Welcome to the last part of our series on The Heartland Institute’s report on global warming. You should read the first three parts if you haven’t already (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). In this series I’ve focused a lot on how the NIPCC report frames the issue. They use emotional hooks to sway readers, focus on opinions rather than data, and use vague references to make it difficult to verify their claims. This was done intentionally to get people to feel that global warming is false without looking at the evidence. It is propaganda, not science. Now, it may be that global warming is false, but it’s clear the Heartland Institute isn’t interested in proving it. They just want you to believe it’s false. But if you’ve made it this far in the series, I assume you’d like to look at the actual science. What does fair and honest research say about climate change? 

There’s just one catch. I’m not a climate scientist. So in the large scale of things I’m not qualified to assess all the nitty gritty details of climate research. There are lots of folks that can, but I’m not that guy. I can’t tell you whether global warming is real (though I do think it is). But I am an astrophysicist. I’ve even written a book on computational astrophysics. So what I do know pretty well is astrophysics and how to do scientific research. With that in mind, I want to look at one particular claim made by the report. It’s the section called “Modern Warming Is Not Unnatural” on pages 76-78.

The section opens by claiming the IPCC assumes rising temperatures could not be due to natural causes, calling it a “false postulate.” Once again the authors have framed the issue. The IPCC assumes their conclusion, rather than being open to natural causes. So if the Heartland Institute report can show warming has natural causes, you can dismiss the IPCC’s claim.  The report then states:

Even assuming, wrongly, that global temperatures would have been unchanging in the absence of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the correctness of IPCC’s assertion depends upon the period of time considered (Davis and Bohling, 2001). For example, temperatures have been cooling since 8,000 and 2,000 years ago; warming since 20,000 years ago, and also since 1850; and static (no net warming or cooling) between 700 BC and 150AD and since 1997 AD.

These warming and cooling periods are well known in climate science. The warming from 20,000 to 8,000 years ago brought the end to the last great ice age. The cooling period from 8,000 to 2,000 years ago is known as the Holocene cooling, since it occurred in the Holocene (human era). Climate scientists agree that these are real and due to natural causes. But these aren’t modern. The only “modern” warming trend it lists starts in 1850. It also states that there has been no net warming since 1997.   We’ll come back to that one later.

The NIPCC report gives two temperature graphs as examples. One covering the past 2,000 years, and another covering the past 10,000 years. You can see the second one below:

Temperature graph taken from p77 of the NIPCC report.

The blue line shows historical temperatures as calculated from ice core samples in Greenland. It shows several spikes in temperature where there have been warming periods. The green line is a trend line, and it shows that over the past several thousand years temperatures have gradually been falling. Maybe we’re due for a warming period after all. But there are a couple of problems with this graph. The first is that it only gives us temperatures in Greenland, not the world as a whole. The second is that this graph ends 95 years before 1950. It doesn’t show any data since 1855, so the “modern warming trend” isn’t even shown. Neither of the graphs in the report show temperatures since 1855.  So let’s look at a graph of average global temperatures over the past 10,000 years, including the present era.

A graph of global temperatures for the past 10,000 years. Credit: Klaus Bitterman.

This graph comes from A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years (Marcott et al.) a paper published in the journal Science in 2013. The graph combines 73 sets of temperature measurements from all over the world, rather than just one. The blue line is the best fit of the data, while the pale blue represents the uncertainty range. You’ll also notice the red spike. That’s our current warming trend (up until 1990). The paper is particularly interesting because it looks at the very claim the NIPCC report makes, namely that the Earth has gone through natural warming and cooling trends for thousands of years. What Marcott et al. find is that we now have “a global temperature higher than those during 90% of the entire Holocene.”  We’ll get back to that in a bit.

Both the NIPCC report and the Marcott paper agree that there has been a cooling trend during the Holocene. But what could be the natural cause? The answer comes from astrophysics.

Our seasons are caused by the axial tilt of the Earth. Because the Earth’s axis is tilted about 23 degrees relative to its orbit, the Sun appears higher in the sky in Summer, and lower in the sky in Winter. When the Sun is higher in the sky, you get more solar energy per square foot, and when it’s lower you get less. This is known as insolation. Now when it is Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so that by itself doesn’t affect global temperatures. However, Earth’s axial tilt can change over time. When the tilt is less, seasons can be less extreme, and when the tilt is larger, seasons can be more extreme. The same is true with Earth’s orbit. Earth’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, but a slight ellipse. Because of the gravitational tug from other planets, this gradually shifts over time. The Earth’s axis also precesses over time. These are known as Milankovitch cycles, and they mean that terrestrial insolation changes slightly over time.

