Yeah, I hear that, but I've never understood it.  Peer review is the gold standard for scientific legitimacy.  When all the peers hold similar position, what results could well be described as a consensus.

What do these people think "science" is, anyway?

I took a look at just the first three in "Inhofian Reporting: Peerless Work?"  (http://energysmart.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/inhofian-repo ...)

Blogging regularly at Energy Smart to Energize America .

"They" of course being the NRSP

http://thomhartmann.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2151097651/m/6 ...

I have been arguing that education has failed us miserably in that people are no longer capable of general critical thinking - that is outside of their narrow specialties. And people do not know enough about science and technology to have a basis for making critical judgments. Inhofe can make his list and get by with it because too many people in the general public don't know how to tell the difference.

It's funny too how people like Inhofe can scoff off scientists or anyone with a PhD when it suits them - arguing they are too theoretical or some such - yet rally round the titles when it is to their supposed advantage. Talk about having your cake and eating it at the same time.

George

George Mobus, Associate Professor, Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, and Professional Student for Life

I agree with you completely.  I've been arguing for a while that university faculty have, in general, done a terrible job of teaching non-scientists how science actually works.  You don't have to be a Ph.D. to decode the policy debate, you just have to have an understanding of how the scientific community produced knowledge.  More universities need classes on the scientific method and critical thinking.

Thanks!

Why do you feel it is necessary to tell me people not to listen to others?  Do you think people are incapable of judging for themselves?    

What I don't understand is the number of people who may think this is a problem, but aren't motivated to do something about it.  I've reduced my carbon footprint by quite a lot and I bring it up to my friends who are not in the least interested.

But what about the colleges and universities filled with entire rows of people who should be able to push this issue farther than it has been.  Or are we all just concerned with our own next dollar that we can't be bothered by future generations?

Excuse me, but if your hypothetical cancer specialist was awarded his doctorate by mafioso, we would be fools to trust our children to his care, especially when they aren't sick to begin with, and his recommended treatment is euthanasia.

Not only that, but they are trying to disprove GHG climate disaster, by creating a consensus of their own.

But their consensus is one produced without data or research.  In fact it runs counter to all the scientific climatalogical data and research.

Our consensus is one of actual climate scientists engaged in research and analysis.  

That's the difference.  Expert opinion based on actual verifiable data is very different from opinion based on political leaning.  Inhoffe's "experts" are not climate experts at all, they aren't even political experts.

Nor do they seem to have any notion of how reason is used to illuminate through dialectic argument.  Instead they work backwards, from political opinion to alleged scientific opinion.  "Stove piping" selected bits and pieces of imaginary theory and data to match their political prediliction.

This sounds familiar.  Wasn't this how the case for the invasion of Iraq made?  Yep.  Corporatists like endless war and the energy policy status quo.  It has emptied the US treasury straight to the bottomline of bushco friendly contractors and energy companies.

So much so that now the money to keep the whole mess going is coming from China.  Mortgaging the future for short term corporate profit.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The Big Thaw is coming -- but it's among serious intellectuals who are routing the Soothsayer Prophets of CO2.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

Have you ever been to or known someone who has been to a medical specialist and gotten the wrong diagnosis or worse, died because of the wrong diagnosis and treatment?

Doctor's that I know are always reading work done by non-doctors. They use this information to make better and more informed decisions. Some conduct research to further, in a practical way, what they are doing. They never say never to a different idea, practice or procedure.

What I am concerned about is Dr. Dressler has made up his mind, end of discussion. Consensus does not prove anything. Dr. Dressler does not take on any of the scientific studies listed by Senator Inhofe.

He attacks the messenger and those that are not exactly like him as being invalid and not worthy of discussion. I think this happened in the 1630s to Galileo. Something about the sun and the moon. The consensus then was wrong. Could it be the consensus on the cause of global warming could be wrong?

Perhaps the biggest non-specialist on global warming is Al Gore. He has been anointed by the Nobel Committee. My problem with former Vice President Gore is that he confuses correlation with causation in his film.

In almost any field you can always find many people with credentials to suppose almost any idea and/or theory you want. This doesn't make the idea and/or theory true or untrue. Rather, the theory's ability to make falsifiable predictions, agreement with experimental data, internal consistency, and to some extent consensus make some theories closer to true than others.

As for scientific skeptics of AGW, they are numerous and active, and always will be.  They may not have resumes that the AGW advocates and activists want to recognize, but none the less they do have scientific credentials and expertise.  But more importantly, they also have the ears of many legislators and will continue to object to AGW theory with scientific evidence that the activists (with vested interests, financial and otherwise, in the outcome of the hypothesis) will continue to have a hard time debunking given their lack of credibility.

The complexity of climate change does not suddenly make a sociologist, economist, computer programmer, etc. a credible skeptic.  In fact, the weakness of Inhofe's list is readily apparent by the very fact that he had to include such people on his list.  

The crown jewels of skeptics are Lindzen, Christy, Singer, etc., but as I've said before, there are only a small number of them.  In order to bulk up the list, Inhofe lowered his criteria to basically include anyone who doesn't believe in climate change --- regardless of their technical background in the subject.

