Is the so-called 'Consensus' among scientists eroding...or did it even exit in the first place?

Question

"As someone who worked on the IPCC...I can assure you that there are many disagreements, that the final words do not represent the iron-clad truth about something, it's an evolving document that often makes compromises, and consensus is a political notion, it is not something based on things that are hard and fast."

Mean Surface Temperature is NOT an appropriate index for the greenhouse effect because urbanization and irrigation dramatically impacts the circulation of surface and atmospheric year at night, distorting the surface temperature measurements upwards.

Surface temperature measurements of California central valley disclose that the temperature at the valley floor has increased dramatically (4-5° centigrade!) over the last 100 years, while the surrounding foothills have cooled slightly. He comments, "That tells you right there that this is not a greenhouse gas effect. It's going in the opposite way of what greenhouse theory indicates... it is a false signal. It is not greenhouse warming that is occurring there, it is the development of surface warming that is occurring there...Humans are causing that rise, but it's not greenhouse gas effects."

And, to be fair:

Christy has also said that while he supports the AGU declaration, and is convinced that human activities are a cause of the global warming that has been measured, he is "still a strong critic of scientists who make catastrophic predictions of huge increases in global temperatures and tremendous rises in sea levels."

John Christy

A professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). He was appointed Alabama's State Climatologist in 2000. For his development of a global temperature data set from satellites he was awarded NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the American Meteorological Society's "Special Award." In 2002, Christy was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Christy was a lead author for the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the US CCSP report Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Understanding and Reconciling Differences. He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric sciences from the University of Illinois.

Answer 1

First you have to get a consensus on what consensus means!

Merriam Webster has "general agreement" and "the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned";

The Free Dictrionary also has "general agreement" as well as "An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole";

A philisophical discussion on consensus can be found at http://www.communicatingwithcompassion.o... that generally concludes with consensus means "general agreement" but further defines that to mean a) the majority agrees with the statement and the dissenters can live with it (i.e. they are not opposed);

The WTO defines consensus as “no Member, present at the meeting when the decision is taken, formally objects to the proposed decision”

"In other words, a failure to formally put on the record any objections to the proposed decision is considered as agreement with, or approval of, the proposed decision; silence means consent."

In general, "consensus", especially in large formal bodies such as the IPCC means:

1 - A majority agrees

2 - No one completely disagrees

3 - Everyone consents to the statement being made

Consensus does not stifle dissent nor disagreement in part. The fact that a consensus has arisen doesn't necessarily preclude other theories, other facts and even dispute.

In brief, consensus means that all the people present can 'live with' the statement.

Christy's statements -

1) "he supports the AGU declaration";

2) "he is still a strong critic of scientists";

3) "there are many disagreements" and;

4) "that the final words do not represent the iron-clad truth"

all fall well within the definition of consensus.

Hence his statements do not undermine the concept of consensus. Indeed, it rather supports the fact that consensus, even by a critic and a sceptic, still exists.

Answer 2

You are closer to hitting the nail on the head with the facts that the greenhouse gas theory is seriously flawed. We would not even be discussing the greenhouse gas theory if scientist knew that we are generating extreme heat on the surface of the planet.

It doesn't mean that greenhouse gas emissions are good because they are toxic and in our water, food and air. Go to the following link and scroll down to the picture of the fetus where there is a study on polluted newborns before they take their first breath. How does a baby that has never taken a breath have banned pesticides, mercury(from electrical generation), fire retardants, fossil fuel emissions, incinerated garbage and hundreds more toxins inside them? Mom is consuming them in her food, water and air. The bad part about emissions is that the fetus is unprotected while the news of the world discuss autism, cancer, etc and where is it coming from. http://www.thermoguy.com

In regards to surface temperatures of the planet, it is much more dire than understood and only because it couldn't be seen. Go to the following link and see unprecedented information showing solar radiation including the same UV that burns our skin causing buildings to generate extreme heat the building isn't designed, insulated or insured for. California is reacting to the symptoms and getting knocked off the electrical grid while not addressing the source of the problems. EACH new building and development is contributing to this catastrophic problem that is changing weather while polluting our children. http://www.thermoguy.com/globalwarming-h...

Answer 3

Bob beat me to the punch.  This doesn't say anything about the consensus - Christy has been a 'skeptic' for ages.  In fact, he was interviewed on the Swindle (talking about his satellite data analysis which turned out to be completely wrong).

