Suicidesoldier#1
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- Posted: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 00:26:36 +0000
The Truth about Climate Change
There is no argument; the climate is changing, quite quickly in fact. The Quaternary extinction, present just 13,000 years ago, saw the extinction of nearly 75% of the world's megafuana; animals, such as mammoths, which had been around for over 40 million years and survived multiple ice ages, have now died off, in just a relatively short time, meaning this shifting ice age cycle has been considerably more extreme, and very much unlike the others. While it is still debated whether we are still in an ice age or this is the end, what is for sure is that the climate has changed rapidly, so quickly in fact that it has caused a mass extinction, the largest until the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Most the ice on the earth is below sea level, or under water, as the glaciers have largely disappeared. These different warming and cooling periods are believed, largely, to be due to orbital cycles (Milankovitch cycles), when the earth takes a much more elliptical pattern than usual and is farther or closer away from the sun, thus causing the earth to lose more of the sun's light, and cool down. While this process takes thousands of years and only changes the earth's temperature by a few degrees, (9 degrees Celsius, 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the latest ice age), it can have a tremendous effect on the earth's climate, turning temperate areas into glaciers, and deserts into rainforest, and rainforests into... normal forests. It is an incredibly important period, and this most recent change has been one of the most significant changes in the biosphere since 67 million years ago (the extinction of the dinosaurs). We are basically right at the end of the last major extinction on earth.
However, there tends to be a lot of misconceptions about climate change, or perhaps more accurately, Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming. While ordinarily I would start with the most important scientific aspects first to allow people to get a fundamental grasp on the subject, I figure it would be best to start with what, at least I consider, to be the least important, or "petty" aspects first, as they will probably appear to be the most convincing arguments. So, here we go, the truth about "climate change", or "Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming".
Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming- We will run out of fossil fuels before these events are possible
The worst part of the supposed Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming is to be the effects it will bring. The earth will become scorching hot, lakes will all dry up, and we'll be left with no water, and yet everything will be simultaneously flooded, and even according to some, winters will be even colder. While this doomsday apocalypse might be a convincing reason to change human behavior and stop global warming, it is mostly an exaggeration. At best, over the next 200 years, the IPCC claims that they earth may warm by 2-4 degrees Celsius, which is largely considered negligible. [1]
We are just out of a mini ice age, that made the earth 1 degree cooler than it was supposed to be; this effect was largely considered inconsequential. Should the earth warm another 2 degrees after this, it's effects are also likely to be minuscule, as we would be approximately a degree warmer than "average"; even a few degrees over average is largely irrelevant. The IPCC does claim however that after a 2 degrees Celsius increase, most of the perceived bad effects of global warming will begin occurring if we assume the worst case scenario.
However, this is unlikely to happen or even be possible. The IPCC's predicted carbon dioxide levels are based on the current rate of consumption of fossil fuels; it assumes two things, that people will keep consuming fossil fuels, and that our rate of consumption will increase with a further industrialized population, and more people in general. There are however, simply not enough fossil fuels left on the earth to warrant this; The world has roughly, in proven reserves, 1,324 billion barrels of oil, 300 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 860 billion tons of coal.[1][2][3] The worldwide consumption of oil is roughly some 31.4 billion barrels per year, while worldwide consumption of natural gas is roughly 3.2 trillion cubic meters a year, and the worldwide consumption of coal is roughly 7.25 billion tonnes. At the current rate of consumption, this would mean running out of gasoline in 42 years, natural gas in 93.75, and coal in roughly 118 years. Gasoline represents some 40% of total fossil fuel consumption, and in 2008 energy by supply was oil 33.5%, coal 26.8%, gas 20.8%, out of the total energy consumption. [1]
Essentially, we barely have another 100 years worth of fossil fuels, and less than 50 years worth for oil, at our current rate of consumption. For the levels to increase drastically by the estimates proposed by the most extreme assertions of members within the IPCC, would require more fossil fuels to be available than are actually on earth. Unless some major unknown reserve of fossil fuels are found by these time frames, we will simply not have enough fossil fuels to reach this predicted time frame at the predicted rates of consumption (which by itself, is considered to be the start of our problems). Furthermore, not all the reserves are available for fossil fuel extraction or could be prohibitively expensive, reducing the total figure available to us. The estimates assume the worst case scenario, as improved technology could increase the efficiency of energy production substantially, thus reducing consumption (along with industrialized populations comes not just raw energy consumption, but a stabilized population that does not grow exponentially, and that benefits from improved technology, of which includes more energy efficient devices). With the increased use alternative fuel sources, and other potential reasons for fossil fuel consumption being lowered, it is unlikely that we would ever actually reach these levels.
