http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html?m=1
The paper, Cook et al. (2013) 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change" then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.
To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists whose papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists' papers as "endorsing AGW", apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors.
Update 1: Dr. Tol also found problems with the classifications
Update 2: Dr. Morner, Soon and Carlin also falsely classified
Dr. Idso, your paper 'Ultra-enhanced spring branch growth in CO2-enriched trees: can it alter the phase of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle?' is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; "Implicitly endorsing AGW without minimizing it".
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Idso: "That is not an accurate representation of my paper. The papers examined how the rise in atmospheric CO2 could be inducing a phase advance in the spring portion of the atmosphere's seasonal CO2 cycle. Other literature had previously claimed a measured advance was due to rising temperatures, but we showed that it was quite likely the rise in atmospheric CO2 itself was responsible for the lion's share of the change. It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming."
Dr. Scafetta, your paper 'Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming' is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; "Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%"
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Scafetta: "Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument because it does not correctly define the IPCC AGW theory, which is NOT that human emissions have contributed 50%+ of the global warming since 1900 but that almost 90-100% of the observed global warming was induced by human emission.
What my papers say is that the IPCC view is erroneous because about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun. This implies that the true climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is likely around 1.5 C or less, and that the 21st century projections must be reduced by at least a factor of 2 or more. Of that the sun contributed (more or less) as much as the anthropogenic forcings.
The "less" claim is based on alternative solar models (e.g. ACRIM instead of PMOD) and also on the observation that part of the observed global warming might be due to urban heat island effect, and not to CO2.
By using the 50% borderline a lot of so-called "skeptical works" including some of mine are included in their 97%."
Any further comment on the Cook et al. (2013) paper?
Scafetta: "Please note that it is very important to clarify that the AGW advocated by the IPCC has always claimed that 90-100% of the warming observed since 1900 is due to anthropogenic emissions. While critics like me have always claimed that the data would approximately indicate a 50-50 natural-anthropogenic contribution at most.
What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates. Instead of apologizing and honestly acknowledging that the AGW theory as advocated by the IPCC is wrong because based on climate models that poorly reconstruct the solar signature and do not reproduce the natural oscillations of the climate (AMO, PDO, NAO etc.) and honestly acknowledging that the truth, as it is emerging, is closer to what claimed by IPCC critics like me since 2005, these people are trying to get the credit.
They are gradually engaging into a metamorphosis process to save face.
Now they are misleadingly claiming that what they have always claimed was that AGW is quantified as 50+% of the total warming, so that once it will be clearer that AGW can only at most be quantified as 50% (without the "+") of the total warming, they will still claim that they were sufficiently correct.
And in this way they will get the credit that they do not merit, and continue in defaming critics like me that actually demonstrated such a fact since 2005/2006."
Dr. Shaviv, your paper 'On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget' is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; "Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise"
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Shaviv: "Nope... it is not an accurate representation. The paper shows that if cosmic rays are included in empirical climate sensitivity analyses, then one finds that different time scales consistently give a low climate sensitiviity. i.e., it supports the idea that cosmic rays affect the climate and that climate sensitivity is low. This means that part of the 20th century should be attributed to the increased solar activity and that 21st century warming under a business as usual scenario should be low (about 1°C).
I couldn't write these things more explicitly in the paper because of the refereeing, however, you don't have to be a genius to reach these conclusions from the paper."
Any further comment on the Cook et al. (2013) paper?
Shaviv: "Science is not a democracy, even if the majority of scientists think one thing (and it translates to more papers saying so), they aren't necessarily correct. Moreover, as you can see from the above example, the analysis itself is faulty, namely, it doesn't even quantify correctly the number of scientists or the number of papers which endorse or diminish the importance of AGW."
Dr. Tol found 7 papers falsely classified and 112 omitted,
Tol: "WoS lists 122 articles on climate change by me in that period. Only 10 made it into the survey.
I would rate 7 of those as neutral, and 3 as strong endorsement with quantification. Of the 3, one was rated as a weak endorsement (even though it argues that the solar hypothesis is a load of bull). Of the 7, 3 were listed as an implicit endorsement and 1 as a weak endorsement.
...from 112 omitted papers, one strongly endorses AGW and 111 are neutral"
On Twitter Dr. Tol had a heated exchange with one of the "Skeptical Science" authors of Cook et al. (2013) - Dana Nuccitelli,
Tol: "@dana1981 I think your data are a load of crap. Why is that a lie? I really think so."
Tol: "@dana1981 I think your sampling strategy is a load of nonsense. How is that a misrepresentation? Did I falsely describe your sample?"
Update 2: Dr. Morner, Soon and Carlin also falsely classified,
Dr. Morner, your paper 'Estimating future sea level changes from past records' is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as having; "No Position on AGW".
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Morner: "Certainly not correct and certainly misleading. The paper is strongly against AGW, and documents its absence in the sea level observational facts. Also, it invalidates the mode of sea level handling by the IPCC."
Dr. Soon, your paper 'Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit' is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as having; "No Position on AGW".
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Soon: "I am sure that this rating of no position on AGW by CO2 is nowhere accurate nor correct. Rating our serious auditing paper from just a reading of the abstract or words contained in the title of the paper is surely a bad mistake. Specifically, anyone can easily read the statements in our paper as quoted below:
"For example, Soon et al. (2001) found that the current generation of GCMs is unable to meaningfully calculate the effects that additional atmospheric carbon dioxide has on the climate. This is because of the uncertainty about the past and present climate and ignorance about relevant weather and climate processes."
Here is at least one of our positions on AGW by CO2: the main tool climate scientists used to confirm or reject their CO2-AGW hypothesis is largely not validated and hence has a very limited role for any diagnosis or even predicting real-world regional impacts for any changes in atmospheric CO2.
I hope my scientific views and conclusions are clear to anyone that will spend time reading our papers. Cook et al. (2013) is not the study to read if you want to find out about what we say and conclude in our own scientific works."
Any further comment on the Cook et al. (2013) paper?
Soon: "No extra comment on Cook et al. (2013) is necessary as it is not a paper aiming to help anyone understand the science."
Last edited by PkrBum on 6/24/2014, 5:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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