on November 18, 2007)

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

So they say it's inconvtrivertible (a statement I find unikely any true scientist would make) yet say they need to do more research as to what effect man has on the climate. If it's so fucking incontrevertible that what man did caused it, why the need to do more research on how man caused it?

Climate Change

Climate Change Commentary
(adopted by Council on April 18, 2010)

There is a substantial body of peer reviewed scientific research to support the technical aspects of the 2007 APS statement. The purpose of the following commentary is to provide clarification and additional details.

The first sentence of the APS statement is broadly supported by observational data, physical principles, and global climate models. Greenhouse gas emissions are changing the Earth's energy balance on a planetary scale in ways that affect the climate over long periods of time (~100 years). Historical records indicate that the Earth’s climate is sensitive to energy changes, both external (the sun’s radiative output, changes in Earth’s orbit, etc.) and internal. Internal to our global system, it is not just the atmosphere, but also the oceans and land that are involved in the complex dynamics that result in global climate. Aerosols and particulates resulting from human and natural sources also play roles that can either offset or reinforce greenhouse gas effects. While there are factors driving the natural variability of climate (e.g., volcanoes, solar variability, oceanic oscillations), no known natural mechanisms have been proposed that explain all of the observed warming in the past century. Warming is observed in land-surface temperatures, sea-surface temperatures, and for the last 30 years, lower-atmosphere temperatures measured by satellite. The second sentence is a definition that should explicitly include water vapor. The third sentence notes various examples of human contributions to greenhouses gases. There are, of course, natural sources as well.

The evidence for global temperature rise over the last century is compelling. However, the word "incontrovertible" in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the 2007 APS statement is rarely used in science because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas. The observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.74 °C (+/- 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century. (Source: Global Warming Frequently Asked Questions)

...........................................................................

The last sentence in the second paragraph articulates an immediate policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to deal with the possible catastrophic outcomes that could accompany large global temperature increases. Even with the uncertainties in the models, it is increasingly difficult to rule out that non-negligible increases in global temperature are a consequence of rising anthropogenic CO2. Thus given the significant risks associated with global climate change, prudent steps should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now while continuing to improve the observational data and the model predictions.

The third paragraph, first sentence, recommends an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on Earth's climate. This sentence should be interpreted broadly and more specifically: an enhanced effort is needed to understand both anthropogenic processes and the natural cycles that affect the Earth's climate. Improving the scientific understanding of all climate feedbacks is critical to reducing the uncertainty in modeling the consequences of doubling the CO2-equivalent concentration. In addition, more extensive and more accurate scientific measurements are needed to test the validity of climate models to increase confidence in their projections.

 

[westwall]

Well Walleyes, once again you prove yourself unable to read. How many times does this make that you post an article you claim disproves AGW, only to find that authors are stating a position 180 degrees from what you claim they are?

Really? I think you need your daily dose of thorazine there.

 

[Old Rocks]

Human-forced climate changes appear similar in size and duration to the fastest natural changes of the past, but future changes may have no natural analog.

APS Council Overwhelmingly Rejects Proposal to Replace Society’s Current Climate Change Statement « Physics Frontline

 

[westwall]

Human-forced climate changes appear similar in size and duration to the fastest natural changes of the past, but future changes may have no natural analog.

APS Council Overwhelmingly Rejects Proposal to Replace Society’s Current Climate Change Statement « Physics Frontline

Yep the COUNCIL, not the membership. Here are a few of their comments. Overwhelmingly these real scientists are angry at the COUNCIL adopting the political statement.

"Henry A. Miranda, Jr.
Posted December 6, 2010 at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Reply
I commend George White for his 9/2009 piece entitled, “Testing the AGW Hypothesis” that was accessed through your ‘comments’ on the subject entry of 3 Dec/10. It is a concise, cogent, and eminently logical independent analysis of this important topic utilizing 25 years of satellite data, (from the NASA GISS website), as referenced therein.
He directs attention to the seasonal variability of relevant atmospheric parameters extracted from these voluminous data, as opposed to the yearly average values thereof, (which has lead to the gratuitous assumption by the IPCC analysts that all such seasonal changes, when integrated over the Earth’s surface over any given year, are so small as to be ignored). Instead, by examining the Earth’s Albedo —and its components— on a seasonal basis, (as well as hemispheric asymmetry and other oceanic temperature considerations), he derives an atmospheric feedback parameter value that differs markedly from that on which the IPCC analysis is based.
His results —which not only strongly dispute the IPCC position but also indicate the origin of the error— need to be explored further, rather than relegated to oblivion, as AGW activists are wont to do in this politically-charged atmosphere.
In this vein, I urge all interested scientists to read “The Great Global Warming Blunder”, by Roy W. S;pencer (Encounter Books, 2010), which expands on the above short-term atmospheric feedback mechanism by presenting an admittedly heuristic study utilizing satellite data in which atmospheric water content, (in the form of cloud-cover) is used to derive a similar positive feedback value. Another tome, “Unstoppable Global Warming, by S. Fred Singer and Tennis T. Avery, (Lowell and Littlefield, 2007), provides a much broader perspective on this controversy by shedding light on the several overlapping epochal Solar Flux variations as the ultimate determinant of global warming, (and cooling), over many, many millenia of the Earth’s thermal history."
The third comment is likewise illustrative of the general feeling of the membership of the APS....

