No catastrophic warming, no “consensus” … no worries? [updated]

The tattered fabric of  the global warming industry continues to fray.

First, after re-examining temperature records for the last century to remove homegenisation errors, scientists Steirou and Koutsoyiannis have determined the global temperature rise over the past century was only about one-half [0.42°C] of that claimed by the IPCC [0.7-0.8°C].

The “homogenisation errors” consist essentially of more upward adjustments to raw data than can possibly be justified by experiments, “and are rarely supported by metadata” say the scientists in their recently presented paper at the European Geosciences Union meeting.   As Bill quick says, it’s yet more proof that Global Warming is man-made.  Just not because of carbon emissions.

Second, you know that scientific consensus on global warming you’ve heard so much about?

There isn’t one.

'That “98% all scientists” figure refers to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered 'yes' to a doctored survey.

So where did that famous “consensus” claim that “98% of all scientists believe in global warming” come from? It originated from an endlessly reported 2009 American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of an intentionally brief two-minute, two question online survey sent to 10,257 earth scientists by two researchers at the University of Illinois. Of the about 3.000 who responded, 82% answered “yes” to the second question, which like the first, most people I know would also have agreed with.
    Then of those, only a small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “98% all scientists” referred to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes.”
    That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions. The first: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?”  Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the middle 19^th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago.)
    The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation?
    No one has ever been able to measure human contributions to climate. Don’t even think about buying a used car from anyone who claims they can.As Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has observed: “The notion of a ‘consensus’ is carefully manufactured for political and ideological purposes. Its proponents never explain what ‘consensus’ they are referring to. Is it a ‘consensus’ that future computer models will turn out correct? Is it a ‘consensus’ that the Earth has warmed? Proving that parts of the Earth have warmed does not prove that humans are responsible.”

So it turns out the science behind the survey claiming “consensus” is as threadbare as what the IPCC reports have been found to contain. [UPDATE: Indeed, by its own recent actions, the IPCC admits its past reports were unreliable.]

So does anyone know how many legitimate climate scientists do support the consensus of catastrophism? There seem to be a lot of them about.

Senator Inhofe also points out, “While it may appear to the casual observer that scientists promoting climate fears are in the majority, the evidence continues to reveal that this is an illusion. Climate skeptics…receive much smaller shares of university research funds, foundation funds and government grants and they are not plugged into the well-heeled environmental special interest lobby.” Accordingly, those who do receive support typically get more time free of teaching responsibilities, providing more time available for publishing activities.

So while the number of scientists supporting a claim is not firm proof of anything at all—as Einstein famously pointed out, one scientist with the right evidence is all you need to prove a hypothesis—is there any polling at all that can be relied on to answer the question at issue?

    While real polling of climate scientists and organization memberships is rare, there are a few examples. A 2008 international survey of climate scientists conducted by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch revealed deep disagreement regarding two-thirds of the 54 questions asked about their professional views. Responses to about half of those areas were skewed on the “skeptic” side, with no consensus to support any alarm. The majority did not believe that atmospheric models can deal with important influences of clouds, precipitation, atmospheric convection, ocean convection, or turbulence. Most also did not believe that climate models can predict precipitation, sea level rise, extreme weather events, or temperature values for the next 50 years…

Tell the politicians.