SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE: A survey of researchers publishing on anthropogenic global warming reveals that climate change contrarians generally lack expertise in the subject.
Image: ©iStockphoto.com/Mark Poprocki
A mathematician in Alberta, an oceanographer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a darling of climate change contrarians share a rare distinction in a new analysis of expertise about global warming. The three scientists are the only ones, on the basis of their work, to appear on two lists: both among researchers who are convinced of the scientific evidence for climate change and on a roll of those who are unconvinced.
Gordon Swaters of the University of Alberta, Carl Wunsch of M.I.T., and climate scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville all qualify for both lists thanks to various efforts to canvas the scientific community for those who dissent from the consensus on climate change as well as efforts to build that consensus. For example, Christy—who appeared in a contrarian film documentary and was identified by Sen. James Inhofe's office as a dissenter from any scientific consensus about observed global warming—also participated in preparing the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007.*
The new analysis, published June 21 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, surveyed 908 researchers publishing in scientific journals from around the world on the subject and found that not only were those in the unconvinced camp less expert in the field, they were also less likely to be trained in the climate science.
"A physicist or geologist with a PhD is a scientist, but not a climate scientist and thus their opinions on complex climatological issues is not likely to be expert opinion," says William Anderegg, lead author of the analysis and a biologist-in-training at Stanford University. "Cardiologists, for example, don't prescribe chemotherapies for cancer, nor do oncologists claim expertise at heart surgery—they are all doctors, of course, but not experts outside of a narrow specialty."
Climate scientist Stephen Schneider of Stanford, who worked on the new analysis, admits that it is born of frustration with "climate deniers," such as physicist Freeman Dyson or geologist Ian Plimer, being presented as "equally credible" to his peers and granted "equal weight" as science assessments from the IPCC or U.S. National Academy of Sciences, both of which ascribe ongoing climate change to increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activities. "We wanted to ask by objective measures, 'Who publishes the bulk of the new science in the refereed literature and gets cited the most: those who accept anthropogenic global warming or those who deny it?'" Schneider says.
Anderegg and his colleagues ranked the researchers based on total number of climate-related publications and found that those unconvinced by the evidence made up just 2.5 percent of the top 200 most prolific researchers, in terms of number of scientific publications. In the total sample, the final list of 93 unconvinced researchers published an average of 89 papers in total compared with an average of 408 among those researchers who accept human-induced climate change. Researchers had to publish at least 20 papers to qualify for the convinced or unconvinced lists, disqualifying roughly 80 percent of researchers from the initial list of potential "unconvinced experts" that was culled from the overall sample of 1,372.
Of course, some climate contrarians allege an active effort to prevent the publication of scientific findings that would undermine the climate change consensus and point to e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia in England—so-called "Climategate"—that vow to "redefine what peer-reviewed literature is" to keep certain findings from appearing in the 2007 IPCC report on climate change. Those papers nevertheless made it into the final report. "It is a data-free assertion of conspiracy," argues Schneider, who has edited the journal Climatic Change since the 1970s. "They have no data on their submission to rejection rates, no data on the quality of peer reviews on them versus others."
Ultimately, the best way to make a name for oneself as a scientist is to overthrow the conventional hypothesis "but to do that it takes extraordinarily good science," Schneider notes. Climate change contrarians have yet to do this.
The researchers also found that, on the whole, the pool of climate change contrarians was older—receiving their PhDs, on average, in 1977—compared with those convinced by the scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming—receiving their PhDs, on average, in 1987. "The general stereotype for the [unconvinced experts] is that of aging scientists far outside of their field," Anderegg says. "To some extent, we've demonstrated that on the expertise angle in this paper."
As the world—and the U.S.—struggles to determine what to do about human emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change, applying appropriate expertise to the problem is critical. "The American public at large are increasingly confused about the risks of human induced climate change," Anderegg says, despite efforts such as a 2004 analysis in Science that found that of 928 scientific papers surveyed, none argued for natural explanations of climate change. That's because there is a short list of scientists willing to dispute the evidence for human emissions of greenhouse gases causing climate change—and yet both governments and the media have been willing to air the views of researchers on that list. As a result, the Sunday Times of London had to issue a retraction for an article that alleged the IPCC had relied on faulty evidence for its statements about potential drought in the Amazon as well as a formal apology to ecologist Simon Lewis of the University of Leeds for misrepresenting his scientific views on the subject.