The APS is wildly misdirected by insisting CAGW is something to worry about. The reason is misunderstood feedback, as Lindzen described in his recent congressional testimony. In the final analysis, the difference between CAGW alarmists and CAGW skeptics is that an alarmists believes the climate system has a gain of 1 and 11% positive feedback, while the skeptics believe that the climate system has a gain of about 1.4 and about 18% negative feedback.

From Bode, 1/Go=1/Gc+f, where Go is the open loop gain, f is the feedback fraction and Gc is the closed loop gain. Solving for Gc, Gc=1/(1/Go-f). For Go=1 and f=+0.11, Gc=1.12 and for Go=1.4 and f=-.18, Gc=1.12. Applying a gain of 1.12 to the average solar constant of 341.5 W/m^2 results in 382 W/m^2, corresponding to about 287K. The data tells us that the open loop gain is certainly greater than 1 and would be 1 iff the Earth had no atmosphere and an intrinsic albedo of 0.

And let't take a look at the fourth comment shall we?....

As an APS member I feel uncomfortable with the Society statement on climate. It appears to be politically charged and does not stand up to the standards of scientific proof that we require in physics.

And then we have the most damning of all....

Tom Fuller
Posted November 12, 2009 at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Reply
Could someone clarify for me who voted on this? Was it the membership or just the Council?

Tawanda
Posted November 13, 2009 at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Reply
The Council voted for it.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, if the majority of members feel the council is wrong, then they can vote the council out. But that is not happening, is it. In fact, the real working physicists involved in this field pretty much state to the man that AGW is real. Of course, there are those like Lindzen and Singer that are also happy to tell you that tobacco has no ill effects, also.

 

[IanC]

Well, if the majority of members feel the council is wrong, then they can vote the council out. But that is not happening, is it. In fact, the real working physicists involved in this field pretty much state to the man that AGW is real. Of course, there are those like Lindzen and Singer that are also happy to tell you that tobacco has no ill effects, also.

Old Rocks- you have a very strange way of looking at things. 'Appeal to Authority' is the highest form of logic to you. Next in line is 'ad hominem'. Then comes 'trivial truths' to mask 'non sequiturs'.

I wish scientific organizations were apolitical but they are not. especially at the top organizational levels. the scientific consensus depends on what questions are asked, and who is allowed to answer.

The ‘scientific consensus’ about global warming turns out to have a lot more to do with manipulating the numbers
How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.

The upshot? The punditry looked for and found an alternative number to tout: “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post, the U.K.’s Guardian, CNN and other news outlets now claim, along with some two million postings in the blogosphere.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

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, astronomers and meteorologists. That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography, oceanography, engineering, paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided 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 a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response — just 3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions posed to the Earth scientists were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming — quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say humans are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1,000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for a subset that would yield a higher percentage. They found it — almost — by excluding all the Earth scientists whose recently published peer-reviewed research wasn’t mostly in the field of climate change. This subset reduced the number of remaining scientists from over 3,000 to under 300. But the percentage that now resulted still fell short of the researchers’ ideal, because the subset included such disciplines as meteorology, which Doran considers ill-informed on the subject. “Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon,” he explained, in justifying why he decided to exclude them, among others. The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists.

“They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science,” Doran explained. “So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.”

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers, the master’s student and her prof, were then satisfied with the findings of her master’s thesis. Are you?

there you have it, the methodology and numbers behind 97% consensus on AGW.