Now Christy is wrong again.  The urban heat island effect is a local one.  I can't believe Christy doesn't realize this.  And even worse, he confuses local and global effects.  Wow.

bob326: "With the UHI occurring all over the world, the combined effects are global."

Not on global temperatures they're not.  If you want to argue UHI can impact weather on a large scale, that's one thing.  But it has been shown not to effect global temperatures, which seems to be Christy's argument.

(The other) Bob is correct.  UHI has been proven not to impact global temperatures.

Answer 4

Bob wrote:

"Christy's been a skeptic for years, and you think he would know better than to claim local conditions in CA are more important than the global data.

Or that urbanization has anything to do with the trend of global temperature to rise. The data shows that's nonsense:

David E. Parker (2006). "A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban". Journal of Climate 19: 2882–2895. doi:10.1175/JCLI3730.1.

T. C. Peterson (2003). "Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found". Journal of Climate 16: 2941–2959. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<2941:AOUV... "

That is funny, Bob, because more recent data says it isn't nonsense.

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publicati...

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007......

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publicati...

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/20...

I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, Bob, but when you claim things have been proven when they haven't (or can't be), or things are nonsense when they aren't, it is hard to stay that route.

Dana wrote

"Now Christy is wrong again. The urban heat island effect is a local one. I can't believe Christy doesn't realize this. And even worse, he confuses local and global effects. "

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/20...

Yes, UHI is a local effect, but this paper (and many others) demonstrates the important role of heterogeneous climate forcings on weather thousands of miles removed from the forcing.

With the UHI occurring all over the world, the combined effects are global.

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Edit:

"(The other) Bob is correct. UHI has been proven not to impact global temperatures."

Then you are going to need to provide better sources than Bob, because mine disagree greatly with his (one even claims to refute the work of both Parker and Peterson).

"Not on global temperatures they're not. If you want to argue UHI can impact weather on a large scale, that's one thing."

UHI impact weather patterns on a large scale (that includes temperatures), and with trends in urbanization, the changes are long term as well. Like I said before, the combined effects of UHI all over the world do effect global temperatures.

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Edit2:

Ken wrote

"bob326 - If our temperature datasets are simply corrupted by UHI....blah blah blah"

Sigh, that isn't what I was saying, and don't know why you would think that. My point was that UHI does effect global temperatures. Not corruption, but actually effecting weather patterns (including temperatures) on a large scale through teleconnections. This means the UHI can and does effect the tropospheric trends, glacial melt, and if it does effect global temperatures (which I, and many others, believe it does), then it can be a contributer to the thermal expansion of the oceans. Land use changes, including urbanization and the UHI, are a part of the recent warming, but not the only part.

Come on, Ken, you can do better.

Answer 5

There is nothing as diametrically opposed to science as 'consensus', even if it is a consensus of scientists.  Unless you are the most useless out of work physics student, you get this.  Climate scientists rely too much on models and not enough on their own brains.

There are a whole host of ways the Earth and the Atmosphere could respond to the tiny 1.6 W/m2 humans add to the natural energy in the system.  There's no good reason to assume temperature will become a run-away train.  

There are political/international forces at work in the IPCC that myopic "scientists" just don't get.  It doesn't matter, though.  There aren't enough green lunatics in the U.S. to be a politically viable force, and after a few years of failed temperature predictions & corporate "green" marketing (and a lot of wasted U.S. tax dollars) - most people will be so sick & cynical from hearing about it that the "issue" will fade away.

Answer 6

Let's clarify a few things.

First, Christy was 1 of 8 lead authors for just 1 of 14 (plus a Technical Summary) chapters for 1 or 3 IPCC reports in 2001. There were several hundred lead authors and many more contributing authors (+ reviewers). So it's important not to conclude too much about Christy's authority on the entire AGW topic.

Second, no one (no reasonable person, at least) has ever said the IPCC report was "iron-clad truth".  Claiming people do say that is a straw man argument. The IPCC reports are simply the best collective analysis (with global involvement) of the scientific literature we have on this subject.

Third, the consensus is NOT "catastrophic", "huge increases in global temperatures", or "tremendous rises in sea levels" (whatever those unspecified terms are supposed to mean). Saying people claim that, is another case of a straw man argument.  The consensus, in it's simplest form, is that human activity is increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which are in turn increasing our planets global temperature.  And given a reasonable projected increase of CO2, by the year 2100, we will see a temperature increase of 1.5 - 4.5 C and a sea-level rise of 0.2 - 0.5 meters.

