Myth of "Consensus Science" Explodes, APS reverses stance

[MegansPrius]

Originally Posted by TimBikes

Scott - you never answered my question. The Oreskes opinion piece - oh sorry - "essay" - is it peer reviewed or not?

Yes I did. See:
Myth of "Consensus Science" Explodes, APS reverses stance

Below, by the way, is the sort of standard text one receives in an email after submitting a scientific manuscript for publication.

Dear ------,

Your manuscript has been received for consideration by ---- for
publication. Please refer to manuscript tracking number MS#-------
in any correspondence with the Editors or Publisher.

We expect to have our internal review completed within the next two weeks.
If your manuscript is selected for further review, it will be sent to two
or more reviewers who are experts in the field. However, if the internal
review board decides not to send your manuscript for further review, we
will notify you by email.

Oreskes published a good follow-up to this issue in 2007:

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by Fibb222

Thanks. Not that I doubt it's accuracy but what's the source and what exactly is the unit on the vertical axis?

Millions of metric tons of carbon (cumulative). Source: Oak Ridge.

[F8L]

Originally Posted by Fibb222

Are you implying that there wasn't a man-made increase in atmospheric CO2 by 1945? Why wouldn't there be, given that the industrial revolution started in the late 1700s?

There are many natural CO2 absorbing mechanisms that act as a buffer and help to keep systems in "equilibrium" (I'm not implying this is by design in anyway). These systems include soils, forests, oceans, geologic structures, plants, animals, etc. During the first part of the century as industrial release of CO2 was ramping up, these mechanisms could have been "absorbing" excess CO2 and the total observable atmospheric CO2 percentage would likely not have changed much from previous centuries. Once these "buffering systems" become saturated or overloaded then their capacity to absorb CO2 will decline and excess CO2 will build in the atmosphere (and oceans as it takes longer to saturate this sequestration media) and thus become observable to data collection. Much like a Prius bladder system, these buffering systems can become saturated and become a net carbon source instead of a sink and they will produce more CO2 than they take in. Think of overfilling your Prius tank only to have the fuel puke back out at you.

We must also consider data collection methods and how they have improved over the last 100 years.

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by MegansPrius

Yes I did. See:
Myth of "Consensus Science" Explodes, APS reverses stance

Below, by the way, is the sort of standard text one receives in an email after submitting a scientific manuscript for publication.

Dear ------,

Your manuscript has been received for consideration by ---- for
publication. Please refer to manuscript tracking number MS#-------
in any correspondence with the Editors or Publisher.

We expect to have our internal review completed within the next two weeks.
If your manuscript is selected for further review, it will be sent to two
or more reviewers who are experts in the field. However, if the internal
review board decides not to send your manuscript for further review, we
will notify you by email.

Scott - you are greatly misrepresenting this. It is hardly accurate to imply that a measly 771 word "essay" by this History professor is a significant piece of scientific work in the field of climatology. This does not equate to a peer reviewed journal article and you know it.

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by richard schumacher

And do you know his qualifications for making pronouncements on global warming? What is his doctorate in? If you don't know, why do you trust him?

I'm just this guy who only knows about global warming what I read in the literature. I don't ask you to trust me on global warming. Trust people who have spent years studying the matter.

His doctorate is in paleoclimatology.

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

That's right, show a graph starting at 1900 because that looks like it fits more with trying to show your point. Now let's see the graph starting at 1700, ok?

Fine. It actually makes my point even more strongly, don't you agree?

[MegansPrius]

Originally Posted by TimBikes

Scott - you are greatly misrepresenting this. It is hardly accurate to imply that a measly 771 word "essay" by this History professor is a significant piece of scientific work in the field of climatology. This does not equate to a peer reviewed journal article and you know it.

Tim,

I provided you pictures of the actual screens submission of an essay would give you. If you think Science magazine didn't have someone double-check her work, it just shows your lack of knowledge regarding scientific publishing. From Science:

Education Forum (approximately 2000 words) presents original research and, occasionally, essays on science education and its practice. Unsolicited submissions are welcome.

There is nothing at all unsual about 700 word piece published in the Education Forum. Her article was certainly published there as it pertains to education, namely, the education of the public and the consensus issue regarding global climate change.

Here's an excerpt from another Education forum piece, published in June. Is this non-scientific? Do you suppose no one reviewed this?

THE EARLY YEARS:
Preschool Programs Can Boost School Readiness
William T. Gormley Jr.* Deborah Phillips, Ted Gayer1

Early childhood programs have been heralded by both scholars and decisionmakers as a promising avenue for fostering school readiness (1-4). In the United States, these sentiments have fueled ambitious preschool initiatives from both state and federal resources.