And the list of the unconvinced also does not truly include M.I.T.'s Wunsch, who finds himself on it thanks to being selectively quoted in a climate contrarian documentary, nor Alberta's Swaters, who immediately issued a retraction when he discovered his name on a letter to Canada's prime minister arguing against anthropogenic global warming. That leaves Alabama's Christy and 90 other unconvinced colleagues with various levels of expertise. But, as the PNAS analysis authors wrote: "Not all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise in the climate system."
*Correction (6/28/10): This sentence was changed to report the correct reasons that John Christy was included in the unconvinced experts list. It originally stated Christy had signed letters dissenting from scientific consensus about observed global warming.
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37 Comments
Add CommentIf the goal is to get experts and contrarians aired in the media based on their respective statistical representation within the scientific community, I'm afraid these analysts are going to be sorely disappointed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAah, this is just another piece of propaganda by that socialistic immigrant Obama, who wants to muzzle us true experts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell I got my Phd from the Sam Houston Institute of Technology, and I know better. There is no such thing as "global warming", because there is no globe. We all know that the earth is flat!
The main problem with the "debate" over human-induced global warming is that there are two distinctly different types of debates. One type of debate uses evidence and logic in an attempt to arrive at the correct answer. The other type is an attempt to convince the audience that one view is correct and the other wrong. This type mainly uses various forms of emotional manipulation such as innuendo and personal attacks. It only takes a brief look at the statements put out by the different groups to figure out who is using which type of argument.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt doesn't take an expert to find the flaws in the IPCC "science" All it takes is common sense and basic high school physics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the Earth is at equilibrium temperature (every day), then there is either an excess of photons OR an excess of GHGs in the air. Since there is water vapor available, then there MUST be an excess of GHGs., and it is the number photons that limit the Greenhouse effect.
The IPCC says that "more GHGs results in more warming" (AR4, WG1, Ch1, p116) and yet when the GHG water vapor triples to 100% when it rains, the temperature does not go up, the greenhouse effect temperature does not triple. The IPCC science logic is false.
When the sun rises in the morning and the number of photons required for the Greenhouse effect increases, then the GHE temperature increases as more of the excess CO2 and water vapor GHGs in the air are used, in spite of the IPCC insisting that you need more man generated GHGs and CO2 to get more warming. Likewise, when the sun goes down, the GHE decreases in spite of the man generated CO2 still increasing.
It is the number of nature made photons, not the number of man made GHGs that dictates how much greenhouse warming we get. The IPCC and computer models are incorrect. Controlling emissions or CO2 does nothing to the temperature. It just costs money.
(For an alternate explanation of climate change see a paper at www.scribd.com called Gravity causes Climate Changes. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27343303/Gravity-Causes-Climate-Change )
JDoddsGW - That's hysterical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGravity? I think it's selective breeding that causes warming.
The ink insulation and total number of GHG molecules available to be hit by those litlle photons.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! After learning late last year that climate change alarmists engaged in concerted efforts to keep dissenting views from being published in peer-reviewed journals, and with quite some success, at is laughable to use peer-reviewed journal article counts to support the idea that such dissenters are in a small minority.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI could NOT have said it better myself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUncle Al - Another 'hidden variable' in this analysis is that a climate scientist taking an unconventional position on a climate issue, for any reason, is subjecting himself to increased scrutiny, both professionally and politically. That an unconventional position may be career changing cannot be ignored.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm convinced that the planet is warming, but I'm also convinced that there is now a subculture driven by the economic benefits of the 'climatization' of all things. There's even enough money left over to fund studies of the social-economic-political effects of climatology expertise. I certainly trust only the unbiased experts.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"And Candide asked Pangloss, whatever shall we do now? And Pangloss replied, 'we shall tend our garden'".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis narrow cadre of "experts" are also the ones with the most vested interest in funding that results from the public subscription to the climate change narrative. So don't tell us that their science is "objective", i.e., free of politics or ideology. It is vulgar to appeal to the authority of experts, like what you are doing in this article. If the science is indeed right, should it not naturally attract rational assent?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you seriously publishing an article stating that those who disagree with "Climate Scientists" (the ones who belive in AGW) aren't as smart as those who do?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously?
