Talk:Scientific consensus on climate change/Archive 3

message: From wikipedia's own "think tank" page:
"
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition has also worked to cast doubt on the scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming, as have a number of conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute--all of whom receive large contributions from petroleum industry companies like ExxonMobil and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
"
(go to the Think Tank page and you will see several citations)
This certainly deserves a mention on this page. Such think tanks are a big force in this ongoing debate and its worth mentioning where they get their funding from. Any ideas on the best way to work this into the page?
160.39.208.20 17:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't have much to do with *sci* op. How about global warming controversy William M. Connolley 18:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  good call 160.39.208.20 18:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Think tanks 

message: It seems to me the viewpoints of the scientists at NASA's Global Hydrology and Climate Center should be represented here.  Take a look at the globally averaged atmospheric temperatures and see if you can see an upward trend.   I came across this site by a link from a web page by John Brignell.    A short bio of Dr. Brignell is here.  RonCram 01:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The satellite temperature record already has its own article. Note that while the graphs on the NASA page appear to be current, the text is outdated (it refers to a report that "will be completed in 2005"). Raymond Arritt 03:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, the red plot in the diagram (:Image:Satellite_Temperatures.png) on that page is Christy's data (the same used on the page Ron links to), which, after his latest corrections. Although it still is the most conservative interpretation of the raw data, it now shows a clear warming trend. --Stephan Schulz 07:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Satellite measurements 

message: I cut:
: ''
The Oreskes essay in Science claiming a consensus for man-made global warming was criticised within weeks of its appearance by Appell and Peiser. This led to an correction from Oreskes in the same journal, stating that she had reported a literature search based on the words 'climate change' when in fact had used the term 'global climate change'. When this literature search was repeated by Peiser he found that only 1% of the scientific research paper abstracts for the period in question explicitly supported a man-made origin for recent climate change. http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm Peiser subsequently set out every one of the abstracts, by year, so others could more easily judge the issue for themselves. http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm''
...though somewhat reluctantly since its getting more reasonable. Minor problem is that I don't think Appell crit it; he was merely inquiring. Major problem is that most of the text is over the rather trivial correction of the keywords used: this isn't really important. Peisers letter is strongly spun to his viewpoint; and the fact that it was rejected isn't noted.
See-also http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/#more. Note from that Peiser saying Let me correct another canard, the claim that Peiser didn’t take Oreskes' abstracts, he changed the search� I used exactly the same data bank (ISI Web of Science) as Oreskes, and selected the same period of time (1993--2003). Everybody with access to ISI can confirm that a key word search for "global climate change" will produce 1,247 documents (of which only 1117 have abstracts). I repeat: Oreskes got her figures wrong. Peiser spent quite some time insisting that he was correct and Oreskes wrong; judging by  he has now finally accepted this is wrong.
How about trying to write an NPOV version here in talk? 
My version would be: Oreskes' article has been criticised by Peiser  who asserted that there were abstracts explicitly rejecting the consensus ; this claim was not published and was doubted elsewhere 
William M. Connolley 12:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peiser again, again 

message: maybe this is worth adding http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6098362.stm --87.127.117.246 14:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Stern Review 

message: Lord Monckton has a very readable analysis.  Here are some excerpts:
:FIGURES in the final draft of the UN’s fourth five-year report on climate change show that the previous report, in 2001, had overestimated the human influence on the climate since the Industrial Revolution by at least one-third.
:Also, the UN, in its 2007 report, has more than halved its high-end best estimate of the rise in sea level by 2100 from 3 feet to just 17 inches. It suggests that the rate of sea-level rise is up from 2mm/yr to 3mm/year – no more than one foot in a century.
:UN scientists faced several problems their computer models had not predicted. Globally, temperature is not rising at all, and sea level is not rising anything like as fast as had been forecast. Concentrations of methane in the air are actually falling.
:The Summary for Policymakers was issued February 2, 2007, but the report on which the Summary is based will not be published until May. This strange separation of the publication dates has raised in some minds the possibility that the Summary (written by political representatives of governments) will be taken as a basis for altering the science chapters (written by scientists, and supposedly finalized and closed in December 2006).
:The draft of the science chapters, now being circulated to governments for last-minute comments, reveals that the tendency of computers to over-predict rises in temperature and sea level has forced a major rethink.
:The report’s generally more cautiously-expressed projections confirm scientists’ warnings that the UN’s heavy reliance on computer models had exaggerated the temperature effect of greenhouse-gas emissions.
You can read the full report here.  RonCram 01:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or read this instead William M. Connolley 19:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Monckton's analysis of 4AR