The graph above shows how insolation varies over time in the Northern Hemisphere due to the Milankovitch cycles. That warming trend from 20,000 to 8,000 years ago? That corresponds to a gradual rise in insolation. The gradual decrease of insolation corresponds to the Holocene cooling. So it looks like the large periods of warming and cooling are driven by changes in insolation. I think we can agree with the first part of the NIPCC report, that historical variations in global temperatures occurred, and they had natural causes. It’s due in part to Earth’s orbital cycles, which climate scientists have been studying since the 1920s.

So what about the report’s second claim that modern temperature variations are also due to natural causes? This is where the NIPCC report gets really interesting. The report shows no graph of modern global temperatures. Nothing past the 1800s. I found a graph pretty easily, and it was published three years before the NIPCC report was published. The authors could have included a modern graph, but chose not to. They also make no mention of Milankovitch cycles or the variation of insolation. They don’t mention it because while it does explain earlier warming and cooling trends, it doesn’t explain the current one. If you look at the insolation graph above, you’ll see levels will still go down for the next few thousand years, so the natural trend would be global cooling. But global temperatures are actually rising. They are as high as the warmest period of the Holocene, when insolation levels were about 10% higher than they are today.

Instead of looking at this, the NIPCC report notes two periods of global warming in the twentieth century to make its case. One from 1910-1940, and one from 1975 – 2000. The report doesn’t have any temperature graphs of these periods, so here’s one taken from global temperature measurements collected by research teams all over the world.

If you look at the graph, sure enough between 1910 – 1940 there is a gradual rise in temperature. Then it cools off  a bit for a few decades, but nowhere near what it was before 1910. Then from 1975 – 2000 things are getting warmer again. Here’s what the NIPCC report says about them on page 78:

The first period (1910–1940), having occurred prior to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, must represent natural variability. Measurements made during the late twentieth century warming are likely exaggerated by inadequate correction for the urban heat island effect (DeLaat and Maurellis, 2004; McKitrick and Michaels, 2004, 2007).

In other words, the first one happened before the big rise in CO₂ levels, so it must be natural. The second occurs during rising CO₂ levels, but it’s probably due to biased data. Since the authors think the first warming agrees with their hypothesis, they don’t question the accuracy of the data. Since the second warming doesn’t support their hypothesis, they question the data. This is known as confirmation bias.

Good scientists are aware of this bias. If the authors of this report were good scientists, they would look at it very closely. But the authors only cite three papers without any further discussion. The three papers (DeLaat and Maurellis, 2004; McKitrick and Michaels, 2004; McKitrick and Michaels, 2007)  look at what is known as the urban heat effect. The basic idea is that many temperature readings are taken near heavily populated areas. Cities are big concrete jungles with lots of people, so they produce a lot of heat. What if the local heat from urban areas contaminate the measurements? Global temperature data would be off.  The references listed discuss how this might be an issue, and we should probably look into it. They say temperatures might be exaggerated, but the amount of exaggeration is unclear and requires further study. Further study was done, and it was found that the urban heat effect isn’t significant.

Here’s a graph from a 2006 study (Brohan, et al.) comparing temperatures in urban regions and rural regions across China:

China has significantly urbanized in the past decades, so if there was an urban heat effect we should see an upward shift in urban data vs rural. Do you see any? The urban and rural data seem to match pretty well. The research concluded

Since the mid twentieth century the uncertainties in global and hemispheric mean temperatures are small, and the temperature increase greatly exceeds its uncertainty.

In other words there might be some small urban effect, but nothing that can explain the current warming trend. The Heartland Institute chose to ignore this evidence. Instead, they chose to ignore it, and cited research noting the possibility of data bias to claim the latest warming trend can be ignored. This isn’t the first time they did this.

Remember the original claim that said there’s been no net warming since 1997? That’s a pretty important, because if it were true that would support their claim against global warming. CO₂ levels have been rising significantly, and if temperatures have been flat for 20 years that could imply the two aren’t related. But the report never looks at it. The authors simply state it as a fact in the second paragraph, and never mention it again. This is also why they don’t include any modern temperature graphs. If you look at the temperature graph above, it seems pretty clear that temperatures been rising steadily since 1975, with no signs of stopping.

So how can the authors claim that temperatures have been flat since 1997? You see that one red spike on the graph? The one that sticks way above the black trend line? That’s 1997. It was an unusually warm year, even for modern times. If you take that year as a starting point, you can imagine drawing a horizontal line that’s above all the temperature readings until about 2010. After that the lines are higher. But except for the past few years, temperatures have been “flat” since 1997. It only works if you pick 1997. Pick any other year from about 20 years ago and the trend is clearly rising. Their claim isn’t honest, which is why they don’t show you the data.