Carbon Dioxide in general
Carbon dioxide has a life between 5 and 200 years [1]; while this is a relatively broad spectrum of time to consider it's impact, it more or less only tends to have a half life of about 31 years in our atmosphere assuming it isn't absorbed by a carbon sink (I.E. decays from other natural factors, such as degradation by sunlight). If humanity stopped producing carbon dioxide, today, then most of our contributions would disappear in 31 years (as some of it in the atmosphere is already over 30 years old) and thus in double that time most of what we produced today would be gone. According to the IPCC, if we reduced our emissions production to roughly half the amount it is currently, then carbon dioxide levels would not only stop increasing, but also begin to decrease [1]. There are enough natural carbon sinks, such as the ocean, vegetation, algae, and other organisms to absorb the carbon dioxide, to absorb enough of our emissions to make it to where, halving our current amount would stop the supposed problems all together. As long as we stay below this level, our emission levels will more or less be negligible. While our atmosphere has approximately 20.9% oxygen by volume, it has only approximately .04% carbon dioxide; despite this, a large portion of life, including bacteria, trees, algae, and other forms of vegetation, produce virtually all the oxygen on earth necessitated by life. There is a substantial amount of room for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and if carbon dioxide and oxygen breathing creatures produced the same ratio of exhalation in the atmosphere, there could be hundreds of times the current amount. Because of the volume and efficiency of carbon dioxide breathing life, there is hardly any carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, despite the abundance of their by product, oxygen, and creatures that consume it; thus, more carbon dioxide can easily be absorbed by this life given the appropriate time span, with little repercussions.
This may surprise some people, but 75% of the warming of the earth is expected to come from water vapor. Water Vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas on earth, representing over 98% of the earth's greenhouse gases by volume. While water vapor is believed to contribute to the largest secondary effects of warming (as the earth warms due to the Milankovitch cycles, more water vapor will be created by the increased temperature; more water vapor will produce even higher temperatures, and thus even more water vapor, although it will not become a runaway greenhouse effect and warm the earth infinitely since it's effects minor compared to the orbital cycle warming). One particular problem with water vapor warming is the production of clouds; clouds reflect light and other radiation back into space, preventing them from reaching the earth's surface. While this cools the earth down, it more importantly prevents the global warming effect by preventing light from changing spectrums (into the infrared) when reflected by the earth's surface and thus being absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Thus, while water vapor can warm up the planet, it also will cool down the planet a certain amount, as well. This figure is not exactly known; according the IPCC, the calculations for predicting cloud production are impossible to carry through with, since even the best super computers can only model 9 clouds at a given time, let alone the earth's entire climate and biosphere. Thus, the IPCC ignores what cloud production will do, and is invariably, and admittingly, always going to be over predicting what the temperature will do. This is exponential, as more water vapor means more heat, which means more water vapor, and thus more heat; cutting down on heat levels exponentially reduces the temperature, thus making it, likely far below the maximum predicted levels. The IPCC does not claim to have perfect knowledge, but at least 40-60% of the estimated temperature increase will be mitigated by increased cloud production. Therefore, the chances of the earth reaching these levels in 200 years decreases substantially, as does the impact of global warming.