message: Roger Pielke Sr has recently reaffirmed his support for the American Association of State Climatologists statement that there is no way to confidently and accurately predict the climate.    See the report here.  RonCram 20:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The AASC statement is more than 5 years old and carefully worded to say essentially nothing beyond common sense banalities. And Pielke does not say "there is no way to confidently and accurately predict the climate", he says "there is no peer reviewed support in the scientific literature for the claim of skillful regional multi-decadal regional forecasts" (emphasis added, duplicated "regional" from the original source). So he does not even say the models have no skill to do regional prediction (only that there is no support for this in the literature), much less that they cannot predict climate in general. --Stephan Schulz 20:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the report is 5 years old when Pielke was a state climatogist at the time (I believe) but the report is not meaningless.  Pielke expressed his support recently.  Perhaps more importantly, the facts bear this out.  There has been no increase in global temperature since the report was issued. (Okay, someone might argue there was an increase of 0.03C but that is less than the margin for error so it is meaningless.)  The oceans are cooling, surface temperatures are not going up, the IPCC is lowering their projections for 2100 and increasing the size of their error bars.  All of this seems to confirm the statement by the Association: "Climate prediction is complex with many uncertainties – The AASC recognizes climate prediction is an extremely difficult undertaking.  For time scales of a decade or more, understanding the empirical accuracy of such predictions – called “verification” – is simply impossible, since we have to wait a decade or longer to assess the accuracy of the forecasts."  RonCram 21:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is there any point to this? William M. Connolley 21:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  I just think this article should represent this association of scientists.  I haven't had time to work on writing the section that would describe the document for the article, yet. I will get to it, unless you want to take the first stab at it. RonCram 22:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course "State Climatologist" is a political assignment, and the AASC is a rather small association, compared to, say, the Americal Chemical Society. Still, we have them here.  The "report" is not a report, but just a statement, and one that explicitely acknowledges "that human activities have an influence on the climate system [...] not limited to greenhouse gas forcing and [that] include changing land use and sulfate emissions". It's even more restrained than Pielke, talking not about the difficulty of predicting regional climate effects in general, but only "growing season, drought, flood-producing rainfall, heat waves, tropical cyclones and winter storms", contrasting this with "annual average global temperature trends", the predictability of which they do not deny. Your (or is this Monckton's?) reading of the AR4 SPM is plain wrong. I suggest you read William's reply, linked above. --Stephan Schulz 23:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Roger Pielke Sr and the American Association of State Climatologists

message: Why have an external link to an interview with Timothy Ball on this page? There is a separate page for climate skeptics where his bio is linked; his views certainly don't jibe with the majority. I propose to remove this external link. If anyone feels we need more external links reflecting the majority view, that would be easy to add several. Birdbrainscan 15:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Normally I'd suggest to be bold, but User: Mnyakko  might [http: //wiki.racetotheright.com/GW_Bias archive] your evil deeds! --Stephan Schulz 15:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timothy Ball?

message: Is there any list on people and organisations sceptic on climate change? It would be nice to have such a thing in order to check new "studies" critical of global warming. --84.178.119.155 15:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See :category:  global warming skeptics and Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming.--Stephan Schulz 16:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: scepticism list?

message: Shouldn't a section titled Scientific opinion on climate change contain all the "Scientific opinion on climate change" wether or not it supports the "human-caused warming" Theory?  Should this not be included?--Zeeboid 16:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a difference between the scientific opinion (the well-considered synthesis of the published scientific literature on a topic), and an individual scientists opinion. Which significant published opinion do you think is missing? --Stephan Schulz 20:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section [Survey of US State Climatologists] is not a well-considered synthesis of published scientific literature, yet still exists on this page.  There is no qualifier for what counts as "Scientific Opinion on Climate Change" for the Scientific opinion on climate change article except what appears to be to keep the current POV fork intact.--Zeeboid 21:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an attempt to gauge the opinion (or, as I suspect in this case, an attempt to mis-gauge it). The article is not "the" scientific opinion on climate change (we try to describe that at global warming), it is "about" the scientific opinion on climate change. And, as far as I'm concerned, the survey can go. It has, at best, historical value. But I strongly suspect that if I remove it, there will be plenty of cries about "censorship" and "the conspiracy".--Stephan Schulz 21:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you are choosing not to follow the [Assume good faith] Policy?  This sounds like an issue for a Wikipedia editor, no?--Zeeboid 21:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:AGF applies to Wikipedia contributors, not to a lobbying group like Citizens for a Sound Economy. BTW, for Wikipedia articles, you can use much nicer (and easier) Wiki links: This links to the same article you linked to. --Stephan Schulz 21:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I'm sure you will explain why you bring up a lobbying group...--Zeeboid 22:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm...because the Survey of US State Climatologists that you linked to was performed by that group? Did you read what you wrote? --Stephan Schulz 22:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: To answer your question, yes, I did read what I wrote.  Did you read what you wrote?  Did you read what I wrote?  Did you read what others wrote?  The Survey of US State Climatologists that I braught up is not a "well-considered synthesis of published scientific literature" and should not be in ths page based on your qualifications (which seam to change based on the arguement and what you want to stay or exclude).  What does your yelping about a lobbying group have to do with it?  I never mentioned that as a reason that item shouldn't be on the page, so please educate me, I fail to see where your smart-allic remark asking me if I read what I wrote applies.--Zeeboid 15:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we are talking at cross purposes. This article should discuss the scientific opinion on climate change, i.e. the well-considered synthesis of the published scientific literature on a topic. Since we don't have a nice opiniometer, we report on the various attempts at gauging it. The G8 academies of science report it, Oreskes analyses it, the various surveys try to find it (or, as I wrote above, possibly try to miss-find it - I took your AGF complaint to refer to my mistrust of Citizens for a Sound Economy, to which WP:AGF does not apply, as I pointed out), the IPCC collects and publishes it. An individual scientists opinion on climate change is irrelevant. An individual scientists opinion on the scientific opinion on climate change is relevant (and may or may not be notable). --Stephan Schulz 15:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Where is the Scientific Opinion against human caused Global Warming?