If we want to approach this issue rationally and scientifically, we have to look at all the evidence. In this series we’ve seen how the authors used framing and emotional wording, how they intentionally conflated opinions about global warming with data on global warming, and how they wrote the book to make it difficult to verify their evidence. When we finally dig into the actual details, we find they don’t present research in an honest way. This leads us to a clear and evidence based conclusion.

The NIPCC report Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming is a lie, and the Heartland Institute is promoting that lie to your children.

If you’d like to explore climate research further, I suggest RealClimate, a website about climate research written by actual climate scientists.

The post A Man For All Seasons appeared first on One Universe at a Time.

C. S. Lewis was a Medieval scholar. He was also a devout Christian. In 1950 he published a children’s novel called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At the beginning of the story, four siblings have been evacuated from London during the blitz of World War II. They find themselves at the large country estate of an old professor. During a game of hide and seek, the two youngest siblings, Lucy and Edmund, come across a large wardrobe. When they enter it to hide, they find it leads to a magical world of Narnia. When they return, Lucy tells the story of Narnia to the elder siblings, Peter and Susan. But when they ask Edmund if the story is true, he denies it, saying they were just playing pretend. Lewis intended the novel to be a Christian allegory about the choice one has between rejecting God’s love or being saved by faith, but it’s also a wonderful example of a philosophical conundrum: when there are two conflicting stories, which one do you believe?

This post is the third in a series looking at the book Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, a report on climate science published by the Heartland Institute. Of all the posts in the series this one is the hardest to write. Because this particular post isn’t about the evidence for or against climate change, it’s about the philosophical question of who to believe. In the Narnia series, Lucy is shown to be honest and true. Edmund is generally nice, but has been known to lie and deceive from time to time. So even though Lucy’s tale is unbelievable, we should believe Lucy and not Edmund. The Heartland Institute and its climate advisory group the Nongovernmental Institute Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) don’t believe climate change is real or dangerous. The central premise of their report is that mainstream climate scientists are a bunch of Edmunds.

If you’ve just stumbled across this post and haven’t read the first two in the series, I suggest going back to the beginning and reading them (Part 1, Part 2). If you’ve read them and are still reading, I first want to say thank you for sticking with it. Most people don’t. Most of the people who find the first post won’t read it all the way through. Most of the ones that read it won’t go on to the second post. Most that read the second post won’t make it to this one. It could be because my writing bores them, or they think I’m a biased scientist, or lots of other reasons. It doesn’t really matter, because that’s a property of online reading. Most people don’t read past the headline, much less stick with a multiple-post series. So again, thank you for sticking with me.

Since you’ve made it this far, you probably fall into one of two camps. My dear regulars who keep reading and supporting this blog, or someone who doesn’t know me from Adam but who is interested in hearing what I have to say. If you are in the latter group you may also feel the whole climate change scare is nonsense. If that’s you, then please keep reading, because I have specifically written this post for you.

The NIPCC report has four basic parts:

1. An appeal that frames the issue of climate change.
2. A debunking of the “97% of scientists agree” claim.
3. A demonstration that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is both biased and guilty of politicizing science.
4. Some debunking of the usual climate science claims.

This series follows the same format. In the first post we looked at how you frame an issue and use emotional language to sway your reader. In the second we looked the 97% claim, and agreed it’s unsubstantiated and largely meaningless. Now we’re at part 3, bias and politics. Rather than going through the bias claims point by point, which has been done ad nauseam on numerous sites, let’s assume for now that the Heartland Institute report is right. Let’s assume that the IPCC is biased, that it’s guilty of bad science, and that it has a political agenda. That may or may not be true, but let’s assume it is. If you were given millions of dollars to convince Americans that the IPCC is biased and political, how would you do it?

One way would be to focus on evidence. Look at the actual research, dig into the details, and put together a clear and compelling report that acknowledges when the IPCC is right, while pointing out the bigger issues of bias and politics. This approach is aimed at thoughtful readers. It assumes that people are swayed by rational discourse. Sure some environmental loonies will never accept the facts, and some folks already know climate change is bunk and don’t care about the details. But people with a open mind are swayed by evidence. Framing and emotional wording can only take you so far, so the report should focus on evidence.