As far as my analogy being unsuitable, I stand by it.  If your child is sick, you take him/her to the experts.  Ditto if your planet is sick.  You don't take either your child or a planet to a sociologist or economist.

This should be compared to the IPCC, which includes exclusively people with recent, relevant expertise on the problem.

Further to my earlier post, I am amazed by the pompous elitist view of the world that you have demonstrated.

All scientists who disagree with your viewpoint on AGW are not qualified as well as you are, because they do not toe the IPCC line.

For shame, Andrew.

One does not have to be a publishing climate expert lined up at the multibillion dollar AGW research trough to understand what is hype and hysteria.  A little common sense will do just fine, thank you.

The 100 scientists that wrote the December 13 letter to the UN SG probably also do not fit your distorted view of what is a qualified scientist.

Lindzen, Bryson, Michaels, Christy, Hoyt, Shaviv, Balling, deLange, Baliunas, Gray, Singer, Spencer, Tenneke, and the hundreds of other scientists skeptical of the IPCC predictions are all idiots compared to you.  Wow! What an ego!

Your attitude is typical of the arrogance displayed throughout the IPCC SPM 2007 report.

This arrogance seems to inflate more and more as the so-called consensus comes unraveled.

Max

You name:
Lindzen, Bryson, Michaels, Christy, Hoyt, Shaviv, Balling, deLange, Baliunas, Gray, Singer, Spencer, Tenneke

You list here 13 scientists.  I've said all along that there are a few dozen credible skeptics ... who are endlessly recycled by the denial machine.  And if we assume, for the sake of argument, that your list contains credible skeptics, then you and I don't appear to be in disagreement.  

The problem is not the several dozen credible skeptics on Inhofe's list, some of whom you've named, it's the 350 others.  Overall, There are nowhere near 400 credible skeptics on his list, or on the planet.

I'll be following this up with some entries in the near future to buttress this point, which will allow you to foam with indignation at my pompous elitism, while I'm shaking my head at your naivety.  

For the sake of brevity, I only named a few of the many hundred scientists and climate experts that do not support the IPCC doom and gloom predictions.  There are hundreds of others, as you well know.

You say "there are nowhere near 400 credible skeptics on his (the Senate report) list, or on the planet".  What you might consider, in your arrogance, to be a credible skeptic, does not really interest me too much, Andrew.  There are hundreds of very credible skeptics out there, despite the fact that it takes a lot of courage to buck the multibillion-dollar AGW industry head on.

Sorry, Andrew, there is no real consensus that the science on AGW is settled.  You, as a scientist, should know that science does not work this way in a democratic society.

Max

The scientific community agrees with AGW because the physical facts overwhelmingly support it. Even the right's leading PR strategist Luntz agrees that the facts are on the enviros side, and has urged his clients to avoid debates about the facts.

So, yes the IPCC lead authors have about as much credibility as Inhofe's list, except that many have worked the AGW gravy train payouts for decades and most of their publications are IPCC related, not original research.  So would you claim being a member of the IPCC club for many years is relevant experience as a climate expert even with the unrelated degrees and research backgrounds?  You see that is the problem I and many other scientists have with the gurus of IPCC pontificating and telling us what to think and who to trust.  They have no credibility over Inhofe's list, as we are capable of calling BS on these political types.

Poll the public.  Most are not skeptical about the IPCC and Gore's take on the urgency of curing GHG climate disaster.

But it isn't about numbers, it's about science.  Climate science, done by climate scientists.  They present their research findings, which are then challenged by other climate scientists, then re-researched, gone over again..and so forth.  In fact that process goes on as we blog.  

That is science.

We non-experts are free to scrutinize the reasoning and methods the scientists use and critique them.  Then scientists respond to our critiques.  

Then the public, informed by mass delusional media (but mainly the fire, drought, 300 mph tornados, melting glaciers and ice caps, and so forth), makes it's decision.  It's an imperfect process, but the only one we have.  

Polling the public tells us nothing about the actual science.  The faux experts on the mighty 400 list are part of the public, not climate scientists.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

It's the mighty 300, protecting western civilization from the persian hordes.

The mighty 400 on the Inhoffe list protect western civilization from the (commie) liberal conspiracy that is modern GHG climate change theory.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I admire your efforts to discredit the IPCC.  It's obviously been very effective ... I don't how many more awards and endorsements the IPCC can take before they give up.

But back to the relevant argument: I said the "vast vast" majority of people in those fields have no expertise in climate.  For example, the vast vast majority of computer experts are not experts about the climate.  

However, an extremely small subset of computer scientists engage in peer-reviewed science on climate and attend meetings and therefore are experts. Those are the ones that are involved in the IPCC process.  Ditto for the other fields.

Your efforts to dismiss the value of expertise is ridiculous.  Next time you get sick, I suspect you'll see someone with substantial and recent experience in your sickness --- you won't go see a computer programmer ...

Thank you, Dr. Dessler, for taking your invaluable time to share with us uneducated mortals your infinite wisdom on why we should ignore the recent report to the US Senate by several uninformed and misguided individuals, who deny the obvious scientific truth about alarming anthropogenic global warming as outlined by IPCC, the only true scientific body monitoring and predicting global climate change.