Now there are definitely some papers out there that project more severe temperature and sea-level increases, but they are outside of the consensus position.  So you can't logically attack the existence of a consensus view by arguing against positions outside of the consensus.

If the temperature increase turns out to be 1.5 C, that won't be too bad. If it turns out to be 4.5 C, that would certainly cause serious (calling it catastrophic, depends on your actual meaning of that term) problems. If the IPCC projections are actually too conservative (a view certainly held by some climate scientists who have just as much credibility as Christy), then that would most likely classify as catastrophic.

Sure it would be nice to have "iron-clad truth" about this topic (e.g. the SST global average temperature will rise exactly 2.538 C above baseline and the sea-level will rise exactly 0.278 M by 2100), but that's not reality.  You make decisions in life based on the information you have, not on the information you'd like to have.

Edit:

bob326 - If our temperature datasets are simply corrupted by UHI, then how do you explain the world-wide glacier mass decline, the sea-level rise (presumed to be from ocean expansion due to increased temperature), and the RSS satellite troposphere warming trend of 0.171 K/decade?  These are all independent of any UHI. Your links all seem to be discussing a level of measurement precision that is completely irrelevant to long-term global trends. And if UHI were significant, you'd expect to see the largest warming trend around urban areas, which is not the case.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/animat...

Answer 7

Nope, the consensus is just fine.

Christy's been a skeptic for years, and you think he would know better than to claim local conditions in CA are more important than the global data.

Or that urbanization has anything to do with the trend of global temperature to rise.  The data shows that's nonsense:

David E. Parker (2006). "A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban". Journal of Climate 19: 2882–2895. doi:10.1175/JCLI3730.1.

T. C. Peterson (2003). "Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found". Journal of Climate 16: 2941–2959. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<2941:AOUV...

This is still true:

"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists. I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."

NASA's Gavin Schmidt

Answer 8

I think Man made global warming made PC status which ended serious discussion. I dont believe anyone knows one way or the other. GW has become a religion where people just believe in it not worry about proving anything.

Answer 9

its a joke. all these "so called" intelligent people fail to remember that global heating and cooling has been going on for millions of years. its started millions of years before mankind. that, is a fact.

Answer 10

Don't worry about those very isolated  and local effects-

1) look at the polar ice-caps. Both Arctic and Antarctic are experiencing massive melts.

2) large areas of tundra are melting, or are within 1 or 2 degrees of melting. When that happens, there will be a massive vomit of yet more greenhouse gases, as tundra has locked up huge amounts of it.

Or you could just bury you head in the sand, then wonder what happened when yourass is covered by water. lol.

Answer 11

There is no consensus on the degree of warming expected. But there is a consensus that the earth is warming and mankind is primarily responsible due to CO2 emissions. Don't mistake internal contraversy with overall opinion on the issue.

Answer 12

I trained and worked as a scientist, and AGW is the first time I ever heard about "scientific consensus".

What happens in science is that there is a lot of data, and a theory is proposed to explain the data.  No theory explains all the data, there are always anomalies, and if a new theory does a better job, the old theory is discarded.

We say the planets revolve around the sun, and not the earth,  because it makes the mathematics enormously easier.  If fact, we use theories known to be wrong if it is more convenient.  Like the Coriolis force.  It doesn't exist, but is necessary if you assume the earth doesn't rotate, and need to make naval artillery firing tables.

No organic chemist believes there are ball and stick figures on the molecular level, but they are used to describe chemical reactions.

What is suspicious about AGW is the attempt to beat folks down on every single anomaly in the data.  If the AGW folks said this model or theory or whatever explained most of the data in a convenient manner, and had some experiments to confirm, here are some things it doesn't explain, it might gather some more credibility.

The placebo effect in medical experiments is well documented, and conformity experiments of Asch showed people who would not normally make any mistakes, would make observational errors under duress from their peers.

So I think if you anomously polled scientists, randomly and without duress, I think you would find most of them lukewarm to AGW.  Not necessarily opposed, but that AGW is weak and flakey and not nearly as well grounded as theories in molecular genetics, physics, chemistry, etc.

Like, AGW is a theory that doesn't explain much of anything, the data are noisy, avg global temp data has a lot of uncertainty and variance outside of satellite measurements, no one has explained the current ice age and glaciation cycles ... something that any climate theory should do, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.