Another way is to focus on emotion. Sure, the facts are on your side, but most folks aren’t swayed by facts. Most folks will just flip through the pages, and if they do start reading it they won’t make it past the first couple chapters. So you frame the report as a choice between lies and the truth. You use lots of emotional phrasing to get readers on your side, and you paint proponents of opposing views in the worst light possible. You have to make sure the facts are there for those with an open mind, but your main goal is to sway people to the right side, and emotion works for most people.

While the second approach sounds rather cynical, it is a valid approach. We are swayed by emotion far more often than we like to admit, and perhaps the IPCC is so dangerous that the time for rational arguments is over. If your kid is playing in the middle of a busy street that’s not the time to outline the benefits of looking both ways at the crosswalk. Emotional arguments aren’t inherently bad.

In my first post I said that the authors of the NIPCC report were both qualified and earnest. I still hold to that. I think they understand how to analyze scientific evidence and how to present it. I think they really do believe that climate change is a lie, and the IPCC is a biased political organization. And I think they want you to believe it as well. They spent millions of dollars to convince you. So what approach did they take?

Throughout this series I’ve encouraged you to read their report. We’ve looked at how they framed the issue and used emotional language. But if you’ve read the report, you may have noticed some interesting things.

A shift from rational to emotional arguments.
The back cover presents a reasoned argument, saying the authors “offer a succinct summary of the real science of climate change” based on previous research. The report starts to make an evidence-based argument against the 97% claim, but gradually introduces “weasel words” to malign the research they seek to debunk. Chapter 1 critiques several research papers supporting the idea that climate scientists agree on global warming. The author of the first paper is referred to as a “socialist historian” (p10). For the third paper the report refers to the primary author as a student (he was a doctoral student at the time and is now an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Utah) and argues that it was only published “thanks to the addition of three academics as coauthors” (p15). The fourth paper calls the primary author a “wacky Australian blogger” (he’s a research professor at George Mason University). The report also fails to mention the other authors, simply referring to them as “some of his friends.” It also claims Cook et al “persuaded” a journal to publish their work, falsely implying it wasn’t published on its own merits (p17). For the works the report cites in support of its argument, the report often takes great lengths to praise their eminence and expertise. On page 33, for example, the report refers to Richard S. Lindzen as “one of the world’s most distinguished atmospheric scientists,” and spends more than half a page outlining his academic background.  Throughout the report it is implied that opposing research is sloppy and done by unqualified scholars, while friendly researchers are highly skilled and respected. The same reasoned to emotional shift occurs in the chapter titles. They begin with neutral titles such as “No Consensus” and “Why Scientists Disagree” but shift to weasel words like “flawed,” “false,” and “unreliable.”

 A Conflation of Arguments.
In the previous post I noted how the report tried to link what climate data seems to support (climate change with 95% certainty) and whether scientists think climate change is real (97% agree). This makes it easier to confuse one with the other. In the last post I pointed out one example of this, but same conflation occurs throughout the report. The report argues that opinions on climate change differ, then restates the evidence argument as if they are one and the same. They aren’t. The evidence for or against climate change is extremely technical. It is much easier to look at people’s opinions. The report intentionally muddles to two and focuses on the latter. In this way if you accept the (reasonable and valid) assertion that the 97% claim is wrong, you are also likely to accept (without proof one way or the other) that evidence for global warming is wrong.

The Shifting Goalpost of Bias.
The opening statement on bias in the report says “Climate scientists, like all humans, can be biased.” (p48) which is perfectly true. The report then focuses on research on bias within scientific research. The studies they cite are widely known within the scientific community. They focus upon bias issues within science at large, not climate science in particular. The studies have been used to create better ways to prevent bias. Much of the scientific process (open data, peer review, etc.) is designed to minimize bias, and these studies can help us reduce bias further. But the report uses the studies to argue that climate scientists are particularly biased. It then shifts the bias claim to large scientific research groups, using soundbites and anecdotes. It finally shifts to the IPCC as a political institution. By starting with broadly accepted and well studied aspects of bias, the report shifts the goalpost to assert that narrow research supports a broad claim.

Citation Padding.
When you produce scientific work you want to make sure it’s well researched. This means doing the necessary readings of earlier work, which should be cited if it is relevant. But it’s tempting to add citations that aren’t really necessary. Yes, they might be vaguely connected to your work, but it isn’t necessary to cite them. You cite it because it makes your work look stronger to the casual reader. It’s known as citation padding, and it’s frowned upon in scientific circles. The report does two things that are strange. The first is that it puts citations after every section, rather than listing them in an appendix. References are usually put at the end of the book or at the end of a chapter, so as not to disrupt the flow of the text (for example, the IPCC Synthesis Report). By listing references at the end of each section, the authors ensure you see how well cited their work is, making you more likely to believe it is true. For example, on page 66 (Failed Forecasts) the report claims climate scientists were wrong about a CO₂ level prediction. The report references three works without discussing details. It does, however take a paragraph to emphasize that one of the articles cites “27 peer-reviewed articles.” It then lists in detail the references of the article they referenced but didn’t discuss. Nearly three pages of citations are listed to support a two sentence statement. In other words, they say “this climate prediction was wrong (here’s three pages of references you won’t read to convince you. With this many references we must be right.).”