It is reassuring to learn from you that none of these deniers as listed below are as imminently qualified as you are, Dr. Dessler, to have a relevant opinion on any and all aspects of AGW.

Partial list of deniers (134 are PhDs): Aitkin, Akasofu, Alexander, Allegre, Austin, Backhaus, Baliunas, Ball, Balling, Bashkirtsve, Battagli, Beck, Borel, Borlaug, Botkin, Brassell, Bredenkamp, Brosnahan, Bryson, Carruthers, Carter, Chilingar, Christy, Clark, Cotton, Courtney, Beboutritter, deFreitas, deLaat, Deming, Dilley, Douglass, BuBois, Dyson, Easterbrook, Egorov, England, Evans, C., Evans, D., Evans, W., Everett, Frank, Frauenfeld, Friis-Christensen, Frolov, Gauldie, Gerlich, Giegengack, Glatzle, Goldberg, Goldstein, Golubchikov, Gray, T., Gray, V., Gray, W., Greyber, Hackbart, Hald, Hayden, Heiss, Herman, Hissink, Hoyt, Hughes, Illarionov, Ingolfsson, Jaworowski, Jenkins, Kaerner, Karlen, Kear, Khandekar, Khilyuk, Kininmouth, Koerner, Kop, Kouffeld, Kramm, Kroonenberg, Kukla, Landsea, Leahy, Legates, Lemay, Leonov, Leroux, Lin, Linqvist, Lindzen, Lupo, Malberg, Mangini, Mashnich, Massen, Maunder, McFarquhar, McIntyre, McKitrick, McLean, Michaels, Michel, Milne, Moene, Mogil, Moore, Morner, Motl, Murty, Nicol, Noble, Nowell, Ollier, Osokin, Paldor, Paltridge, Patterson, Pearson, Pekarek, Pielke, Plimer, Pratt, Priem, Radhakrishna, Raina, Rancour, Reiter, Roper, Rorsch, Scagel, Shoneveld, Segalstad, Sharp, Shaviv, Shaw, Dheahan, Singer, Smith, Soon, Sorochtin, Spencer, Sun, Sutherland, Svensmark, Tennekes, Tol, Uriarte, van der Lingen, van Loon, Veizer, von Storch, Walcek, Walker Ward, Watts, Wegman, Wilksch, Wilson, Winterhalter, Wojick, Wust, Ziatsev, Zichichi, Zweerink.

Regards,

Max

PS  Please enlighten me as to how many of the above deniers are on the payroll of Exxon-Mobil or some other nefarious group, which stand to make huge profits from denying the obvious anthropogenic global warming, thereby endangering all future life on this planet.  Thank you.

But isn't it also, who among these 400 is able to show and explain their version of events and causes of global warming and non global warming as to why;

1.  Greenhouse gases cause temperatures on the earth to be about 59 degrees F (33 C)greater than if we didn't have them.  The earth would be about 0 degrees F (-18 C) without the greenhouse gases and its about 59 degrees F (15 C) with them.

2.  Then they would have to explain why increasing daily to the amount of greenhouse gases that the earth has in the atmosphere would not increase that 59 degrees F to a larger number thus increasing earths temperature.

None of the 400 have done this, they have only made their statements for use in political statements, not as science.

Don't believe anyone denies the greenhouse theory as defined by the Arrhenius law and the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. This tells us that a doubling of CO2 from 1900 levels of around 280 ppmv to the expected 2100 levels of around 560 ppm will cause an increase of temperature of around 0.68 deg.C.

We are about 45% of the way there by now, which corresponds with a radiative forcing factor for CO2 of 1.66 W/sq.m. as reported by IPCC from 1750 to 2005, , so this leaves around 0.4 deg C increase from today to 2100, plus a smaller effect from other greenhouse gases.

IPCC 2007 SPM projects temperature increase in the 21st century of 0.6 to 4.0 deg C due to AGW, with the upper end of the "likely range" at 6.4 deg C (p.13) (this compares with 20th century rise of 0.4 to 0.7 deg C, depending on which record is used).

This means that the (not very alarming) low end forecast of the IPCC is reasonable, if we believe (as IPCC does) in greenhouse gas forcing and a perfectly stable natural climate with no significant natural forcing factors (in itself a dubious premise). The (more alarming) high end IPCC projection is not reasonable. It is not supported by greenhouse gas theory, but is based on computer modeled "positive feedbacks" from increased water vapor and clouds, specifically designed to increase the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on temperatures by several times the values supported by the greenhouse theory.

Unfortunately, it is the unreasonable high end projection that gets picked up by the media and the politicians (such as Al Gore and the UN Secretary General), when they warn us of an imminent tipping point.  

And it is this alarmist prediction that many scientists as well as others do not accept as reasonable.

Max

I also suspect that meteorologists, climatologists, paleoclimatologists, geologists, paleontologists, geophysicists, oceanographers, atmospheric physicists and chemists, and glaciologists who are involved with the unquestionable and unassailable IPCC process and AGREE with your vast wisdom and opinion of AGW are also qualified AGW hypothesis experts.  But those in these same scientific fields who DISAGREE with your vast wisdom and opinion of AGW are likewise unqualified as AGW hypothesis experts.  Have I got that right?  