97% of scientists believe everything you have read about global warming on the internet
While this feels somewhat silly to address, it appears as if a large chunk of the population read from, more or less, random news articles, that "97% of scientists support climate change", which has got me thinking about what a preposterous idea that it is. First, not everything you read about global warming on the internet is true; the concept of it melting the polar ice caps or changing weather is more or less questionable at best, since weather is believed to ultimately stabilize at warmer temperatures. Since the IPCC, that is the international panel on climate change, the leading experts and the source of whom the United Nation cites (albeit the protocols and supposed measures being put forth being a little more political than they should be), claim that little will change in the next 200 years even assuming the worst case scenario, there more or less is no major effects expected by global warming until that point (as which described above is more or less impossible to reach). Thus the concept of increased hurricanes and droughts and such right now due to the supposed effects of climate change are more or less a media frenzy, and do not reflect real scientific opinion on the subject. In fact, most major scientific organizations are trying not to be alarmist, and want to educate the public so they believe that recent events can be blamed on it's existence or non existence (I.E. one hot summer or cold winter doesn't justify or disprove climate change).
More or less, there is a tendency among global warming advocates to claim near unanimous support by "scientists" for global warming. Figures ranging from 75 to 97, to 98% are not uncommon among many media sources.[1][2][3][8]
The very concept of 98 or 97% of all scientists agreeing on something seems questionable, at least to me, from beginning. The scientific community still cannot on the absolute validity of relativity, newtonian mechanics, and quantum mechanics, and the emerging fields have created discoveries so profound they've equated the developments as if having godlike importance. How would one poll 98% of scientists; by population, 20% of the world's population are in China, and China has some strong opinions against global warming, so it couldn't be 97% of scientists then; what of India, or other such countries with a large amount of people, and thus scientists? What question was asked, specifically; climate change, global warming, anthropomorphic global warming, anthropomorphic climate change, whether or not it should be immediately dealt with, whether or not the effects will be severe, carbon dioxide driven global warming? Is it a big enough issue to be dealt with, are fossil fuels the primary cause, is it simply changing things slightly? How big is the impact, does it warrant immediate attention? Which theory do they believe in specifically? These questions are all important to determining the ramifications of the effects.
How do we determine what is a "scientist"? Is it someone who studies science; by the vagueness of these and the impact science has on the world, do we mean science as the body of knowledge humans have collected, or the more archaic science as the actual world itself? Either way, this means that practically the entire population could count as a scientist; is it someone who uses the scientific method? Anyone with a science degree; what about students, getting a degree? Who counts as a scientist; do we mean, climatologists? Climatologists specifically studying global warming; and if so, shouldn't we look at the scientific data instead of asking a very vague and perhaps illogical question? Was it anyone who attended a particular science convention during a particular time frame?
The notion itself is quite skeptical to begin with, regardless of whether or not we seek the basis of it; by which poll did they did, how did they do it? The nature of their decisions on how they decided provides broader implications than the answers themselves, since this ultimately determines what they mean. A unanimous acceptance of man made global warming also doesn't determine the impacts or if we should support politically charged doctrines like the Koyoto protocol.
The actual Study
The legitimacy of unanimous support boils down to the actual study or polling done to determine whether or not 98%, or 97% of scientists legitimately support climate change. Skeptical science [2], The Guardian [3], the New York times [1], and even CNN [7] utilized the same study in their report. The study does not try to confirm a global consensus on anthropomorphic climate change, it's impacts, or the actual science behind them. It merely attempts to assert that a percentage of scientists agree that humans are having some impact on climate change, or more specifically global warming.
"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research."
The actual study did an "analysis to 11 944 papers written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980 journals", all particularly chosen. Out of this, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 97.2% of the authors endorsed the position. I don't find this to be particularly surprising, but I don't think it proves a global consensus on global warming. " A team of 12 individuals completed 97.4% (23 061) of the ratings; an additional 12 contributed the remaining 2.6% (607)." A team of 12 which apparently believes AGW is significant, no doubt? Furthermore, one of the peer reviewers were the author themselves; no conflict of interest there. Unfortunately, peer reviewing only has as much as merit as the peers; while we can argue the conflict of interest among the reviewers without real objective verification, 12 people do not equal the entire planet, or the vast majority of the body of scientists or climatologists. Furthermore, this peer reviewing was not done by a major scientific institution, such as the International Counsel of Science, the National Science Foundation, and many more like it. It cannot then, be considered as legitimate evidence proving that 97% of "scientists" support the position of the makers of the study. Nor were the actual details of what that position was explored.
In any case, the concept that many people have an opinion on a subject is not scientific proof of global warming or climate change or human involvement. The actual data needs to be explored to come to a true logical and factual basis.