Source Burying.
Citations used in research should be clear and precise. It should state studies that support your argument so that readers can verify your research. But if you want to make it difficult for readers to verify your research, you can make the citation vague. This is known as source burying, and it is particularly effective when you cite a book. The NIPCC report does this on numerous occasions. For example, on the bottom of page 38, talking about the failure of the IPCC, the report states:

Most of the reports purporting to show a “consensus” beginning in the 1980s came from and continue to come from committees funded by government agencies tasked with finding a new problem to address or by liberal foundations with little or no expertise (Darwall, 2013; Carlin 2015; Moore et al., 2014).

The actual references are:

Environmentalism Gone Mad, Alan Carlin (638 pages)
The Age of Global Warming: A History, Rupert Darwall (354 pages)
The Chain of Environmental Command Moore K., et al. (94 pages)

If someone wanted to confirm this claim, or understand how the authors came to their conclusion, they would need to wade through 1,086 pages.  The report couldn’t be bothered to narrow it down to specific chapters, much less specific pages. It is therefore impossible to verify a single sentence claim in a reasonable timeframe. The report uses source burying on multiple occasions, particularly in the section that claims IPCC bias. The authors of this report are skilled scientists. They know how all of this works. They did this intentionally.

Remember when I said most people wouldn’t make it through the first post of this series. The same is true for books:

1. Most people will flip through the pages, see all the citations, maybe read the back cover. and figure it’s a reasonable argument against global warming.
2. The more curious will read the first couple chapters. They will see the debunking of the 97% claim while being swayed by framing and biased language.
3. Readers who really want to study the report will find increasingly broad claims supported by increasingly vague references. They will reach a point where they either take the authors’ word for it, or give up.

This is intentional. This is what you do when you want to make the emotional argument rather than the rational one. But more than that, this is what you do when you hope people won’t delve into the boring details. Don’t verify our work. Don’t think about the data. Think about how much you despise liberals, and academics. Trust us. We’ve done the research so you don’t have to.

If you’re still reading this I want to be very clear, particularly if you think global warming is false. The authors of this report don’t respect you at all. They don’t think you’re capable of understanding a reasoned argument on this topic. They just want you to agree with them. Now keep in mind that 300,000 copies of this book were sent to K-12 teachers. They don’t want the teachers to understand the scientific research for or against climate change. They just want them to parrot the Heartland Institute. They don’t want your children to understand scientific reasoning. They want them to accept teachers without question.

Rather than making a clear and reasoned argument, rather than trusting you to follow the evidence, they have boiled the issue down to a single question: who do you believe?

Next Time: What does the science actually say? We’ll look at one example from the report that an astrophysicist can understand.

The post The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe appeared first on One Universe at a Time.

I want you to think about the following statement: 97% of scientists agree that climate change is man-made and dangerous. It’s a factual claim, but in today’s political climate it is emotionally charged. If you believe climate change you might find the statement compelling. If you are a skeptic of global warming, you probably think this statement is false, and even if it were true that’s not how science is done. Here’s the deal: This statement isn’t true, and it isn’t a good scientific argument. 

Last time I talked about framing and emotional appeals. How a writer can use emotion to make you more open to agreeing with them. For example, you may have noticed the framing of my first paragraph. Here’s a statement that’s often used against climate skeptics, but I agree with the skeptics. See how honest I am? You can surely trust me, I’m on your side. Of course in my last post I noted that I believe in global warming, so I probably just framed it that way to trick you.

The 97% statement is important not only because of its popularity among climate change believers, but also because debunking it is a central focus of the NIPCC report. As the report states in chapter 1 (near top of page 8) “This popular narrative grossly oversimplifies the issue while libeling scientists who question the alleged consensus.” Again notice the great emotional hook. Climate science is incompetent at best, if not outright lying. Now, this may be true, but the statement primes us to be skeptical of climate studies. If the environmental types can’t be trusted about a simple survey, they surely can’t be trusted about real science. If we agree with the writer, we are predisposed to be skeptical of other climate claims.