Yes, it seems you have a singular definition of who is qualified as an expert on AGW, and it has nothing to do with scientific education and academic credentials, experience, or research background.  Rather it is of point of view, belief, and perhaps a visceral dislike and disdain for those who have the temerity to question and disagree with you.  Is it true your illustrious institution requires professors to take a pledge on the doctrine of AGW (do you put your right hand on Al Gore's book?) to be in your department?  Or is that signature on the doctrine of AGW taken of free will?  Has anyone refused to take the pledge?  What would happen if they did?

Anyone who publishes in the peer-reviewed literature on climate change and engages in the normal scientific process on that problem would be considered an expert.  It has nothing to do with whether they agree with me or not.  You should check out the first of my expose blog entries on that subject here.

It just so happens that virtually everyone who falls into the above category agrees with the primary conclusions of the IPCC.  Now I fully admit that there are a small number of skeptics out there, who are endlessly recycled by the denial machine.

My suggestion to you, Sammy: call up Inhofe and ask to be added to the list. I'm sure he'd be happy to add you --- you sound every bit as qualified as the other "prominent scientists" on the list.  

And regarding my department's statement, let me say that I admire your ability to smoothly change the subject away from an argument you're losing to another that, unfortunately, you're also going to lose.

As far as the statement goes, there is no requirement to sign.  It just so happens that virtually everyone familiar with the science is happy to sign.  If someone didn't want to sign, then they wouldn't have to.  

In fact, some faculty members expressed unhappiness with the initial draft, and some of the phrasing was changed to a version everyone could live with.  Thus, it really does represent a consensus statement.

In February 2007, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report entitled "IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis".
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf

This was an up-date of an earlier report issued in 2001.

This document reports on past and recent climate changes, stating that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

These changes are essentially attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases: "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." No scientific evidence is given for this claim.

Natural causes for climate changes are essentially ignored with the statement "additional forcing factors not included here are considered to have a very low level of scientific understanding".

The underlying assumption is that climate would remain constant without the effect of anthropogenic factors, in other words the currently observed changes must be caused by human influence. This assumption, in itself, is obviously flawed, since the Earth has gone through some dramatic climate changes before humans even existed. The most recent examples are the Medieval Warm Period and the ensuing Little Ice Age, which actually ended just as modern temperature records started to be taken in the mid to late 19th century.

The report goes on to project future climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW).  These are based on computerized climate models, using various assumed "storylines" and "scenarios".

The wording of the report is extremely clever.  Expressions such as "high confidence",  "very likely", "extremely unlikely", "more likely than not", are sprinkled throughout.  The report cites "advances in climate change modelling", "a larger number of climate models of increasing complexity and realism" and states "there is now higher confidence in projected patterns of warming and other regional-scale features, including changes in wind patterns, precipitation, and some aspects of extremes and of ice".

The report states confidently that "the ability of coupled climate models to simulate the observed temperature evolution on each of six continents provides stronger evidence of human influence on climate than was available in the TAR [the earlier IPCC report]".

This all exudes confidence and sounds very scientific, despite the fact that computerized "climate models" have been ineffective in tracking past and future climate change.

One major weakness in the IPCC report is that it provides no scientific evidence that global warming has been caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, but relies entirely on computer models to make this link.  This key weakness has been cited by several critics from the scientific community and will not be covered here.

A second major weakness of this report, which will be covered here, is that it ignores published scientific data that do not support its claim of alarming AGW.  In some cases these data show trends that are exactly opposite to those stated in the report.

The IPCC, as the supposedly un-biased "gold standard" organization for global climate science, should be above reproach in its claims. Since policy measures costing hundreds of billions of dollars are being considered based on the IPCC recommendations, it is extremely important that these are correct and not skewed to give a picture that is more alarming than realistic. If IPCC ignores data that do not support its claims, it is no longer acting in an un-biased fashion and can no longer claim the mantle of the "gold standard" climate organization.

A relatively cursory check of available scientific reports shows that there are many published reports showing results widely different from those claimed by IPCC. These are all ignored, rejected or not accepted as correct.

As a first example:  IPCC claims a net mass loss of Antarctic ice over the period 1993-2003 due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) with a corresponding rise in sea level over the same period (pp.5,7).  The actual record based on 11 years of continuous actual measurements covering the same time period shows no shrinking, but an increase with a corresponding lowering of sea level over the period.

http://bowfell.geol.ucl.ac.uk/~lidunka/EPSS-papers/djw3.p ...

In other words, IPCC ignored (or rejected or refused to accept as correct) scientific data that directly contradicted its claim of Antarctic ice mass loss.

This is just one example.

There are many, many more. These all make the IPCC report less than credible.

Max

This was an up-date of an earlier report issued in 2001.

This document reports on past and recent climate changes, stating that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

These changes are essentially attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases: "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." No scientific evidence is given for this claim.
Natural causes for climate changes are essentially ignored with the statement "additional forcing factors not included here are considered to have a very low level of scientific understanding".