I could go on and on about the exaggerations and distortions that we are subjected to everyday from climate science but what is the point? those who care enough to look into the subject either accept the story like Old Rocks, or become suspicious because of the flase claims like me. its up to everybody to decide for themselves

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, if the majority of members feel the council is wrong, then they can vote the council out. But that is not happening, is it. In fact, the real working physicists involved in this field pretty much state to the man that AGW is real. Of course, there are those like Lindzen and Singer that are also happy to tell you that tobacco has no ill effects, also.

Old Rocks- you have a very strange way of looking at things. 'Appeal to Authority' is the highest form of logic to you. Next in line is 'ad hominem'. Then comes 'trivial truths' to mask 'non sequiturs'.

I wish scientific organizations were apolitical but they are not. especially at the top organizational levels. the scientific consensus depends on what questions are asked, and who is allowed to answer.

The ‘scientific consensus’ about global warming turns out to have a lot more to do with manipulating the numbers
How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.

The upshot? The punditry looked for and found an alternative number to tout: “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post, the U.K.’s Guardian, CNN and other news outlets now claim, along with some two million postings in the blogosphere.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

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, astronomers and meteorologists. That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography, oceanography, engineering, paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided 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 a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response — just 3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions posed to the Earth scientists were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming — quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say humans are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1,000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for a subset that would yield a higher percentage. They found it — almost — by excluding all the Earth scientists whose recently published peer-reviewed research wasn’t mostly in the field of climate change. This subset reduced the number of remaining scientists from over 3,000 to under 300. But the percentage that now resulted still fell short of the researchers’ ideal, because the subset included such disciplines as meteorology, which Doran considers ill-informed on the subject. “Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon,” he explained, in justifying why he decided to exclude them, among others. The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists.

“They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science,” Doran explained. “So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.”

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers, the master’s student and her prof, were then satisfied with the findings of her master’s thesis. Are you?

there you have it, the methodology and numbers behind 97% consensus on AGW.

I could go on and on about the exaggerations and distortions that we are subjected to everyday from climate science but what is the point? those who care enough to look into the subject either accept the story like Old Rocks, or become suspicious because of the flase claims like me. its up to everybody to decide for themselves

Where is the link to your quote? And you know damned well that the 75 of 77, the 77 are the scientists publishing on the subject in peer reviewed journals in the last couple of years. Scientists with degrees in atmospheric sciences.

Are you afraid to post a link to a lying article such as that? Perhaps you are posting from
Watts once again? Or Monkton?

 

[westwall]

Well, if the majority of members feel the council is wrong, then they can vote the council out. But that is not happening, is it. In fact, the real working physicists involved in this field pretty much state to the man that AGW is real. Of course, there are those like Lindzen and Singer that are also happy to tell you that tobacco has no ill effects, also.

Old Rocks- you have a very strange way of looking at things. 'Appeal to Authority' is the highest form of logic to you. Next in line is 'ad hominem'. Then comes 'trivial truths' to mask 'non sequiturs'.

I wish scientific organizations were apolitical but they are not. especially at the top organizational levels. the scientific consensus depends on what questions are asked, and who is allowed to answer.

The ‘scientific consensus’ about global warming turns out to have a lot more to do with manipulating the numbers
How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.

The upshot? The punditry looked for and found an alternative number to tout: “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post, the U.K.’s Guardian, CNN and other news outlets now claim, along with some two million postings in the blogosphere.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

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, astronomers and meteorologists. That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography, oceanography, engineering, paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided 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 a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response — just 3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions posed to the Earth scientists were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming — quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say humans are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1,000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for a subset that would yield a higher percentage. They found it — almost — by excluding all the Earth scientists whose recently published peer-reviewed research wasn’t mostly in the field of climate change. This subset reduced the number of remaining scientists from over 3,000 to under 300. But the percentage that now resulted still fell short of the researchers’ ideal, because the subset included such disciplines as meteorology, which Doran considers ill-informed on the subject. “Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon,” he explained, in justifying why he decided to exclude them, among others. The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists.

“They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science,” Doran explained. “So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.”

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers, the master’s student and her prof, were then satisfied with the findings of her master’s thesis. Are you?

there you have it, the methodology and numbers behind 97% consensus on AGW.

I could go on and on about the exaggerations and distortions that we are subjected to everyday from climate science but what is the point? those who care enough to look into the subject either accept the story like Old Rocks, or become suspicious because of the flase claims like me. its up to everybody to decide for themselves

Where is the link to your quote? And you know damned well that the 75 of 77, the 77 are the scientists publishing on the subject in peer reviewed journals in the last couple of years. Scientists with degrees in atmospheric sciences.