There is no argument; the climate is changing, quite quickly in fact. The Quaternary extinction, present just 13,000 years ago, saw the extinction of nearly 75% of the world's megafuana; animals, such as mammoths, which had been around for over 40 million years and survived multiple ice ages, have now died off, in just a relatively short time, meaning this shifting ice age cycle has been considerably more extreme, and very much unlike the others. While it is still debated whether we are still in an ice age or this is the end, what is for sure is that the climate has changed rapidly, so quickly in fact that it has caused a mass extinction, the largest until the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Most the ice on the earth is below sea level, or under water, as the glaciers have largely disappeared. These different warming and cooling periods are believed, largely, to be due to orbital cycles (Milankovitch cycles), when the earth takes a much more elliptical pattern than usual and is farther or closer away from the sun, thus causing the earth to lose more of the sun's light, and cool down. While this process takes thousands of years and only changes the earth's temperature by a few degrees, (9 degrees Celsius, 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the latest ice age), it can have a tremendous effect on the earth's climate, turning temperate areas into glaciers, and deserts into rainforest, and rainforests into... normal forests. It is an incredibly important period, and this most recent change has been one of the most significant changes in the biosphere since 67 million years ago (the extinction of the dinosaurs). We are basically right at the end of the last major extinction on earth.
However, there tends to be a lot of misconceptions about climate change, or perhaps more accurately, Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming. While ordinarily I would start with the most important scientific aspects first to allow people to get a fundamental grasp on the subject, I figure it would be best to start with what, at least I consider, to be the least important, or "petty" aspects first, as they will probably appear to be the most convincing arguments. So, here we go, the truth about "climate change", or "Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming".
Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming- We will run out of fossil fuels before these events are possible
The worst part of the supposed Anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven global warming is to be the effects it will bring. The earth will become scorching hot, lakes will all dry up, and we'll be left with no water, and yet everything will be simultaneously flooded, and even according to some, winters will be even colder. While this doomsday apocalypse might be a convincing reason to change human behavior and stop global warming, it is mostly an exaggeration. At best, over the next 200 years, the IPCC claims that they earth may warm by 2-4 degrees Celsius, which is largely considered negligible. [1]
We are just out of a mini ice age, that made the earth 1 degree cooler than it was supposed to be; this effect was largely considered inconsequential. Should the earth warm another 2 degrees after this, it's effects are also likely to be minuscule, as we would be approximately a degree warmer than "average"; even a few degrees over average is largely irrelevant. The IPCC does claim however that after a 2 degrees Celsius increase, most of the perceived bad effects of global warming will begin occurring if we assume the worst case scenario.
However, this is unlikely to happen or even be possible. The IPCC's predicted carbon dioxide levels are based on the current rate of consumption of fossil fuels; it assumes two things, that people will keep consuming fossil fuels, and that our rate of consumption will increase with a further industrialized population, and more people in general. There are however, simply not enough fossil fuels left on the earth to warrant this; The world has roughly, in proven reserves, 1,324 billion barrels of oil, 300 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 860 billion tons of coal.[1][2][3] The worldwide consumption of oil is roughly some 31.4 billion barrels per year, while worldwide consumption of natural gas is roughly 3.2 trillion cubic meters a year, and the worldwide consumption of coal is roughly 7.25 billion tonnes. At the current rate of consumption, this would mean running out of gasoline in 42 years, natural gas in 93.75, and coal in roughly 118 years. Gasoline represents some 40% of total fossil fuel consumption, and in 2008 energy by supply was oil 33.5%, coal 26.8%, gas 20.8%, out of the total energy consumption. [1]
Essentially, we barely have another 100 years worth of fossil fuels, and less than 50 years worth for oil, at our current rate of consumption. For the levels to increase drastically by the estimates proposed by the most extreme assertions of members within the IPCC, would require more fossil fuels to be available than are actually on earth. Unless some major unknown reserve of fossil fuels are found by these time frames, we will simply not have enough fossil fuels to reach this predicted time frame at the predicted rates of consumption (which by itself, is considered to be the start of our problems). Furthermore, not all the reserves are available for fossil fuel extraction or could be prohibitively expensive, reducing the total figure available to us. The estimates assume the worst case scenario, as improved technology could increase the efficiency of energy production substantially, thus reducing consumption (along with industrialized populations comes not just raw energy consumption, but a stabilized population that does not grow exponentially, and that benefits from improved technology, of which includes more energy efficient devices). With the increased use alternative fuel sources, and other potential reasons for fossil fuel consumption being lowered, it is unlikely that we would ever actually reach these levels.