The underlying assumption is that climate would remain constant without the effect of anthropogenic factors, in other words the currently observed changes must be caused by human influence. This assumption, in itself, is obviously flawed, since the Earth has gone through some dramatic climate changes before humans even existed. The most recent examples are the Medieval Warm Period and the ensuing Little Ice Age, which actually ended just as modern temperature records started to be taken in the mid to late 19th century.

The report goes on to project future climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW).  These are based on computerized climate models, using various assumed "storylines" and "scenarios".

The wording of the report is extremely clever.  Expressions such as "high confidence",  "very likely", "extremely unlikely", "more likely than not", are sprinkled throughout.  The report cites "advances in climate change modelling", "a larger number of climate models of increasing complexity and realism" and states "there is now higher confidence in projected patterns of warming and other regional-scale features, including changes in wind patterns, precipitation, and some aspects of extremes and of ice".

The report states confidently that "the ability of coupled climate models to simulate the observed temperature evolution on each of six continents provides stronger evidence of human influence on climate than was available in the TAR [the earlier IPCC report]".

This all exudes confidence and sounds very scientific, despite the fact that computerized "climate models" have been ineffective in tracking past and future climate change.

One major weakness in the IPCC report is that it provides no scientific evidence that global warming has been caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, but relies entirely on computer models to make this link.  This key weakness has been cited by several critics from the scientific community and will not be covered here.

A second major weakness of this report, which will be covered here, is that it ignores published scientific data that do not support its claim of alarming AGW.  In some cases these data show trends that are exactly opposite to those stated in the report.

The IPCC, as the supposedly un-biased "gold standard" organization for global climate science, should be above reproach in its claims. Since policy measures costing hundreds of billions of dollars are being considered based on the IPCC recommendations, it is extremely important that these are correct and not skewed to give a picture that is more alarming than realistic. If IPCC ignores data that do not support its claims, it is no longer acting in an un-biased fashion and can no longer claim the mantle of the "gold standard" climate organization.

A relatively cursory check of available scientific reports shows that there are many published reports showing results widely different from those claimed by IPCC. These are all ignored, rejected or not accepted as correct.
As a first example:  IPCC claims a net mass loss of Antarctic ice over the period 1993-2003 due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) with a corresponding rise in sea level over the same period (pp.5,7).  The actual record based on 11 years of continuous actual measurements covering the same time period shows no shrinking, but an increase with a corresponding lowering of sea level over the period.
http://bowfell.geol.ucl.ac.uk/~lidunka/EPSS-papers/djw3.p ...

In other words, IPCC ignored (or rejected or refused to accept as correct) scientific data that directly contradicted its claim of Antarctic ice mass loss.

This is just one example.

There are many, many more.

Max

1. Who is on the IPCC
   
2. Who wrote the reports
   
3. Who, individually, as scientists signed the reports
   
4. What scientific papers (and in what publications) were the bedrock research used to create the reports.

http://www.ipcc.ch/about/ipcc-bureau-tfb.htm

Rajendra K. Pachauri
Chairman of the IPCC

Commencing his career with the Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi, where he held several managerial positions, Dr Pachauri joined the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, where he obtained an MS in Industrial Engineering in 1972, a PhD in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Economics, and also served as Assistant Professor (August 1974 -- May 1975) and Visiting Faculty Member (Summer 1976 and 1977) in the Department of Economics and Business.

Wait.  You're criticizing the "400" for having a Chemist in its midst, when you guys, the IPCC has a Choo-Choo train designer as the head guy?

DUDE?!

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

The other guys that do not are different.

Their qualifications are obviously inadequate, because they do not support Dessler's point of view.

As Dessler says: "Expertise matters. Not everyone's opinion is equally valid."

Can't you see the difference?

Max

"Indian engineer and economist Rajendra K. Pachauri is elected with US backing as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [New York Times, 4/20/2002] US energy industry lobbyists had pressured Washington to block the reelection of Robert T. Watson, whose views about global warming had irked American energy companies (see February 6, 2001 and April 2, 2002)."

The bushwackwers evidently figured appointing an economist as chairman would produce more corporate polluter favorable results from the IPCC.  I guess they were wrong, the climate scientists who toiled under him were not amenable to economic considerations outweighing the science.

Or was it like appointting Brownie (the horse show judge) or Gonzo (duuhbya's drunk driving coverup attorney) or Harriet Myers (fundamentalist texan) or Wolfi 9the guy who claimed the Iraq war would only cost uS taxpayers 1.8 billion) head of the world bank...and so forth.

They appoint incompetents and conmen to government positions in order to destroy government.  A self fullfilling prophecy of the raygun revolution.  Government does nothing right, so hire crooked contractors like halliburton and harvest the kickbacks.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

But checking his  ~ 70 papers, 95% deal with dynamics - waves, winds and flows.  They do include 3 or 4 examining the effects of deep current upwelling on local Sea Surface Temps.  But those are all in small zones near Israel - none of his work considers global or even regional SSTs.  

Paldor has complained that journals don't publish his opinions on global warming.  I'm sure they'd be happy to publish scientific papers supporting his views.  But he has a familiar problem - none of his peer-reviewed research or writings deal with climate change.  

http://earth.huji.ac.il/staff-details.asp?topic=3&id= ...