I'm gobsmacked.
I'm just at a complete loss for words.
You do this in the name of "Climate Science"?
To what end?
Why is it so important that those who disagree with you, are stupid?
There is something seriously amiss here and it has nothing to do with science.
“The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government” -- Sam Houston
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it interesting that the article would use dates of receiving a Phd as an argument. It is most likely that the more recent graduates were taught from day one that global warming is a fact. Anybody who has spent time in a university knows that there is as much politics to graduating as there is to studying. I went to a university and a few professors respected my way of getting things done while others, If you don't do it 100% the way your professor does you will not pass. I think it's a form of seeing if you can work with in a bureaucratic system thats why government jobs no matter how menial require a degree to see if you can work the system not if you can do the job, off subject there but it is a form of compliance or shall I say consensus required nowadays. Consensus similar to concession which means to concede not necessarily agree think about it .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Biello, apparently a majority of thinkers who dispute creation lack the theological expertise to do so!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe logic put forward here might look bullet-proof next to an IPCC report, but that's about it.
I bet you could have said the same thing about the earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth way back when! We certainly have something to do with the climate, but anyone saying that they know what is going on based on a few hundred years of observations and/or data from the earth is talking though his hat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sad thing about SciAm is it's descent into politics. This article isn't science, it's propaganda. The author is a fine example of the intellectual narrowing of education. He denigrates those who have broad knowledge and synthetic abilities of which he can't conceive. He'd be the one casting aspersions at Einstein, Newton, da Vinci, and Leibnitz for opining outside of their "areas of expertise". Let's get the editorial crap out of our magazine, thank you very much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sad thing about SciAm is it's descent into politics. This article isn't science, it's propaganda. The author is a fine example of the intellectual narrowing of education. He denigrates those who have broad knowledge and synthetic abilities of which he can't conceive. He'd be the one casting aspersions at Einstein, Newton, da Vinci, and Leibnitz for opining outside of their "areas of expertise". Let's get the editorial crap out of our magazine, thank you very much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn every other area of study, emeritus level (older) researchers are respected for their views but when it comes to climate issues they are thrown on the trash heap, particularly if they hold views contrary to the current fad. I use the term literally because fad-ism in science has become an substantial problem now with 24 /7 news cycles and the constant rat race for funding. Older researchers who have the benefit of a life's experience in the field offer far more than just a historical view. As established researchers, they are far more likely to be skeptical of poorly derived data, imprudent predictions, and more likely to identify frank fraud by those who are more concerned with making their bones in a world where the possibility of becoming the playboy, cause célèbre of climate science with its attendant benefits is a real possibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI encourage you to read the work of these foundation researchers because you will note that for many, their views are being mischaracterized. Few debated the real phenomenon that increasing green house gas concentrations retains long-wave radiation. However, they were not convinced that the dire predictions being promoted by the proponents of the idea had any credibility. Why? Because a life time of experience provides a larger view with a greater appreciation of the complexities that work to mitigate such changes.
Last criticism: Bad analogies. Both Cardiologists and Oncologists have an overarching knowledge and appreciation for the disease processes each deals with. The individual specialties are aimed at knowing how to handle the ever changing nuts and bolts used to manage the problems of their respective areas. However, both can easily identify bad research design and poor conclusions from each other specialty literature. As scientists are all trained in critical literature review; the defense that “you have to play in my sand box” does not hold water.
What interesting is even without GW we must do the same things for national security, economic reasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlus the obvious acidifying of the oceans will itself be worth cutting CO2 before 3/4 of the plant dies. Then how will the land cope with the ocean dead that supplies much of the O2 we breath?