message: How about "scientific assessment of climate change"?  Laypeople often equate "opinion" with a guess.  "Assessment" would also parallel the various assessment reports that have been done. Raymond Arritt 21:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as we are talking about a title change, there's another problem -- you might say that global warming actually is the article that documents the scientific opinion on climate change, and this article documents the extent to which that opinion is supported, or something like that.  It would be nice to somehow make it clear in the title. --Nethgirb 21:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Time for a title change?

message: User:Stephan Schulz
User:William M. Connolley
User:Raymond arritt
User:Count Iblis
POV Pushing on this article.
:: POV pushing because we have deleted the Oregon Petition??? That's a bit like accusing someone who deletes, say, Nazi propaganda cited from Goebbels in an article about Jews of POV pushing  :) . Non reliable sources should always be replaced by reliable sources. The Oregon petition itself is not a reliable source. Count Iblis 15:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on your opinion, and your views, its not reliable.  But I would argue that your opinion means nothing.  The wiki policies however mean more.--Zeeboid 15:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Read the article about the Oregon Petition and read the wiki policies about Reliable Sources. Count Iblis 15:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Check

message: Petitions never were part of the article, as is clear from its history. The line about petitions was added solely as clarification after certain parties insisted on adding them. Thus, the claim that removing the clarification amounts to a "change in focus" is not merely unfounded, but turns the situation on its head. Raymond Arritt 16:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The OP is an example of a large group of scientists who agree in their assessment.  It is peer reviewed.  It is also "scientific opinion as given by synthesis reports" It meets your qualifications until it was added, then you noted that "petitions" don't count either.  Then you change the requirements so it can't be added.  This is POV Pushing at its worst. and I can not believe wikipedian admins would allow it.--Zeeboid 17:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reality Check

message: User:Stephan Schulz
User:William M. Connolley
User:Raymond arritt
User:Count Iblis
POV Pushing on this article once again, removing items they do not agree with and altering the opening paragraph to exclude additional information.--Zeeboid 17:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whops, sorry for pasting you into this.  WMC, could you please explain to us your removal of the NPOV Tag??--Zeeboid 02:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because there is no justification for it. You failed to get your inappropriate material into the article; resorting to tagging as a bludgeon is an old and pointless tactic William M. Connolley 07:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Check again

message: Raymond Arritt removed the statement that the AAPG is the only dissenting org.  However, we do have a verifiable source saying that "The AAPG stands alone among scientific societies in its denial of human-induced effects on global warming." , as cited in the article. So it seems like that is enough, since our standard is verifiability, not truth, unless we have comparably verifiable sources contradicting that statement.  (Note that in that same document Fred Singer tries to demonstrate that some figure in the US Climate Change Science Program contradicts AGW theory but by his own admission the statement itself does support AGW—so that does not appear to count.) --Nethgirb 11:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, agreed on both counts. Raymond Arritt 15:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The only dissenting organization? 

message: I was thinking of adding a short section documenting statements (subject to the conditions for inclusion in this article) which address the issue of whether or not there exists a scientific consensus on GW.  That info seems to be missing from the GW pages. And this article seems to be the an appropriate place, rather than Global warming controversy, which is bloated and deals more with controversy than the scientific opinion. Feel free to comment... --Nethgirb 22:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus 

message: I think something went wrong with this edit. It looks as if some tool has embedded all the CSS directly into the article, or as if someone paseted the generated HTML source instead of the Wiki-source. Alex, can you veriify this? Raymond has reverted it, because it was an unmaintainable and uneditable mess. --Stephan Schulz 18:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Last edit by [[User:Alex.rosenheim]]