Interestingly, they do include refs 59 and 65 show that Jesus couldn't have walked on water of the Sea of Galilea . . .

Surely Morano/Inhofe could have picked a lead-off hitter who could actually walk the walk?      

Without the GCMs their entire case collapses, as they have nothing else of substance and of solid scientific foundation.  The skeptics have many facts and observations from billions of years of earth's climate history to back up their arguments, as well as holes in the recent climate variations AGW theories big enough to drive an SUV through.

And yes Earth, the tactics of the AGW promoters and activists is to decalre victory in any debate by claiming they are the only credible sources of knowledge and if you don't agree you lose, simple minded logic for simple minds.  Works at RC too.

Instead, it's back to hammering on the old IPCC.  Your dissent, however, doesn't change the fact that every government in the world accepts the IPCC's conclusions, as do virtually all (real) climate experts and relevant professional organizations.  

Looking at the 51 contributors to WGII AR4 from the UK, there were 5 economists, 3 epidemiologists, 5 who were either zoologists, entomologists, or biologists. 5 worked in civil engineering or risk management / insurance. 7 had specialisms in geography. And just 10 have specialisms in geophysics, climate science or modelling, or hydrology. But there were 15 who could only be described as social scientists. If we take the view that economics is a social science, that makes 20 social scientists.

And expertise? One contributing professor (Abigail Bristow) wasn't what you'd call a climate scientist, but a professor of Transport Studies at Newcastle University. Hardly climate science. Another Professor - Diana Liverman at Oxford University - specialises in "human dimensions of global environmental change" - Geography is a social science too. Another - John Morton of the University of Greenwich, specialises in "development Anthropology". Johanna Wolf, is an IPCC contributor from the University of East Anglia, who works in the department for "development studies". Does that make her a climate scientist? Anna Taylor, of the Stockholm Environment Institute in Oxford has no PhD at all, her research focuses on "stakeholder engagement in adapting to multiple stresses, including climate variability and change, water scarcity, food insecurity and health concerns" - not climate science. Similarly, Susanne Rupp-Armstrong, listed as a member of Southampton University only appears to have ever contributed to one academic paper. Research Associate at the University of East Anglia, Maureen Agnew does not focus her research on climate science, but on such things as "Public perceptions of unusually warm weather in the UK: impacts, responses and adaptations", and "Potential impacts of climate change on international tourism." Katherine Vincent specialising in "Social Capital and Climate change" at the UEA, only began her PhD thesis in October 2003. How can she be cited as a specialist in climate science?

Of the 70 US contributors, there were 7 economists, 13 social scientists, 3 epidemiologists, 10 biologists/ecologists, 5 engineers, 2 modellers/statisticians, 1 full-time activist (and 1 part time), 5 were in public health and policy, and 4 were unknowns. 17 worked in earth/atmospheric sciences. Again, we gave the benefit of the doubt to geographers where it wasn't clear whether their specialism was physical, or human geography.

And are they more expert? Well, included as contributors are Patricia Craig, Judith Cranage, Susan Mann, and Christopher Pfeiffer, all from Pennsylvania State University. Their jobs are (in order) website-designer, administrative assistant (x2), and network administrator.

Also on the list is Peter Neofotis who appears to be a 2003 graduate of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology from Columbia. Are there many experts in anything who graduated in 2003? Would you take your sick child to a doctor, who, according to our understanding of medical training, would have not yet qualified? Also at Columbia is MartaVicarelli , who is a PhD candidate in "sustainable development". Can she be the amongst the world's leading experts on sustainability? It seems hard to take the claim seriously. Or what about Gianna Palmer at Wesleyan University, who, as far as we can tell, will not graduate from university until 2010?

The IPCC contributors are simply neither the experts Andrew claims, nor are they mostly climate scientists - but in fact are made up of specialisms that he would exclude as not being qualified. Andrew is an activist, who urges us to beleive that the IPCC ismade up of climate experts, yet investigation reveals that this is not the case. But Andrew is also a climate scientist, who either has not investigated the IPCC, in which he invests so much faith (and if we can't trust climate scientists to check the IPCC, who can we trust?) or he is deliberately misleading the public. Andrew is living proof of the confusion of politics and science, and yet asks us to believe him that the earth is "sick".

Physician, heal thyself!

Read more at http://www.climate-resistance.org/2007/12/physician-heal- ...

Kinda doubt it in a free society.  

But even if they did get charged, they would be acquitted in a fair trial in a democratic society, where diverging opinions and viewpoints are tolerated and even encouraged.

They would be convicted, however, in a kangaroo court with the McCarthy-ist approach to justice: "are you now, or have you ever been a member of a group that denies the absolute wisdom of the IPCC?"

Max

In case you didn't know, working group II is on "adaptation and impacts," and therefore requires the expertise of social scientists.  The examples you give above are all the appropriate use of expertise to produce a consensus document.

As I'll detail in a future post, it is entirely appropriate for an economist to act as an expert on questions of economics, or a social scientist to act as an expert on questions of social science.  The IPCC uses their experts in that way.  

The "Inhofe 400" use economists to comment on climate physics.  Everyone with a grain of common sense should object to that.  You'll be seeing an example of that in a few days.