Are you afraid to post a link to a lying article such as that? Perhaps you are posting from
Watts once again? Or Monkton?

Oh yeah, they are peer reviewed in a science that has become a laughing stock, in journals with no iota of integrity or ethics. Yep those are some mighty fine scientists there...

Remember when it was said that only the high priests of the religion could possibly hope to interpret the "WORD OF GOD" to the poor uneducated peons of the world? Remember that? Well your high priests are not better educated then the peons of the world any more and the peons of the world can now add and subtract and do all sorts of magical things that the high priests of old were exclusively trained to do.

Now we all can, and like the secular revolt of old, we have caught them lying.


Oh yes, I hope Ian won't mind but the quote came from one of your favourite websites..

http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=90&&n=646

And it originated from
My post @ 51 should have referenced Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Jan 3, 2011. My apologies.

 

[skookerasbil]

Hey Rocks......in the bigger picture of things ( which you clearly dont get)................


YOU LOSE


Only 33% Think Most Americans Blame Humans for Global WarmingThursday, March 24, 2011

Only 33% Think Most Americans Blame Humans for Global Warming

 

[skookerasbil]

lose


You can talk about weather anomolies, temperatures and glaciers until the cows come home. If the folks think the "man-made" shit is bogus, might was well be doing exercises in navel contemplation. Cap and Trade is beyond dead..........so nobody cares anymore.

 

[IanC]

Well, if the majority of members feel the council is wrong, then they can vote the council out. But that is not happening, is it. In fact, the real working physicists involved in this field pretty much state to the man that AGW is real. Of course, there are those like Lindzen and Singer that are also happy to tell you that tobacco has no ill effects, also.

Old Rocks- you have a very strange way of looking at things. 'Appeal to Authority' is the highest form of logic to you. Next in line is 'ad hominem'. Then comes 'trivial truths' to mask 'non sequiturs'.

I wish scientific organizations were apolitical but they are not. especially at the top organizational levels. the scientific consensus depends on what questions are asked, and who is allowed to answer.

The ‘scientific consensus’ about global warming turns out to have a lot more to do with manipulating the numbers
How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently.

The upshot? The punditry looked for and found an alternative number to tout: “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post, the U.K.’s Guardian, CNN and other news outlets now claim, along with some two million postings in the blogosphere.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

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, astronomers and meteorologists. That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography, oceanography, engineering, paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided 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 a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response — just 3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions posed to the Earth scientists were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming — quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say humans are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1,000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for a subset that would yield a higher percentage. They found it — almost — by excluding all the Earth scientists whose recently published peer-reviewed research wasn’t mostly in the field of climate change. This subset reduced the number of remaining scientists from over 3,000 to under 300. But the percentage that now resulted still fell short of the researchers’ ideal, because the subset included such disciplines as meteorology, which Doran considers ill-informed on the subject. “Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon,” he explained, in justifying why he decided to exclude them, among others. The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists.

“They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science,” Doran explained. “So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.”

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers, the master’s student and her prof, were then satisfied with the findings of her master’s thesis. Are you?

there you have it, the methodology and numbers behind 97% consensus on AGW.

I could go on and on about the exaggerations and distortions that we are subjected to everyday from climate science but what is the point? those who care enough to look into the subject either accept the story like Old Rocks, or become suspicious because of the flase claims like me. its up to everybody to decide for themselves

Where is the link to your quote? And you know damned well that the 75 of 77, the 77 are the scientists publishing on the subject in peer reviewed journals in the last couple of years. Scientists with degrees in atmospheric sciences.

Are you afraid to post a link to a lying article such as that? Perhaps you are posting from
Watts once again? Or Monkton?

hahahahahahahahahaha. glad to see you are hellbent to prove what I said about you is true! appeal to authority, then ad hominem, and implied trivial truth because you prefer the 77 instead of the 3146. QED

you are correct in saying that I should have tracked down the original source (thanks Westy) but this topic has been discussed in detail before, when it came out. there was also a more detailed survey done which showed the questions and the breakdown of answers. but that was not my point. my point was that 'consensus' was declared, first by claiming 2500 scientists at IPCC, which evaporated upon inspection. then that grad student thesis, which is cherry picking.

