Global Warming: The Skeptic Consensus

Others are quick to pronounce climate science bunk.  David Rose wrote in the Daily Mail ‘A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.’ Hayley Dixon in The Telegraph put it less blatant but still succinct in her opening sentence: ‘A leaked draft of a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is understood to concede that the computer predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.’

--From Germany's Klimazwiebel blog via Anthony Watts

We often hear about the alleged 'consensus' pertaining to catastrophic global warming. In a few days, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is going to release its next report. According to leaks, it will say they are 95% certain humans affect the client. I believe the real number is 100%. Humans do affect the climate.

However, I do not believe that CO2 is the overwhelming driver of changes in climate nor do I believe the earth is warming at a rate that is "catastrophic." The small, but growing, number of climate scientists who believe the earth will cool need to be heard but the IPCC seems to ignore them, if the news reports are correct.

I'm not the only atmospheric scientist who believes the IPCC overstates the problem. Two days ago, I noted the convergence of views among those skeptical of the Al Gore/IPCC's catastrophic global warning hypothesis. This is becoming more and more common.

Dr. Judy Curry, a working climate scientist, just published what might be called the "skeptical consensus." With permission, here it is (blue):

"So, exactly what differentiates the two sides in the debate?  I think Dana Nuccitelli (for once) hits the nail on the head:  consensus denial.  Exactly what is consensus denial?   Here are some characteristics of the social aspects of consensus denial:

• Denial that experts selected by an organization (i.e. the IPCC) with substantial infiltration by ‘big green’ are objective arbiters of climate science.
• Denial of the trustworthiness of the experts owing to the behaviors revealed by the Climategate emails and the explicit policy advocacy by IPCC participants, most particularly by those in leadership positions in the IPCC
• Denial that a scientific consensus seeking process makes sense for an exceedingly complex problem like climate change that is dominated by uncertainties.
• Concern that an explicit scientific consensus building process in a politicized environment is introducing biases into the science and amplifying them.
• Concern over how the community of climate scientists allowed intolerant activists who make false claims to certainty to become the public face of the field - Roger Pielke Jr
• [Concern that]  what is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. - Ross McKitrick
• The idea of producing a colossal document of near biblical infallibility is a misrepresentation of how science works, and we need to look very carefully about what the IPCC does in the future. – Myles Allen
• The “truth” about global warming, if it exists, lives somewhere in a constantly shifting probability cloud. – Indian Express
• Concern that policies based on consensus science that are advocated to mitigate global warming are technologically, economically and politically infeasible.
• Concern that policies  based on consensus science that are advocated to mitigate global warming, even if implemented, would be ineffective in controlling climate and extreme weather events

Dr. Ross McKitrick sums up the IPCC ‘consensus’ science in this way: As the model-versus-reality discrepancy plays out, the last place you will learn about it will be in IPCC reports."

The censoring (and that is the right word) of valid scientific papers authored by IPCC skeptics continues. Even with the ongoing attempts to block skeptical papers, a few get through the filter:

The paper is here.

I hope I am wrong but get ready for headlines next week about "95% certainty" and other tidbits from the report. But, the science will almost certainly be out-of-date and overwrought.