"That is not to say that social scientists and computer programmers have nothing to offer the world, or the IPCC process. They are crucial in fact. What it is to say, however, is that, when social scientists, computer programmers and administrative assistants comprise a significant proportion of IPCC contributors, the global warmer mantra that the IPCC represents the world's top 2500 climate scientists is just plain old-fashioned not true." http://www.climate-resistance.org/2007/12/physician-heal- ...

What is emerging is that (if the US/UK contributors are representative samples) climate scientists in WGII and WGIII are only a minority.

Furthermore, as well you know, there are some contributors to WGII who lack the expertise you demand of sceptics, even in the social sciences.

Lastly, you worry that "The "Inhofe 400" use economists to comment on climate physics." Well, do you complain when physical scientists make shrill, alarmist noises about the future that society faces? If it takes social scientists to make that kind of prediction, climate scientists are speaking outside their area of expertise.

And so who are you - as a climate scientist - to be passing comment on how policymakers use science? On your own terms, Andrew, you should be keeping your mouth shut.

Of course, it's better that you don't, because there is a debate to be had. It's just that you seem keener to shut the debate down by making statements about the 400 than actually have it by answering their criticisms. Shame on you.

Therefore I find the "governments and societies" you refer to to be as thin and weak as your IPCC "experts" resumes for scientific credibility.  Only you could confuse partisan agenda driven political power for scienific process.  You say the IPCC doesn't use economists for climate science.  Perhaps you should tell the Indian fellow who stepped on the stage in Oslo with Gore and lectured the world about AGW.  I'm sure he would object to your pigeon holing him as not qualified to speak on the science.

I find your opinions concerning scientific specialization depressingly unbalanced or self-centric.  If for instance, I were to specialize in "Cloud Dynamics in the Atmosphere", and I were asked to look at a paper on say "Melting of the Greenland Ice-sheet", would you assume that I would not be able to understand it?  If that is your opinion, then how pray can it be possible for the many cross-disciplinary complexities of climate change ever be comprehended?   I believe that the work of all scientists should ideally be cross-fertilized with scientists not of the same discipline or specialty!

Furthermore, research scientists do sometimes make mistakes in the realm of "not seeing the wood from the trees", and such mistakes are more easily picked-up by those in different disciplines.   Here is an example, where a "Coalface scientist's" typical test for reasonableness might have saved some embarrassment for an expert researcher:  

Marco Tedesco of GSFC declared in the text of the following NASA release, that the surface melting of ice on Greenland, had in 2007 exceeded the surface area of the USA, 2.3 times.  There is also a graph, showing the melt extent not in familiar units like "Millions of square kilometres", but "Maps of the USA"; about 3 of them back in 2002 and 1998.  I guess he was confused by the normal cartographic projections of Greenland making it look large, but it is really only about a quarter the size of the USA. (Mainland)  http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_re ...   (November 07)

There are many other "errors" in the IPCC's AR4 reports 2007, and I would like you to advise, as an expert, on the first most obvious.  Please refer figure 1 in WG1. (Earth's annual and global mean energy balance).  Notice that it shows 390 w/m2 leaving the surface, which is MORE than the insolation from the sun of 342 w/m2, only part of which reaches the surface.  It is shown to be driven by 324 w/m2 of back radiation from the clouds and atmosphere at some unspecified height, which is absorbed by the surface.  It is fact that typically, air and cloud temperatures reduce with increasing altitude.   Thus, Kevin Trenberth convening lead author at the IPCC, uses his own graph Trenberth and Keihl 1997, to show that a cold source can heat a warmer target, in complete defiance of the second law of thermodynamics.  What do you think Andrew?

BTW, you declare that you will expose the inadequate qualifications of Inhofe's 400.  How about you do it in parallel with the IPCC, excluding all those that had their expert comments rejected by the authors?
 

1. I looked up the surface area of the US and it's about 9 million square km, which looks consistent with the plot on that press release.  Do you have a different value for the surface area of the US?

2. Fig. 1 in the IPCC WGI report appears correct.  The energy balance at the surface is:
   

Hope this clears things up.

The report is available on line, and point-by-point rebuttal is possible, comrades. Let ten-thousand flowers bloom!

For example:

"Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: "To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process."  

Benp's very thoughtful post exposes one of the biggest hoaxes of the "disastrous anthropogenic global warming" activists: that of "consensus among the world's experts".

This elitist viewpoint is exemplified by Andrew Dessler's "sick child" analogy.

Dessler's argument is not only extremely arrogant, it is flawed in many ways.

First, recent publications have shown that there are, indeed, many scientists who do not support Dessler's viewpoint that the IPCC is the only "gold standard" scientific body on the planet concerned with climate change, and is therefore infallible. As the predictions of the activists, such as James Hansen with his "tipping point", become increasingly shrill, there are growing numbers of scientists that distance themselves from the hysteria.

Second, the "child" has been pronounced by this elitist group, based on questionable computer simulations, as more likely than not to become ill during the 21st century unless draconian and very costly political measures are taken immediately to stop this.  No scientific evidence or diagnosis is provided for the imminent illness, just computer model studies.