Old rocks- what you dont seem to be able to understand is that science is about observing and then deriving meaning from the data. your heroes decide what they want to find and then torture the data until it confesses. even more importantly, your heroes wont retract anything even when it has been shown to be wrong. why does Steve McIntyre have to keep playing detective after almost 10 years? why isnt climate science open, transparent and especially, self-correcting?that is what your 'authority' and 'expertise' is supposed to be all about. cutting out errors and closing in on the truth. why then does climate science keep getting schooled by amateurs, and even then refuse to admit mistakes until forced. the head of the IPCC scoffed at being told that it was improbable that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 for Christ's sake. voodoo science indeed!

But, according to a report in New Scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman, has hit back, denouncing the Indian government report as “voodoo science” lacking peer review.

He adds that “we have a very clear idea of what is happening” in the Himalayas.

Also, the lead author of the IPCC chapter, Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, told New Scientist that he “outright rejected” the notion that the IPCC was off the mark on Himalayan glaciers.



More at : Pachauri calls Indian govt. report on melting Himalayan glaciers as “voodoo science” Pachauri calls Indian govt. report on melting Himalayan glaciers as “voodoo science”

 

[westwall]

Old Rocks- you have a very strange way of looking at things. 'Appeal to Authority' is the highest form of logic to you. Next in line is 'ad hominem'. Then comes 'trivial truths' to mask 'non sequiturs'.

I wish scientific organizations were apolitical but they are not. especially at the top organizational levels. the scientific consensus depends on what questions are asked, and who is allowed to answer.



there you have it, the methodology and numbers behind 97% consensus on AGW.

I could go on and on about the exaggerations and distortions that we are subjected to everyday from climate science but what is the point? those who care enough to look into the subject either accept the story like Old Rocks, or become suspicious because of the flase claims like me. its up to everybody to decide for themselves

Where is the link to your quote? And you know damned well that the 75 of 77, the 77 are the scientists publishing on the subject in peer reviewed journals in the last couple of years. Scientists with degrees in atmospheric sciences.

Are you afraid to post a link to a lying article such as that? Perhaps you are posting from
Watts once again? Or Monkton?

hahahahahahahahahaha. glad to see you are hellbent to prove what I said about you is true! appeal to authority, then ad hominem, and implied trivial truth because you prefer the 77 instead of the 3146. QED

you are correct in saying that I should have tracked down the original source (thanks Westy) but this topic has been discussed in detail before, when it came out. there was also a more detailed survey done which showed the questions and the breakdown of answers. but that was not my point. my point was that 'consensus' was declared, first by claiming 2500 scientists at IPCC, which evaporated upon inspection. then that grad student thesis, which is cherry picking.

Old rocks- what you dont seem to be able to understand is that science is about observing and then deriving meaning from the data. your heroes decide what they want to find and then torture the data until it confesses. even more importantly, your heroes wont retract anything even when it has been shown to be wrong. why does Steve McIntyre have to keep playing detective after almost 10 years? why isnt climate science open, transparent and especially, self-correcting?that is what your 'authority' and 'expertise' is supposed to be all about. cutting out errors and closing in on the truth. why then does climate science keep getting schooled by amateurs, and even then refuse to admit mistakes until forced. the head of the IPCC scoffed at being told that it was improbable that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 for Christ's sake. voodoo science indeed!

But, according to a report in New Scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman, has hit back, denouncing the Indian government report as “voodoo science” lacking peer review.

He adds that “we have a very clear idea of what is happening” in the Himalayas.

Also, the lead author of the IPCC chapter, Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, told New Scientist that he “outright rejected” the notion that the IPCC was off the mark on Himalayan glaciers.



More at : Pachauri calls Indian govt. report on melting Himalayan glaciers as “voodoo science” Pachauri calls Indian govt. report on melting Himalayan glaciers as “voodoo science”

Ian, they understand and they don't care. The goal is control of human life not pollution control. Thus science doesn't matter. Politics is what it's all about.

 

[IanC]

Where is the link to your quote? And you know damned well that the 75 of 77, the 77 are the scientists publishing on the subject in peer reviewed journals in the last couple of years. Scientists with degrees in atmospheric sciences.

