FOSSIL FINANCE
A movement is growing on college campuses to divest from fossil fuel companies that contribute to climate change. A former president of several prestigious colleges and educational institutions, James L. Powell, responds to the 10 most common arguments against divestment.
CLIMATE SCIENCE
The gold standard of science is the peer-reviewed literature. If there is disagreement among scientists, based not on opinion but on hard evidence, it will be found in the peer-reviewed literature.
CLIMATE SCIENCE
The earth is warming. But can we be sure that humans are the cause? Yes. The same way cycling officials were sure that biker Floyd Landis doped with synthetic testosterone while winning the 2006 Tour de France.
CLIMATE CHANGE
If by going dark for a day to protest anti-piracy legislation, Wikipedia and other websites can cause the US Congress to change course, could they do the same for global warming? James L. Powell imagines how it could work.
CLIMATE SCIENCE
The third and final installment of James Powell’s series examining whether there is a case against human caused global warming in the peer reviewed literature.
CLIMATE SCIENCE
This is part two in James Powell’s series examining the peer-reviewed scientific publications of 115 climate skeptics. His findings: despite ample opportunity, climate skeptics have failed to present any coherent alternative to the theory that carbon emissions are the primary driver of observed warming
CLIMATE SCIENCE
James L. Powell investigates the most prominent climate deniers to see how many of them have actually ever published peer-reviewed papers about climate science.
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To use the database, first click here, then click on a name to bring up a list of that skeptic’s publications arranged chronologically. By hovering the cursor over the link, you can read an excerpt from the abstract or in some cases the entire abstract. Click on the link and you will be taken to the article itself or to the abstract, if there is one.
Note that some skeptics tend to publish with others: Baliunas with Soon; Balling with the Idsos; etc. So the total number of papers is somewhat less than the total obtained from adding the numbers for each skeptic. Also note that several skeptics have published in Energy & Environment. The WOS includes only some of these papers, perhaps because somewhere along the line, the journal changed its review practices. I include any papers from E&E that come up in the WOS.
Admittedly, my list is subjective. I wanted to count papers that a reasonable person might conclude undercut human-caused global warming, erring on the side of inclusion. I will be happy to consider any skeptic, paper, or correction that readers suggest. This is a work in progress.
Some examples may help:
Because it appeared to cast doubt on the premises of human-caused global warming and the work of the IPCC, I counted a paper by R. A. Pielke, Sr. (2002) which concluded, “Unless it can be shown that land cover change and biogeochemical effects on the regional and global climate systems are insignificant relative to the radiative effect of a doubling of CO2, the IPCC and U.S. National Assessment reports are, therefore, summaries of sensitivity only.”
I counted a paper by Curry (2011) whose abstract reads in its entirety,"This paper argues that the IPCC has oversimplified the issue of uncertainty in its Assessment Reports, which can lead to misleading overconfidence. A concerted effort by the IPCC is needed to identify better ways of framing the climate change problem, explore and characterize uncertainty, reason about uncertainty in the context of evidence-based logical hierarchies, and eliminate bias from the consensus building process itself." Her claim that bias colors our understanding appeared to me to be an attempt to call human-caused global warming into question.
I did not count a paper by Klotzbach et al. (2009) titled, “An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere,” which concluded, “The differences between trends observed in the surface and lower-tropospheric satellite data sets are statistically significant in most comparisons, with much greater differences over land areas than over ocean areas. These findings strongly suggest that there remain important inconsistencies between surface and satellite records.” This paper suggests we have a way to go in our understanding of surface and satellite temperatures, but does not go so far as to imply that once we have that understanding, human-caused global warming will be called into question.
I did not count a paper by Fall et al. (2011) titled, "Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the US Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends," whose abstract concluded, "Comparison of observed temperatures with NARR shows that the most poorly sited stations are warmer compared to NARR than are other stations, and a major portion of this bias is associated with the siting classification rather than the geographical distribution of stations. According to the best-sited stations, the diurnal temperature range in the lower 48 states has no century-scale trend." This paper did not seem to cross the line to suggest explicitly that poor station siting might have given the false impression that global warming is real.
The point of this exercise is not just the number of papers, but what they say and whether they make a case against human-caused global warming. In part two, I offer what I regard as the "takeaways" from these papers.
Part two of this series can be viewed here. For more great coverage and useful tools for climate science advocates, visit Skeptical Science.Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.