Now that the stage is set, let’s read further. After quoting both John Kerry and Barack Obama making the “97% claim,” the report says the most influential statement of this alleged consensus appears in the Summary for Policymakers of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

It is extremely likely (95%+ certainty) that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was cause by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

Read that statement again, and then compare it to the statement the report quotes from President Obama:

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.

Do you notice the difference? They both have the 97-ish% statistic, so at first glance it looks like the top quote is just a wordy version of the second. But read them again. They are actually two different claims. The first is a summary statement from the IPCC report about climate data and the resulting models. The  95%+ certainty is a statistical measure of how consistent the data is. This is standard science. We take data, compare them to models and predictions, and statistically estimate the strength of the data. The second statement is a summary of scientific opinions. How many scientists hold a particular view.

Here’s a similar example. Suppose I have a room full of 100 pets. I’ve never seen the room, but I pay 1,000 people to go into the room and count how many dogs there are. Some count 25, some 30, and so on. There could be lots of reasons the numbers don’t agree. Maybe there’s some cats in the room that look like dogs. Maybe there’s a raccoon, and some people count it as a dog. It doesn’t really matter. They come back and give me their data, and I crunch the numbers. What I find is that to a 95% certainty there are 28 dogs. There might be 25 or 30. There might be only 4, but that isn’t very likely. This is similar to the first statement.

Now suppose I do a survey of people on the street. If they are a pet owner, I ask them if they think there are about 28 dogs in the room. I tally their responses, and find that 97% say yes, there are probably about 28 dogs in the room. This is similar to the second statement.

One is a summary of scientific opinion, while the other is a summary of scientific data. But the report puts both statements in the same pile, implying that if one is false, so is the other. This is known as conflating the issues. You see this a lot in online debates. As I write this post a massive iceberg has recently broken off Antarctica. Lots of posts on the interwebs are linking to the story to say “See? Global warming is real!” But that conflates two very different claims. Even if the iceberg formed due to local warming, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the world is warming as a whole.

This conflation of claims here is really interesting. Members of the NIPCC are skilled scientists. They understand the difference between climate research and opinion research. They wouldn’t confuse the two by mistake. That means this was intentional. They intended to link these two claims.

You might think I’m now going to call them liars, or say they are intentionally misleading readers. I’m not. As I stated in the first post, my assumption is that the NIPCC is both qualified and honest in their approach. I point it out because further into the book they are going to use this connection to make a much stronger accusation. We will want to see how they get there.

But for now let’s look at that 97% consensus claim. The report summarizes more than a dozen published works, but I’m only going to focus on a few of them. Just to keep me honest, I recommend you read through the whole summary yourself, though the conclusion of the report is similar for all of them. We’ll start with a 2008 paper by Klaus-Martin Schulte. This work is a response to a 2004 paper by Naomi Oreskes. In the original paper, Oreskes searched peer-reviewed scientific papers for the keywords “global climate change.” She found 928 papers, and then used their abstracts to determine whether the work supported the “consensus view” of climate change. That is, global warming is real and it’s caused largely by human activity. She found that 75% seemed to endorse climate change, while the remaining 25% were neutral. None opposed the consensus view. That seems pretty compelling, but when Schulte did a follow up survey following similar methods, he found 539 new papers. Of those, only 45% supported the consensus view, either directly or indirectly, while 6% opposed the consensus view. This would seem to indicate a growing opposition to global warming among scientists.

The report argues that Schulte’s work is a clear debunking of Oreskes’. Specifically, the drop of support for climate change from 75% to 45%. But this conclusion isn’t as strong as they claim. Both works rely on researchers making some kind of statement on global warming one way or the other. So there is a drop from 75% to 45%, but we don’t know why. It could be because fewer researchers support the consensus view, but it could also mean that researchers don’t feel they need to restate their position since the consensus view is so widely held. If I stop eating chocolate ice cream, you can’t conclude that I no longer like chocolate ice cream. I might be saving room for cookies. Now Schulte did find that 6% of the papers disagreed with the consensus view, and 1% of the papers (6 papers total) explicitly disagreed. This could show an increase in climate skepticism. But Schulte’s paper also found that 7% of the papers (38) explicitly supported the consensus view. Suppose we take the data from the Schulte paper and only count the ones that explicitly take a position on climate change for or against. By Schulte’s own work, 38 were for, and 6 were against. That means 86% of climate papers with a specific opinion support the idea of human-driven climate change. It’s not the 97% often quoted, but it does seem to support some consensus.