From the point of view of the earth, the sun neither rises nor sets, but merely shines on different areas at different times. High school physics (and all other types as well) say that total rainfall on the earth as fairly constant, and thus not a factor. Get your facts straight , before you try to play scientist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuestion: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and therefore life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnswer: Infinitesimal
The IPCC now agrees. See the IPCC Technical Report section entitled Global Warming Potential (GWP). And the GWP for CO2? Just 1, (one), unity, the lowest of all green house gases (GHG). Whats more, trace gases which include GHG constitute less than 1% of the atmosphere. Of that 1%, water vapor, the most powerful GHG, makes ups 40% of the total. Carbon dioxide is 1/10th of that amount, an insignificant .04%. If carbon dioxide levels were cut in half to 200PPM, all plant growth would stop according to agricultural scientists. It's no accident that commercial green house owner/operators invest heavily in CO2 generators to increase production, revenues and profits. Prof. Michael Mann's Bristle cone tree proxy data (Hockey stick) proves nothing has done more to GREEN (verb) the planet over the past few decades than moderate sun-driven warming (see solar inertial motion) together with elevated levels of CO2, regardless of the source. None of these facts have been reported in the national media. Why?
Warmers like Schneider don't like skeptics being "equally credible." Given two decades of highly questionable research like the hockey stick, the decidedly unscientific behavior of climate “scientists” (refusing to share data and methodology, relying on computer models as evidence, non-falsifiable theories, etc) climategate, recent scandals with the IPCC, misleading, false, and deceptive reports (rising seas swamping islands like the Carterets when it is actually the island sinking due to plate tectonics, blaming warming for ice loss when it is wind driven, dummying up a study to say Antarctica is warming when it clearly isn’t, and 100’s of others), and current public opinion, they should be worried more about having any credibility at all. In no other field of science could anyone get away with nonsense that the pro-AGW climate scientists have for the past 20+ years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere’s a thought for the warmers – show us some science. The warmers claim it is all on their side. Where is it? We see lots of computer models that never end up correctly forecasting anything, but that’s about it. The cries that the sky is falling have worn thin. What malady on this problem has not been blamed on AGW (with zero scientific evidence) at this point? It’s time for the warmers to put up or shut up. No more computer models, no more blanket reliance on some unnamed consensus. No more photoshopped pictures of polar bears, no more deceptions, lies, and half truths. Let’s see some hard science that supports AGW. I won’t hold my breath.
Sciam: Could you find an English translation of Arrhenius' 1898 paper on GW [Global Warming]? And John Tyndall's 1859 paper on the infrared optical properties of gasses? The hard science is more than a century old. The experiments and the theory have been repeated many times since. It is too bad more high schools don't teach this basic science and too bad physics is not required of all high school students.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe denialist comments may have been paid for by the fossil fuel industry.
Follow the MONEY! Are any Climate Scientists getting grants to show there is no GW? Sorry I'm just a lowly Professor of Mathematics who opinion is worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the global warming fanatics wanted the truth in science to come out, they would allow scientists like me to be a peer (physicist and geophysicist). I find it disgusting that a biologist-in-training feels that he has more expertise in the area of climate change than I do. There are many potential geo-hazards that are ignored or the research on them is under funded. Earthquakes kill more people each year, than global warming (if it is true) ever would. We are living near the end of a interglacial period. We will be entering a period of a new glacier. Were I live (northern Alberta) there was a mile of ice above my land 11,000 years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe head of the IPCC is a train engineer. What is his area of expertise ? There are many economists on the IPCC, what is their area of scientific expertise?
I find Scientific American coverage of this area to be very one sided. I will not renew my subscription.
TXCraig,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou won't have to hold your breath, but you may have to open your eyes.
Which hockey stick? There have been several, based on entirely independent proxies. They all show pretty much the same thing.
Refusing to share data? Have you even looked at the NASA web site? The data and computations are free for downloading. Please, knock yourself out.
You are saying that climate models are used as evidence; no one does that. At least not as evidence that climate change is happening or that the greenhouse effect is real.
Could you please be specific regarding your concern about 'climategate'. Would it be hiding the decline? Would that be the same decline in correlation between tree proxy data and the temperature record that Mann points out to reader? Because, pointing it out to the reader seems like a curious way to 'hide' anything.
Arctic ice loss is only a result of wind? Really? And there has been no wind for the last several hundred years that people have been searching, and failing, to find a NW passage?
I could go on, but I don't see the point.
Why don't high school kids get to vote on their prom queen? If you transplant this study into high school you have the researchers searching through the year book to find which kids are mentioned the most. The researchers then search through these 'popular kids' emails to infer which prom queen candidate they would vote for. Wouldn't the results be more accurate and scientific if the researchers just asked all the kids in the school to vote?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-- Robert Moen, www.energyplanUSA
As a meteorologist, I don't qualify as a "climate expert". However, in some ways, i think I am far more qualified to assess the overall climate change issue than a full time PhD in climate science. I'll explain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, I have a detailed knowledge of atmospheric science, forecasting and the skeptical mindset that a scientist should bring yet I'm not "too close to the problem". Often, those too close to the issues can't see the big picture or see the "forest for the trees."
