More information on the whole global warming thing. Al Gore used some numbers to prove the 'consensus' among scientists that global warming is real. Those numbers come from a woman called Naomi Oreskes, who published an article in Science magazine about the 'consensus'. The article was aptly titled, " The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"

First of all, the title is a giveaway as to how 'scientific' the research about the consensus really is. This isn't scientific research into global warming, this is research into the consensus about global warming. A 'scientific consensus' is just slightly misleading, because science is based on deductive reasoning supported by fact finding research. In other words, hypothesize, test, analyze, hypothesize. There is never a consensus among scientists, only questions and testing. You could say there is a consensus that an object above the earth's surface will move toward the surface if freed from restraints, but there is no consensus about why it does that. Gravity? No, it has to do with quantum physics, which is only understood to a certain degree as to effects, not causes. We still have no idea what gravity really is.

Anyway, the article in question says that, "The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature."

The consensus is expressed by a panel not of scientists, but by UN appointed body of bureaucrats. The WMO has a secretary general, president, and three vice presidents. Two of these members claim the title Doctor, the others are simply Mister. The other, the UNEP, has a stated purpose "to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment". So, we have two bureaucratic bodies made up of environmentalists publishing reports.

The article quotes a book by another panel of environmentalists called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

"Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"

Notice all the dots. That means stuff is taken out of context. Human activities are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents, and [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

A causal correlation is implied, and we are supposed to be scared. I found the publication on Amazon, and you can do a search inside, so I did....

Human activities - primarily burning of fossil fuels and changes in land cover - are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents or properties of the surface that absorb or scatter radiant energy. The WGI contribution to the TAR - Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis - found, "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." Future changes in climate are expected to include additional warming, changes in precipitation patterns and amounts, sea-level rise, and changes in the frequency and intensity of some extreme events.

The excerpt states two 'facts'; that people are modifying the atmosphere, which is probably true, and that an observed warming is likely due to greenhouse gas. Never do they state a causal correlation, and the supposed warming effect is only 'likely' due to greenhouse gas. They can even be certain of a supposition that doesn't even correlate to another fact. Part of the quote from the original article is a quote from this book, which is quoting another source, the WGI contribution to another of the IPCCs publications, a companion publication looks like.

Anyway, the article goes on to say that, "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change".

It was tested by 928 abstracts. Only 928 from ten years of scientific journals. So, a consensus is stipulated based on doing a phrase search of only 928 abstracts. 75% of the 928 articles agreed with the consensus, based on the abstracts, and 25% "dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change." Then there was this statement... "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

None that the author found. I decided to see if I could find something. After all, if there was a 'consensus', I should find it virtually impossible. Before that though, a point. The author of this article is citing no evidence from any of these articles. Everything is coming from the abstracts. A search for the phrase 'climate change' in some abstracts. What are the odds you would find that phrase in the abstract of a paper that rejects the 'consensus'? Anyway, my search...

I came up with this.

http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/global-temperature-not-exist.pdf

Now, this was relatively easy, took only a few minutes. In the conclusion it says,

There is no global temperature. The reasons lie in the properties of the equation of state governing local thermodynamic equilibrium, and the implications cannot be avoided by substituting statistics for physics. Since temperature is an intensive variable, the total temperature is meaningless in terms of the system being measured, and hence any one simple average has no necessary meaning. Neither does temperature have a constant proportional relationship with energy or other extensive thermodynamic properties.

I decided that I didn't like the way the paper was presented on the Internet, after all, anyone can publish a PDF document. I found it though.

http://www.atypon-link.com/WDG/doi/abs/10.1515/JNETDY.2007.001

Yes, it's an article in Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. In my search I found a blog by an assistant physics professor in Massachusetts that lists all kinds of resources that refute the global warming 'consensus'. Imagine that.