Carbon Dioxide in general
Carbon dioxide has a life between 5 and 200 years [1]; while this is a relatively broad spectrum of time to consider it's impact, it more or less only tends to have a half life of about 31 years in our atmosphere assuming it isn't absorbed by a carbon sink (I.E. decays from other natural factors, such as degradation by sunlight). If humanity stopped producing carbon dioxide, today, then most of our contributions would disappear in 31 years (as some of it in the atmosphere is already over 30 years old) and thus in double that time most of what we produced today would be gone. According to the IPCC, if we reduced our emissions production to roughly half the amount it is currently, then carbon dioxide levels would not only stop increasing, but also begin to decrease [1]. There are enough natural carbon sinks, such as the ocean, vegetation, algae, and other organisms to absorb the carbon dioxide, to absorb enough of our emissions to make it to where, halving our current amount would stop the supposed problems all together. As long as we stay below this level, our emission levels will more or less be negligible. While our atmosphere has approximately 20.9% oxygen by volume, it has only approximately .04% carbon dioxide; despite this, a large portion of life, including bacteria, trees, algae, and other forms of vegetation, produce virtually all the oxygen on earth necessitated by life. There is a substantial amount of room for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and if carbon dioxide and oxygen breathing creatures produced the same ratio of exhalation in the atmosphere, there could be hundreds of times the current amount. Because of the volume and efficiency of carbon dioxide breathing life, there is hardly any carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, despite the abundance of their by product, oxygen, and creatures that consume it; thus, more carbon dioxide can easily be absorbed by this life given the appropriate time span, with little repercussions.
This may surprise some people, but 75% of the warming of the earth is expected to come from water vapor. Water Vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas on earth, representing over 98% of the earth's greenhouse gases by volume. While water vapor is believed to contribute to the largest secondary effects of warming (as the earth warms due to the Milankovitch cycles, more water vapor will be created by the increased temperature; more water vapor will produce even higher temperatures, and thus even more water vapor, although it will not become a runaway greenhouse effect and warm the earth infinitely since it's effects minor compared to the orbital cycle warming). One particular problem with water vapor warming is the production of clouds; clouds reflect light and other radiation back into space, preventing them from reaching the earth's surface. While this cools the earth down, it more importantly prevents the global warming effect by preventing light from changing spectrums (into the infrared) when reflected by the earth's surface and thus being absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Thus, while water vapor can warm up the planet, it also will cool down the planet a certain amount, as well. This figure is not exactly known; according the IPCC, the calculations for predicting cloud production are impossible to carry through with, since even the best super computers can only model 9 clouds at a given time, let alone the earth's entire climate and biosphere. Thus, the IPCC ignores what cloud production will do, and is invariably, and admittingly, always going to be over predicting what the temperature will do. This is exponential, as more water vapor means more heat, which means more water vapor, and thus more heat; cutting down on heat levels exponentially reduces the temperature, thus making it, likely far below the maximum predicted levels. The IPCC does not claim to have perfect knowledge, but at least 40-60% of the estimated temperature increase will be mitigated by increased cloud production. Therefore, the chances of the earth reaching these levels in 200 years decreases substantially, as does the impact of global warming.
97% of scientists believe everything you have read about global warming on the internet
While this feels somewhat silly to address, it appears as if a large chunk of the population read from, more or less, random news articles, that "97% of scientists support climate change", which has got me thinking about what a preposterous idea that it is. First, not everything you read about global warming on the internet is true; the concept of it melting the polar ice caps or changing weather is more or less questionable at best, since weather is believed to ultimately stabilize at warmer temperatures. Since the IPCC, that is the international panel on climate change, the leading experts and the source of whom the United Nation cites (albeit the protocols and supposed measures being put forth being a little more political than they should be), claim that little will change in the next 200 years even assuming the worst case scenario, there more or less is no major effects expected by global warming until that point (as which described above is more or less impossible to reach). Thus the concept of increased hurricanes and droughts and such right now due to the supposed effects of climate change are more or less a media frenzy, and do not reflect real scientific opinion on the subject. In fact, most major scientific organizations are trying not to be alarmist, and want to educate the public so they believe that recent events can be blamed on it's existence or non existence (I.E. one hot summer or cold winter doesn't justify or disprove climate change).