Second, my reputation, ideology, and funding are not tied to the issue. Too often, climate scientists like to feel that their work is of utmost importance to the very survival of the world and a sort of group-think takes over that does not tolerate anyone insulting the standard "sky is falling" argument. I'm much more likely to call it as I see it without concern over reputation or funding or peer pressure.
Thirdly, climate science is comprised of a tiny group that had virtually no funding and no prestige 20 years ago. Now they are getting billions in funding and decide world energy policy. This is scary, especially considering the science is in it's infancy and many climate scientists have been clearly trying to suppress dissent and dismantle a legitimate peer review process. Ethical scientists welcome skepticism and dissent and try to strengthen the peer review process, not stack it in their favor.
And finally, as a forecaster, I can see no evidence of skill in climate forecasting. So far, most climate forecasts have been dreadfully wrong and it will take decades to prove any statistically significant skill. Climate scientists hide, disguise, and dispute this but it's obvious to those of us who actually forecast for a living and live long enough to have to "face the music" for our forecast errors.
In a nutshell, a climate expert will generally tell you that we face an issue of life and death importance and that we need more funding and that any evidence or people that disagree should be discredited or ignored for the good of the planet.
A well educated atmospheric scientist on the other hand, will acknowledge that climate change is a serious issue but will be much more careful about jumping on a bandwagon created by a small group of passionate advocates from an infantile science who have no track record of forecasting success.
Water vapor is a strong GHG reflecting heat from the earth back at it. Condensed water droplets, that form white clouds, reflect photons from the sun back into space and cool the earth. Gas = GHG, Vapor = Anti-GHG
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is why clouds are such trouble for the models.
So when it rains, are their clouds or water vapor? Is there evaporation, shadows, condensation, and wind? When you, JDodds say it doesn't get warmer are you measuring the entire air column or just the gage in your kitchen window?
A lot of the problem is that 'climate science' is a political football. Since there's systematic misrepresentation of each other's positions, you have logical fallacies of Strawman Argumentation and Poisoning the Well hard at work. That, and it's hard to convince somebody of anything when his paycheck depends on believing the opposite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'Climate Science' would depend on some sort of adequate record and testable predictions. Neither are evident.
Here are random articles from the furball.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/03/climate.html
For those who would like to hear Ian Plimer in his own words, I offer this link.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sydneyminingclub.org/presentations/2008/november/plimer/player.html
Geologists have a 4,540 million year window on climate. No, we can't tell the weather next month or next year, but the rocks, fossils, isotopes, element ratios, etc. we study give us a pretty good idea of climatic variation through time. Unfortunately models return the assumptions and boundary conditions (biases) of their authors. So who has the truth?
I would like to see a comprehensive study on the average level of computer programming, modeling and statistical analysis expertise among those characterized as "climate scientists"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been an environmental investigator. The first thing one learns is there is no such thing as an environmental expert. Anyone who says they are is a liar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this censored by deleting the comment during preparation
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisso that the commentor has to start all over again ? If so zap me now !
Of couse there is significant climate change. Five glacial ages and four interglacial ages have occuured in approximately
1, 000,000 years since modern man appeared on Earth -- the Pleistocene. Each interglacial has corresponded to an advancement for the Human Race. Why do the "experts" ignore this? Because they support control of burning hydrocarbons, which One cold easily favor on purely logical grounds. But the raising of taxes on all users of electricity,
including the Poor, is political power oriented. It gauls those seeking govrnment power that they cannot tax the poor.
Of course it should attract rational assent, which is why the great majority of the world's scientists do, indeed, assent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is amazing that global warming is even called science. Since the sun provides 99.5% of the heat the earth has, what difference does it make what humans do? Nothing humans do can affect the temperature of the earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince carbon dioxide is less that 1/2% of the atmosphere, what effect can it have on holding heat? NONE.
This is about garbage in and garbage out.
William Shaw
Atlanta, GA.