Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Meteorologist's poll finds no consensus on climate change & those with liberal political views far more likely to believe in man-made global warming

Meteorologists’ views about global warming:
A survey of American Meteorological Society
professional members

Meteorologists and other atmospheric science experts are playing important roles in helping society respond to climate change. Members of this professional community are not unanimous in their views of climate change, and there has been tension among members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) who hold different views on the topic.
In January 2012, the AMS surveyed its members via email and found 52 percent believe global warming is happening and is mostly human-caused, while 48 percent do not. The survey also found that scientists with professed liberal political views were far more likely to believe global warming is human-caused than others.
Authors of the survey recommended that the AMS should “acknowledge and explore the uncomfortable fact that political ideology influences the climate change views of meteorology professionals; refute the idea that those who do hold non-majority views just need to be “educated” about climate change; [and] continue to deal with the conflict among members of the meteorology community.”
The “early online release” of the survey, to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is available for free viewing athttp://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1.

13 comments:

  1. see also

    http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2013/11/25/meteorologists-bail-on-global-warming-n1752592/page/full

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  2. The 52/48 percentages are not directly from the study. Is that calculation yours or a quote from somewhere else?
    I see how it was arrived at but it's a pretty misleading summary of the studies actual findings:
    "A very large majority of respondents (89%) indicated that global warming is happening; in contrast few indicated it isn’t happening (4%), or that they “don’t know” (7%). Respondents who indicated that global warming is happening were asked their views about its primary causes; a large majority indicted that human activity (59%), or human activity and natural causes in more or less equal amounts (11%), were the primary causes. Relatively few respondents indicated that the warning is caused primarily by natural causes (6%), although a substantial minority (23%) indicated they don’t believe enough is yet know to determine the degree of human or natural causation."

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    1. From Dr. Judith Curry's site:

      Look at the views in column 1, then look at the % in the rightmost column: 52% state the the warming since 1850 is mostly anthropogenic. One common categorization would categorize the other 48% as ‘deniers’.

      http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/10/the-52-consensus/

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    2. Nope nowhere does it says anything about 52 percent believe global warming, while 48 percent do not.

      And this is not a survey its a analyse.

      "Our findings regarding the degree of consensus about human-caused climate change
      among the most expert meteorologists are similar to those of Doran and Zimmerman (2009):
      93% of actively publishing climate scientists indicated they are convinced that humans have
      contributed to global warming. Our findings also revealed that majorities of experts view human
      activity as the primary cause of recent climate change: 78% of climate experts actively
      publishing on climate change, 73% of all people actively publishing on climate change, and 62%
      of active publishers who mostly do not publish on climate change. These results, together with
      those of other similar studies, suggest high levels of expert consensus about human-caused
      climate change (Farnsworth & Lichter 2012, Bray 2010)."

      You oblivious didn't do you homework. Why don't you read your own sources?

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  3. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2013/11/25/meteorologists-bail-on-global-warming-n1752592

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  4. Read Dr Curry's post above. Column 1 in the paper does show only 52% agree with the IPCC consensus that most of the warming since 1850 is anthropogenic.

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  5. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/nuttercelli-37-is-the-new-97/

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/02/mail-wars-heartland-vs-the-ams/

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  6. see also Dr. Curry's followup post on the 52% consensus:

    http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/30/week-in-review-6/

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  7. To fall into the alarmist category you have to pass three tests: 1. Belief that warming is occurring. 2. That the warming is human caused. 3. That the warming will have catastrophic consequences. 89% pass the first test in the survey. But that figure would include many skeptics. 59% of 89%, or 52.5% pass through the second wicket. But the third criteria was (apparently) not even considered. So the alarmist "consensus" is not valid.

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  8. My question is - How many of those who agreed that humans are mostly responsible for global warming believe that the warming we have experienced so far is catastrophic? Certainly it cannot be 100% of those in the warming group.

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  9. The real problem here is the perversion of science and conflation with politics. The push-back from many scientists has been the force-feeding of a pre-conceived hypothesis and silencing of critics. Although I myself am a trained scientist, the over-reliance on models for prediction and then the media spouting the what-if scenarios as if they are robust predictions, has been the real source of feedback. When is the last time you saw a scientific discussion on climate natural variability, the problem with temperature data manipulation, uncertainty, signal Fourier theory when considering periodicity in data, etc.? I know a thing or two about metrology (not meteorology) and temperature measurement and if you don't use primary standards in your calibrations, no amount of ex post facto data manipulation will get you better uncertainty. I don't buy the arguments for such data homogenization and averaging. If you are compensating for Urban Heat island effect the adjustments are in the wrong direction! Why are the adjustments in perfect lock-step with CO2 concentrations? Let's make this transparent and discuss it. If climate alarmists have a legitimate argument to back them up, then why do they submit themselves to the fair scientific accusations of data manipulation? We have to determine the effect of urban heat island effect vs. greenhouse effect, whether a warmer arctic results in more radiated heat to space, whether the jet stream is affected by solar activity or thermal action, whether ocean acidification is a result of waste water treatment (local effects) or a more global phenomenon, whether greater carbon fixation from increased CO2 is a net benefit or a problem (note most plants are CO2 starved), and so on. Once scientists start looking at these areas with real science and not emotion or ad hominem or even legal battles, then us skeptics will start to trust the alarmist position more.

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  10. Methodology is seriously flawed in the this paper. Right from their choice of H1. It is well known that funding flows to alarmist scientists actively publishing in their field. Without controlling for this variable (funding) this exercise is completely moot. One should look at a population of well credentialed scientists and compare opinions from those actively seeking funding for their AGW research vs. those that are retired or for whatever reason not reliant upon funding of AGW research for their livelihood and then compare those two populations. H2 is interesting because the hypothesis itself proves the point that we scientists have been making about the AGW hypothesis, that much of it is politically driven. In real science the political bent of the scientist should have no bearing on the results. The AGW hypothesis is exceptional in this sense. H3 and H4 are really controlling for the investigator's susceptibility to Group Think. Finally, this type of survey has a 500lb gorilla in the room in the low response rate as has been mentioned in other posts. It is highly conceivable that respondents answering this survey would be much more likely to respond if they hold a "consensus view" vs. those that hold the contrarian view due to fear of reprisals.

    Despite all these fallacies and poor design, the results are still amazingly low on the consensus numbers vs. what has previously been represented to the public, i.e. 97%, etc.

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