Third, Dessler's argument falls back into the employment of "ad hominem" attacks on individuals, by questioning either the competency or the political "hidden agenda" of the dissenting scientist.

Fourth, as benp points out, the purported overwhelming scientific credentials of the IPCC writers is hollow; sure, there are some climate experts, like Dr. Dessler, in the crowd, but there are also many "fellow travelers". We are not talking about "thousands of world experts on climate".

Fifth, the "numbers game" is irrelevant in any case; benp shows that the scientific process, unlike political processes, is not based on consensus, but on constant challenge and verification by experimentation, so Dessler's "consensus theory" has no place in true science.

Finally, Dessler's argument implies that only highly specialized scientists are qualified to have a relevant opinion on something as basic as what needs to be done today to (maybe) avert a possible, computer-generated virtual problem in the distant future; this is obviously not how things work in a democratic society.

Bravo for this excellent rebuttal to Andrew Dessler's elitist argumentation.

Max

I repeat the ESSENCE of my original post, (subject tile omitted) since you only chose to comment on the two examples I gave of failure; attributable to ELITISM.
I find your opinions concerning scientific specialization depressingly unbalanced or self-centric.  If for instance, I were to specialize in "Cloud Dynamics in the Atmosphere", and I were asked to look at a paper on say "Melting of the Greenland Ice-sheet", would you assume that I would not be able to understand it?  If that is your opinion, then how pray can it be possible for the many cross-disciplinary complexities of climate change ever be comprehended?   I believe that the work of all scientists should ideally be cross-fertilized with scientists not of the same discipline or specialty!
BTW, you declare that you will expose the inadequate qualifications of Inhofe's 400.  How about you do it in parallel with the IPCC, excluding all those that had their expert comments rejected by the authors?

Concerning the two examples of failure by experts:

Reur item 1;
According to the CIA World Factbook, Greenland has a surface area ~2.2 million square Km. and is ~3 times the size of Texas.  In other words, Greenland is smaller than USA.  Therefore, even if the whole of the surface area of its ice-sheet were to melt each summer, which it does not, then the extent of that melt cannot exceed the area of the USA by a factor of 3 as claimed by Marco Tedesco of GSFC/NASA.

Reur item 2;
I agree that the numbers as illustrated in IPCC Fig. 1 do balance, but that is not the issue.  It would seem that there is a misunderstanding concerning the difference between HEAT and EMR, or as you call it here IR.  (Infra Red Light)   Although they are usually measured in the same units they are two different forms of energy.  For instance although sunlight is subjectively warm on the skin, the sensation of warmth is the consequence of the sunlight (Visible EMR) being converted into HEAT by molecular absorption.  Our concern on this planet is not so much how much EMR is whizzing around, but how much HEAT is retained where it affects the biosphere.   As you must know, EMR is funny stuff.  For instance, the 324 w/m2 shown to be heading towards the surface must also be going in all other directions, including straight out of the paper and into your face.  Are you at all concerned about that EMR?   Finally, is it your belief that cold air and clouds can transfer HEAT to the warmer surface below?

No, to function the court system can't allow people to lie at all they want. That is why perjury is a crime. As a news flash for you we live in a free society and lying in legal proceedings is perjury and a crime. The well known skeptic Pat Michaels was called as an expert witness in court, but withdrew because he could not lie and get away with it.

Facts don't change because you don't like them. Facts are not voted on. Facts aren't elitist. They are how things are, good or bad. One plus one equals two, but do you think that changes because you don't like it? You are using the same strategy that Luntz advocated to stop talking about the facts. Its also the strategy that the cigarette companies used when they didn't like the facts that cigarettes are addictive and deadly.

As far as the IPCC goes, I've read the reports and am satisfied that it reflects the peer-reviewed literature.  As a result, it is the gold-standard summary of what the scientific community thinks on climate change.  People have been attempting to discredit it for years, but it's credibility just keeps increasing.  Even Bush accepts it. What more do you need to know?  

Re Item 1: I admit that plot is odd.  What they're plotting is a "melting index" with units of km^2/day, and (implicitly in the plot) comparing that to an area, with units of km^2.  This is not wrong in the way you thought (that they somehow misprojected Greenland), but I agree that it's an inappropriate comparison.

In any event, that's done only for the press release and doesn't change the conclusion of the work.  Because this is a press release, you have to be very careful not to be misled.  There are lots of bad press releases out there.  While I have not read the peer-reviewed paper, I'd guess this comparison is not in it.  In fact, it may have been the press people that added that.  In any event, it would be very unlikely for something that silly to make it through peer review.

Re Item 2: The idea that the greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics because it requires heat to flow from a cold atmosphere to a warm surface is incorrect.  If you don't believe me, I recommend you check out from your library one of the very many books on atmospheric thermodynamics.  While you cannot have net heat flow from a cold object to a warm object in an isolated system, such heat flow can occur as part of a larger system of heat flows, as long as the entropy production of the entire system is not negative.  Like I said, read a textbook on this and all will become clear.

1. Science is what scientists do.

2. Science is what brings in big grant money.

3. Science is the search for truth about physical events, i.e. about the world.

3b. Veritas est adaequatio rei intellectus.

I hope that clears everything up.