Of course neither of these papers support the claim that the majority of scientists support global warming. They only look at the views expressed in research papers. So let’s look at an actual survey, specifically a 2009 paper by Maggie Kendall Zimmerman and Peter Doran. In this work Doran and Zimmerman sent a survey to more than 10,000 earth scientists. They got replies from only about 3,000, which is a pretty typical response rate. The survey had two questions:

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 that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The survey also asked folks to list their area of expertise. Of those that responded, 90% answered “risen” to the first, and 82% answered “yes” to the second. So you could say that 82% agree with the idea of human-driven global warming. This is similar to the above study. Doran and Zimmerman then looked at the responses of 79 “expert” respondent. These were folks that said their research was in climate change, and at least 50% of their research publications were on climate topics. They found that 97% of the “experts” answered both “risen” and “yes.” This is the origin of that popular statistic.

The NIPCC report criticizes this paper on two grounds. First, the survey was only sent to earth scientists, excluding other scientists such as solar physicists, geologists, or astrophysicists (like me). In this way the survey was already biased in favor of climate change. The second is that by focusing on the “expert” surveys, Doran and Zimmerman further biased their results. These are both valid criticisms. A survey of earth scientists is not a survey of all scientists, so the work doesn’t prove the claim that “97% of scientists” support global warming. But the second criticism is interesting, because it questions whether “experts” can also be fair. Should we listen more strongly to those who actually research climate change, or should we be wary of their ulterior motives?

Excerpt from page 17 of the NIPCC report.

Which brings me to one more paper. A 2013 paper by John Cook and others. This work looked at about 12,000 refereed scientific papers specifically focused on “global climate change” or “global warming.” They found that most of the papers didn’t express an opinion on the consensus view one way or another, but of those that did, 97% supported the consensus view. That’s even higher than what the Schulte paper showed. But Cook and friends went one step further. They asked the authors of these papers if they thought their research supported global warming. About a third said their paper was neutral on the topic, but of the other two thirds  97% said their paper supported global warming. So the scientists usually supported climate change, even if they didn’t explicitly say so in their paper.

None of these works support the claim that 97% of all scientists support global warming. It’s pretty clear that the 97% claim doesn’t hold up. But what does hold up is the idea that most climate scientists who actually do research on global warming seem to believe in the IPCC position that global warming is real and caused largely by humans. Even the NIPCC seems to agree with the idea that among climate scientists who actually publish climate research, most support the consensus view. They instead argue that the percentage of support is not 97%, and that excluding the views of other scientists us unfair. What that all means is the topic of our next post.

But before we close, I want to look at one more thing. In chapter 1 of the report the authors summarize and critique these papers and others. As I’ve stated, I agree with some of their complaints. But when they get to the third paper (at the bottom of page 17) they introduce Cook as a “wacky Australian blogger” and state:

Cook makes no effort to disguise his bias: his blog, misleadingly called “Skeptical Science,” is mostly a collection of talking points for environmental activists and attacks on realists. He’s also the author of a book titled Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. When he’s not writing about global warming, he’s a professional cartoonist.

Here’s an alternative biography I wrote:

Dr. John Cook is a Research Assistant Professor at George Mason University. He is the author of thirty research papers, and is the coauthor of two books on climate science. He also writes “Skeptical Science,” a blog on climate skepticism.

The other authors of the paper aren’t mentioned in the report, but they include a Professor of Chemistry, a postdoctoral scholar at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a doctoral student in environmental science. Remember the issue of framing? Regardless of whether you think global warming is real, I want you to ask yourself whether the first introduction is fair and honest, or whether it is encouraging you discount his work without actually looking at it. If I had introduced the NIPCC study as written by “a whack-job who once thought aliens built a moon,” would that be fair and honest?

With that in mind, here’s your homework. I want you to read through chapter 1 of the report, specifically looking at the way various researchers are presented. When a work supports acceptance of climate change are the credentials of the authors minimized? Are their results portrayed as tentative and unclear? When a work “debunks” the consensus view are authors presented as qualified and their research sound?

Next Time: Bias, Groupthink and Lies. Are climate scientists being honest, or do they have a hidden agenda.

The post Thirty Helens Agree appeared first on One Universe at a Time.

I got a book in the mail this week. If you’re a scientist or science teacher, you might have too. This Spring the Heartland Institute mailed more than 300,000 of them to K-12 science teachers and university professors. At a retail price of $6.95, that’s more than $2 million worth of books. You can find a PDF copy on the Heartland Institute website. This book has outraged many scientists who see it as an attack on the established science of global climate change. As a scientist myself, I want you to read it. 