Oklahoma's prekindergarten (pre-K) program has generated attention because it is universal, is based in the school system, and reaches a higher percentage of 4-year-olds than any other state pre-K program. Oklahoma's statefunded pre-K program channels aid to local school districts, which are free to run full-day programs, half-day programs, or both. Federally funded Head Start programs, which are targeted to poor or otherwise at-risk children, and private day care centers are also eligible for state funding if they establish "collaborative" relations with their local school district. The Oklahoma pre-K program has relatively high standards compared with those of other states and offers relatively high pay and benefits to well-qualified teachers. Every lead teacher must have a B.A. degree and must be certified in early-childhood education. Student teacher ratios of 10-to-1 and class sizes of 20 must be maintained. The Community Action Project (CAP) of Tulsa County, whose Head Start program serves the largest number of children in Tulsa, is eligible for state funding. Its teachers meet the same standards as their Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) counterparts and receive similar pay (5).

Here, we estimate the short-term test score gains for children in Tulsa's pre-K and Head Start programs. In August 2006, we administered three subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test to incoming Tulsa students entering pre-K and Head Start programs and kindergarten. The tests were administered just before the commencement of classes by the individual who would be teaching the child that year. About 78% of all pre-K entrants, 69% of all Head Start entrants, and 73% of all kindergarten entrants were tested. The tested students closely mirrored the universe of students, except for the kindergarten cohort, where some differences between the two groups were found (6). While the child was being tested, the parent completed a survey to provide demographic information. Program participation and school lunch eligibility were determined separately (7). The three subtests we used were the letterword identification test (a measure of prereading skills); the spelling test (a measure of prewriting skills); and the applied problems test (a measure of premath skills). These subtests have been shown to be especially appropriate for children aged 4 to 5 and have been used by other researchers studying both at-risk and more diverse groups of children. Woodcock- Johnson test scores at or before school entry help to predict later scholastic achievement (8).

You're the one being disingenous. Oreskes published in Science, possibly, outside of Nature, the most prestigeous scientific publication extant. It is not equivalent to publishing an unreviewed opinion piece in a local newspaper (the route of 90% of the articles that dispute AGW). Had her piece been Opinion-driven, Science would have published it as an Editorial or perhaps Perspective. Instead, like most scientific articles, the Oreskes piece contained reproducible results.

[F8L]

Originally Posted by TimBikes

Fine. It actually makes my point even more strongly, don't you agree?

Tim, firstly I would like to thank you for being one of the few skeptics that actually tries to bring us real data instead of news hype and political opinions.

I do not think that those graphs do butress your point though. CO2 output prior to the mid 1900s would have been much lower than the mid 1900s to present AND buffering systems should have been at a higher capacity as I stated above. Even without taking buffering systems into consideration, we can clearly see that from the early 1900s+ the CO2 levels have climbed almost exponentially higher yes? The fact that industrial processes have increased exponentially since the early 1900s this kind of makes sense. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point?

[MegansPrius]

Originally Posted by Fibb222

Thanks. Not that I doubt it's accuracy but what's the source and what exactly is the unit on the vertical axis?

I don't know what Tim's source it.

But ice-core data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center ( Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center ) show a pretty clear correlation with the industrial revolution:

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by F8L

Tim, firstly I would like to thank you for being one of the few skeptics that actually tries to bring us real data instead of news hype and political opinions.

I do not think that those graphs do butress your point though. CO2 output prior to the mid 1900s would have been much lower than the mid 1900s to present AND buffering systems should have been at a higher capacity as I stated above. Even without taking buffering systems into consideration, we can clearly see that from the early 1900s+ the CO2 levels have climbed almost exponentially higher yes? The fact that industrial processes have increased exponentially since the early 1900s this kind of makes sense. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point?

I agree - CO2 has risen much more significantly in the latter half of the 20th C than the first half. But then consider 3 cases as per the thumbnail attached below:
Case A (pre-1945) - minimal CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere yet temperatures rose approximately 0.3 C
Case B (1945-1975) - significant CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, yet temperatures actually fell by approximately 0.2 C
Case C (1975 - present) - significant CO2 accumulation - though at a slightly lower slope than in case B, and temperatures rose by approximately 0.6 C

The only scenario that strongly correlates with CO2 driving significant warming is Case C. And Case A and B, while certainly not refuting AGW, beg the question as to what other factors might drive climate. Not knowing the answer, we cannot say with much certainty whether, or how much of, the warming in the latter half of the 20th C. is due to CO2.

My bet is on PDO, which does a much better job of tracking to temperature change than does CO2: