Climate change consensus study examined
I've had several people ask about the study Al Gore talked about in his movie, which found no scientific papers disputing the reality of human-caused climate change over the past ten years. Well, to be sure, there have been a few papers disputing the reality of human-caused climate change published in the past ten years, but they didn't happen to have the key words "global climate change" included in their citations. The study Gore cites was published in December 2004 in Science magazine by Naomi Oreskes, a professor at UC San Diego. The article examined peer-reviewed studies in the world's major scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 containing the phrase "global climate change" as keywords. Oreskes found that 75% of the 928 articles with those key words in their citations agreed with the consensus position stated by the UN's panel on climate change, that the observed global warming over the past 50 years has been caused in part by human activity. The other 25% of the papers took no position, and none of the papers disagreed with the consensus view. While the study is not a perfect measure of the scientific uncertainty in the published literature, the study does show that an overwhelming majority of published scientific research supports the idea that human activity is significantly modifying Earth's climate.
As Gore noted in his movie, the situation is quite different in the media, where about half of the stories in the study he cited cast doubt on the reality of human-caused climate change. The media are fond of trying to report both sides of an issue, so in the name of journalistic fairness, the public is receiving a highly skewed view of the scientific debate on climate change. In many cases, the opposing views presented by the media are from fossil fuel industry-funded "think tanks" that routinely put out distorted and misleading science intended to confuse the public.
I've collected a list of climate change position papers put out by the major governmental scientific institutes of the world that deal with the atmosphere, ocean, and climate. All of these organizations agree that significant human-caused climate change is occurring:
United Nations IPCC
American Meteorological Society
NOAA
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
NASA
EPA
American Geophysical Union
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Royal Society of the United Kingdom
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Science Council of Japan, Russian Academy of Science, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Chinese Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, Indian National Science Academy, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy), Royal Society (UK)
Australian Academy of Sciences, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Caribbean Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, Indian National Science Academy, Indonesian Academy of Sciences, Royal Irish Academy, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy), Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Royal Society (UK)
If anyone can find examples of governmental scientific organizations that deny the consensus position, I'd be happy to make a second list of links. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have long been hostile to international climate change negotiations, so their scientific organizations may well have official positions opposing the consensus. However, the Saudis are apparently changing their stance, as announced in May 2006 at a U.N. sponsored meeting in Germany. "I believe the petroleum industry should actively engage in policy debate on climate change as well as play an active role in developing and implementing carbon management technologies to meet future challenges," said the president of the Saudi state-run oil industry giant, Aramco. In 2005, both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases. The Protocol does not call on them to reduce their emissions.
In summary, there is an overwhelming level of scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Those who defend the contrary view are fond of pointing out that we shouldn't stifle their opposing point of view, since heroes like Galileo with his sun-centered solar system view and Wegener with his continental drift theory both challenged the overwhelming scientific consensus of their day and were proved to be correct. That is true. However, Galileo and Wegener did not have the public relations staff of multi-billion dollar companies helping them promote their contrary views. I'm not too worried about the contrarian view of human-caused climate change being stifled, and contrarians are encouraged to publish in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. I would like to see the media sharply reduce their coverage of the contrary views of such think tanks as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Foundation, and scientists such as S. Fred Singer of SEPP. Getting one's climate science information from these sources it similar to getting one's news from a tabloid newspaper. Sure, some of the stories are true, but a lot of the material is of questionable quality, to say the least. The media should focus on getting their scientific information from leading scientists who regularly publish in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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SJ
SEE TROPICAL WAVE SECTION ABOVE. IN ADDITION...A SURFACE TROUGH
REMAINS OVER THE BAHAMAS ALONG 30N70W 22N75W. SCATTERED
MODERATE TO ISOLATED STRONG CONVECTION IS E OF THE TROUGH FROM
24N-28N BETWEEN 70W-73W. A STRONG 1035 MB HIGH IS OVER THE
CENTRAL ATLANTIC NEAR 42N38W DOMINATING THE ATLANTIC N OF 20N
BETWEEN 10W-65W. IN THE UPPER LEVELS... ANTICYCLONIC FLOW IS
OVER FLORIDA AND THE W ATLANTIC N OF 27N AND W OF 76W. A TINY
CYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS CENTERED NEAR 27N73W. A RIDGE IS
FURTHER E...N OF 20N BETWEEN 60W-70W. A LARGE CYCLONIC
CIRCULATION IS CENTERED NEAR 33N42W. CYCLONIC FLOW IS N OF 15N
BETWEEN 30W-60W. A RIDGE IS N OF 20N BETWEEN 20W-30W. A
CYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS ALONG THE COAST OF MOROCCO NEAR
32N11W.
$$
FORMOSA
no mention of the disturbance not forming.
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
530 PM EDT WED JUN 21 2006
FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC...CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO...
SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW A CONCENTRATED AREA OF SHOWERS AND
THUNDERSTORMS CENTERED ABOUT 250 MILES NORTHEAST OF THE NORTHERN
BAHAMAS. THERE ARE NO SIGNS OF A SURFACE CIRCULATION AT THIS TIME
AND UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE NOT FAVORABLE FOR SIGNIFICANT
DEVELOPMENT. THIS ACTIVITY WILL LIKELY SPREAD TOWARD THE
WEST-NORTHWEST DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.
ELSEWHERE... TROPICAL STORM FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED THROUGH
THURSDAY.
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
I am jumping off the nearest bridge the next time i hear that garbage.....lol
SJ
Alec, yes there is no LLC but there is a center of cyclonic circulation.
That being said, The guy who had the idea of having the NHC guys and gals forecast anonymously and in no association with the NHC would be very interesting to see.
SJ
I admit I can now see some definite cyclonic turning roughly around 27.3N 73W. It is pulling a west wind below, probably in the mid levels. But will that persist through the night, or just spin off to the north or NE and dissipate?
- A TINY
CYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS CENTERED NEAR 27N73W.
SJ
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
Head on, Apply directly to the forehead
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT UP HERE TOO! NO NO NO AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
lmao
SJ
SJ
I like the big WV loop on the RAP site for looking at the continental US. Take a look, that rain might make it to you before sunrise, with any luck...
ATLANTIC OCEAN...
SEE TROPICAL WAVE SECTION ABOVE. IN ADDITION...A SURFACE TROUGH
REMAINS OVER THE BAHAMAS ALONG 30N70W 22N75W. SCATTERED
MODERATE TO ISOLATED STRONG CONVECTION IS E OF THE TROUGH FROM
24N-28N BETWEEN 70W-73W. A STRONG 1035 MB HIGH IS OVER THE
CENTRAL ATLANTIC NEAR 42N38W DOMINATING THE ATLANTIC N OF 20N
BETWEEN 10W-65W. IN THE UPPER LEVELS... ANTICYCLONIC FLOW IS
OVER FLORIDA AND THE W ATLANTIC N OF 27N AND W OF 76W. A TINY
CYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS CENTERED NEAR 27N73W. A RIDGE IS
FURTHER E...N OF 20N BETWEEN 60W-70W. A LARGE CYCLONIC
CIRCULATION IS CENTERED NEAR 33N42W. CYCLONIC FLOW IS N OF 15N
BETWEEN 30W-60W. A RIDGE IS N OF 20N BETWEEN 20W-30W. A
CYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS ALONG THE COAST OF MOROCCO NEAR
32N11W.
Global Warming. It's amazing that people get so wound up over something so quantifiable.
As far as I can tell, most put the warmup at about .5C in the last 100 years. So what?
Wake me up when they know the answers to the following:
*Is T increasing at an increasing rate? How many years/decades before they really know? (Guess- a LOT)
*Is it caused by CO2? I've heard credible theories that suggest H2O vapor is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, and smaller changes in water vapor are a bigger deal for heat retention. Is water vapor increasing? Is someone suggesting we are causing that?
*If it is CO2, are our activities the cause? There's been times where the atmosphere has had higher CO2 in the past, as well as times when the O2 level has been higher than it is now. Man is obviously not the cause of either of those conditions. Why are we now?
I just don't get the jump from "Global Warming" to "man is the cause, and we need to do something about it.". Seems to me we should be figuring out how to live with it.
Instead of experimenting with terraforming our only planet, I would suggest we build our houses further away from the water, and plant more tropical fruit.
Keep our air as clean as we can, but please, spare me the Kyoto-like constraints on growth which have already been deemed useless- by the signatories themselves. The fact that we can't control it tells me we aren't the ones causing it in the first place, IMHO.
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