I want you to read it, but more importantly I want you to think about it. And I hope you’ll come back to read my thoughts on it as well. Whether you think climate change is real or not, this book is now in the center of the debate. It was written by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which is an international group of scientists with the purpose of providing a “second opinion” to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established by the United Nations. The IPCC has produced similar reports, and you can find their latest one on their website. Ideally you will read both, but I’m going to focus on the NIPCC report, since it represents the counter-argument to “established science.”

Before we go through this book, I want to be clear about a few points:

1. I will work under the assumption that the members of NIPCC are both qualified and working in earnest.
2. I will focus on the evidence presented and how it is presented.
3. I will not argue that climate change is real or false.

For the sake of open disclosure, I personally think human-driven climate change is real. My employer does not require me to hold that view, and I get no monetary support from any climate related group.

So let’s begin. I want to start with the first paragraph of the forward by Marita Noon:

President Barack Obama and his followers have repeatedly declared that climate change is “the greatest threat facing mankind.” This, while ISIS is beheading innocent people, displacing millions from their homeland, and engaging in global acts of mass murder.

I love this opening. It’s a wonderful example of an approach known as framing. Framing is a way to present an argument on your home turf. If you dislike Obama, then climate change is tainted by his connection. The paragraph primes you to be skeptical of the idea. To be clear, the paragraph is completely true. Obama has called climate change the greatest threat facing us. ISIS is doing horrible things to innocent people. Connecting the two in the same paragraph is the frame.

Let me give you another one. This is how I could have opened this post:

Fred Singer once claimed aliens could have built the largest moon of Mars. Now he wants you to believe climate change is a lie.

Dr. S. Fred Singer is one of the authors of this book. He did once claim aliens could have built a Martian moon. It’s an interesting story, actually. Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. They are both the size of small asteroids, but Phobos orbits very close to Mars. It’s orbit is also decaying. This was noticed back the the 1950s and 1960s, and it was thought to be due to atmospheric drag from Mars’ atmosphere. Russian astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky argued that it could be a hollow metal shell, which would imply it was artificially made. At the time Dr. Singer was science advisor to President Eisenhower. In 1960 he wrote “…there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore Martian made.” True story!

To be honest, the full quote is more telling:

If the satellite is indeed spiraling inward as deduced from astronomical observation, then there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore Martian made. The big ‘if’ lies in the astronomical observations; they may well be in error. Since they are based on several independent sets of measurements taken decades apart by different observers with different instruments, systematic errors may have influenced them.

In other words, the data gathered at the time pointed to a hollow Phobos. But Singer also noted that there could be errors in the data. We should accept the data even when it leads to a seemingly crazy conclusion, but we should be cautious not to jump to conclusions too quickly. Spoken like a true scientist. And it turns out Singer was right. There were errors in the data, and Phobos isn’t hollow. My initial paragraph painted Singer as crazy, while the full story shows Dr. Singer is a notable and reasoned scientist. Both are true, but only the latter is honest.

Framing is often more subtle, and it isn’t always meant to deceive. If you go back and read the first paragraph of this post, you may notice how it was framed. I portrayed myself as a simple honest guy, while noting that the Heartland Institute has spent lots of money. I stated how scientists are outraged. You may think scientists are biased, but I’m different. I have an open mind, and you can trust me. The premise I hope you accept is that I’m presenting an unbiased view.

The great thing about framing is that when you see it, you know the position of the author. By being aware of it, you can also distinguish between an emotional appeal and one based upon evidence. Being emotional doesn’t make an argument wrong, but it doesn’t make the argument stronger or right. An emotional plea strives to make an argument more compelling, whether it’s supported by evidence or not. We’re emotional creatures, and emotions are compelling. We love to have our views confirmed, and that makes it difficult to be open to opposing views. But we can strive to focus on evidence, and that’s necessary if we want to move closer to the truth.

So for your first assignment, I want you read the book with an eye for framing and emotional appeals. When you feel an emotional tug, positive or negative, look at the way ideas are presented. What has fed your emotions? Is one view called a “pet theory” while the other is “insightful?” Are the qualifications of scientists on one side outlined in detail while the qualifications of opposition scientists minimized or ignored? I don’t care whether you agree or disagree with a particular argument, I just want you to see how it is presented. Agree with it and see the emotional frame? Mark it. Disagree and see it as mere emotion? Mark it. Find all the framing and emotional arguments you can. Do the same for the IPCC report if you read it as well. In the end the evidence will support one side or the other. But to look at the evidence we first have to separate reason from emotion. Otherwise we’ll simply fall prey to a convenient truth.

Next time: 97% of scientists think that climate change is real. Or do they? We’ll look at the facts next time.

The post A Convenient Truth appeared first on One Universe at a Time.