Are you afraid to post a link to a lying article such as that? Perhaps you are posting from
Watts once again? Or Monkton?

you know, I really dont care who says something. I care about the ideas that are being spoken.

as far as your need to be told by a 'higher authority' as to what to think, I would be interested in your thoughts about what the InterAcademy Council had to say about the IPCC

Those who challenge the IPCC’s authority are often ignored. Numerous science academies have blessed its efforts, so who are we to question? This week those academies began to act like grownups in relation to this wayward child. The report, authored by a committee assembled by the InterAcademy Council (a collection of science bodies from around the world), blows smoking holes through just about everything the IPCC’s chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has been telling us. [113-page report PDF]

PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE
In February 2008 Pachauri declared to a committee of the North Carolina legislature (as he has in many other contexts before and since), that:

…we carry out an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry [the] credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that. [bold added]

But the InterAcademy report matter-of-factly tells the world that an analysis of the IPCC’s third assessment report found only 84% of the source material cited by Working Group 1 was peer-reviewed, only 59% cited by Working Group 2 was, and only 36% cited by Working Group 3 met this standard.

Another key recommendation is that, from now on, IPCC lead authors should “document that they have considered the full range of thoughtful views, even if these views do not appear” in the final IPCC reports. The InterAcademy committee observes that the IPCC’s embarrassing Himalayan glacier error could have been avoided had it merely listened to its own expert reviewers. The mistake was noticed, but the IPCC “did not change the text.”

In that instance alone, the IPCC system failed in three ways. First, the IPCC authors chose to rely on an unsubstantiated claim in a non-peer-reviewed document. Then these authors failed to take seriously the feedback from the IPCC’s expert reviewers – who pointed out that peer-reviewed material contained more cautious and equivocal conclusions. Finally, the review editors for that chapter failed to ensure that the expert feedback was properly addressed.

Pachauri Defrocked « NoFrakkingConsensus

 

[IanC]

of course the IAC panel investigating the IPCC wasnt exactly open and transparent either

Which brings me to Hilary’s lonely campaign to secure a satisfactory explanation regarding the missing submissions to last year’s InterAcademy Council (IAC) examination of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Please read her blog posts here and here.

The short version is that, when the IAC report appeared at the end of last August, it said that “more than 400 individuals” had responded to a questionnaire and that “a compilation of all of the responses, with identifiers removed, is available.”

Except that it wasn’t. Hilary asked about it and was advised the information would be released soon. Except that it wasn’t. In October she was once again told it would be soon. But that didn’t happen, either. During November and December her follow-up inquiries were ignored.

Finally, she wrote directly to Harold Shapiro, the head of the committee that authored the report. Neither he nor anyone else chose to respond to her directly, but a 678-page PDF was quietly added to the IAC website in late December.

In my view, the contents of that document rival Climategate in their significance (for further elaboration on that point, please see here). The problem, though, is that the submissions of only 232 people are included. Since we’ve been told there were more than 400 it would seem that nearly half have not yet seen the light of day.

Why not? And why won’t a single person respond to Hilary’s request for clarification? If the report was mistaken about the total number of submissions, why doesn’t someone just say so? Whatever the explanation turns out to be, it’s surely preferable to stonewalling.

The Missing Questionnaires « NoFrakkingConsensus

 

[IanC]

or how about the credentials of those extra-special, super-de-dooper experts that work for the IPCC?

In 1994, Kovats was one of only 21 people in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter that examined how climate change might affect human health. She was 25 years old. Her first academic paper wouldn’t be published for another three years. It would be six years before she’d even begin her doctoral studies and 16 years before she’d graduate.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this about how IPCC authors are selected:

There is a very careful process of selection…These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of publications, on the research that they have done…They are people who are at the top of their profession as far as research is concerned in a particular aspect of climate change…you can’t think of a better set of qualified people than what we have in the IPCC. [bold added]

Academically speaking, Kovats was invisible back in 1994. That anyone connected to the IPCC could have considered her a scientific expert is astonishing.

I’m sorry to say that that was just the beginning. When it came time to write the next version of the climate bible, Kovats received a promotion. She was selected to be a lead author, again for the health chapter – despite the fact that her doctoral studies wouldn’t begin until the year the IPCC report was published.

What do we suppose happened with the next edition of the climate bible – the one that appeared in 2007, still three full years before Kovats earned her doctorate? Was she selected once again to be a health chapter lead author? You betcha.

But by then the IPCC, in its wisdom, had decided she was a scientific expert in other areas, as well. Kovats served as a contributing author for three additional chapters in Working Group 2:

Chapter 1 – Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems
Chapter 6 – Coastal Systems and Low-lying Areas
Chapter 12 – Europe

The Strange Case of Sari Kovats « NoFrakkingConsensus

well, at least she finally did get her PhD in 2010. sixteen years after the IPCC hired her as an expert.