More or less, there is a tendency among global warming advocates to claim near unanimous support by "scientists" for global warming. Figures ranging from 75 to 97, to 98% are not uncommon among many media sources.[1][2][3][8]
The very concept of 98 or 97% of all scientists agreeing on something seems questionable, at least to me, from beginning. The scientific community still cannot on the absolute validity of relativity, newtonian mechanics, and quantum mechanics, and the emerging fields have created discoveries so profound they've equated the developments as if having godlike importance. How would one poll 98% of scientists; by population, 20% of the world's population are in China, and China has some strong opinions against global warming, so it couldn't be 97% of scientists then; what of India, or other such countries with a large amount of people, and thus scientists? What question was asked, specifically; climate change, global warming, anthropomorphic global warming, anthropomorphic climate change, whether or not it should be immediately dealt with, whether or not the effects will be severe, carbon dioxide driven global warming? Is it a big enough issue to be dealt with, are fossil fuels the primary cause, is it simply changing things slightly? How big is the impact, does it warrant immediate attention? Which theory do they believe in specifically? These questions are all important to determining the ramifications of the effects.
How do we determine what is a "scientist"? Is it someone who studies science; by the vagueness of these and the impact science has on the world, do we mean science as the body of knowledge humans have collected, or the more archaic science as the actual world itself? Either way, this means that practically the entire population could count as a scientist; is it someone who uses the scientific method? Anyone with a science degree; what about students, getting a degree? Who counts as a scientist; do we mean, climatologists? Climatologists specifically studying global warming; and if so, shouldn't we look at the scientific data instead of asking a very vague and perhaps illogical question? Was it anyone who attended a particular science convention during a particular time frame?
The notion itself is quite skeptical to begin with, regardless of whether or not we seek the basis of it; by which poll did they did, how did they do it? The nature of their decisions on how they decided provides broader implications than the answers themselves, since this ultimately determines what they mean. A unanimous acceptance of man made global warming also doesn't determine the impacts or if we should support politically charged doctrines like the Koyoto protocol.
The actual Study
The legitimacy of unanimous support boils down to the actual study or polling done to determine whether or not 98%, or 97% of scientists legitimately support climate change. Skeptical science [2], The Guardian [3], the New York times [1], and even CNN [7] utilized the same study in their report. The study does not try to confirm a global consensus on anthropomorphic climate change, it's impacts, or the actual science behind them. It merely attempts to assert that a percentage of scientists agree that humans are having some impact on climate change, or more specifically global warming.
"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research."
The actual study did an "analysis to 11 944 papers written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980 journals", all particularly chosen. Out of this, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 97.2% of the authors endorsed the position. I don't find this to be particularly surprising, but I don't think it proves a global consensus on global warming. " A team of 12 individuals completed 97.4% (23 061) of the ratings; an additional 12 contributed the remaining 2.6% (607)." A team of 12 which apparently believes AGW is significant, no doubt? Furthermore, one of the peer reviewers were the author themselves; no conflict of interest there. Unfortunately, peer reviewing only has as much as merit as the peers; while we can argue the conflict of interest among the reviewers without real objective verification, 12 people do not equal the entire planet, or the vast majority of the body of scientists or climatologists. Furthermore, this peer reviewing was not done by a major scientific institution, such as the International Counsel of Science, the National Science Foundation, and many more like it. It cannot then, be considered as legitimate evidence proving that 97% of "scientists" support the position of the makers of the study. Nor were the actual details of what that position was explored.
In any case, the concept that many people have an opinion on a subject is not scientific proof of global warming or climate change or human involvement. The actual data needs to be explored to come to a true logical and factual basis.
