In response to multiple inquiries from media and global warming advocates, Friends of Science issue this release to expose the statistical manipulation evident from the break down of the Cook et al paper. Friends of Science decry the linking of this flawed study with alleged danger from man-made carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) as there has been no global warming in 16 years despite a rise in CO2 levels; Friends of Science say the sun and oceanic oscillations are the main drivers of climate change, not CO2.

“The Cook et al paper is very misleading as described in major media. The breakdown of the survey results are not described up front,” says Ken Gregory, Director of Friends of Science. “The Cook study claims that any paper that mentions CO2 as a possible cause of some warming is part of a ‘consensus’. That is simply not true. Further, this survey does not assess ‘danger’.”

Gregory’s comment refers to the Obama tweet that wrongly claimed that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: Cook survey showed that climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”"

“Nothing in this survey discusses any level of danger to humans; in fact global warming stopped 16 years ago and this is well-known in the scientific community and acknowledged by the UN Climate Panel, the IPCC,” says Gregory.

Friends of Science say the public should question the motives of those who are twisting the survey results. The Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia published similar questions along with answers from surprised scientists who do not support Cook's 'consensus' at all, even though Cook says they do!

Gregory explains a subtle point most readers would miss. “The Cook abstract falsely says, "Among abstracts expressing a position on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."

He explains that the UN Climate Panel (IPCC) AGW consensus position is that humans are causing at least 90% of the recent warming to 2001, not that humans have ‘some’ effect on climate. However Cook's 'explicit endorsement level' is based on only 50%, influence by humans, misleading to average citizens as it reduces the accepted international parameter by almost half.

While Friends of Science note that most scientists acknowledge that humans affect climate in some way, the paths are many – including farming, forestry, land disturbance, industrial emissions, and breathing.

“Each of us emits CO2 at about 40,000 ppm when we breathe out,” says Gregory. “Does that make us dangerous?”

Another under-reported element is that "This letter was conceived as a 'citizen science' project by volunteers contributing to the Skeptical Science website: skepticalscience.com."

Skeptical Science is an advocate of the AGW theory. A searchable database of abstracts and ratings in the Cook study is provided on the Skeptical Science site.

This link shows the "Endorsement level 1, Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%.(human actions causing 50% or more warming)"

Note that this search term returns 65 of the 12000+ abstracts. The page lists each of the 65 abstracts giving the title with a link to the abstract, the journal where it was published and the endorsement rating.

The IPCC and climate alarmists claim that 90% to 100% of the recent warming (since 1975) was caused by greenhouse gas emissions. An astrophysical paper by Nir Shaviv that shows the sun causing 60% of the warming does not support the IPCC position on climate change. However, in the Cook study, this paper was falsely rated as explicitly endorsing AGW ("but does not quantify or minimize").

Several of the 65 papers categorized by Cook as Endorsement level 1 in fact show that the IPCC projections of warming are wrong and grossly exaggerated.

A paper by Scafetta and West states, "We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming."

The Cook et al study data base has seven categories of rated abstracts.

1. 65 explicit endorse, >50% warming caused by man

2. 934 explicit endorse

3. 2933 implicit endorse

4. 8261 no position

5. 53 implicit reject

6. 15 explicit reject

7. 10 explicit reject, <50% warming caused by man

Papers in the third category which Cook alleges, “implicit endorse,” in reality make no comment on whether humans have caused warming. This category includes papers about mitigation policies.

Says Gregory, “It is wrongly assumed by Cook et al, that an author who writes about biofuels, endorses the IPCC position on climate change. This is not necessarily the case.”

The Cook et al paper adds up categories 1, 2 and 3 and presents this total of 3932 papers as endorsing the AGW consensus. In fact many of those papers strongly reject the IPCC AGW position.

“Public policy should be based on scientific evidence, not statistical manipulations like this,” says Gregory.

About Friends of Science

Friends of Science have spent a decade reviewing a broad spectrum of literature on climate change and have concluded the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2). The core group of the Friends of Science is made up of retired and active earth and atmospheric scientists. Membership is open to the public and available on-line.

Contact:

Friends of Science

P.O. Box 23167, Connaught P.O.

Calgary, Alberta

Canada T2S 3B1

Toll-free Telephone: 1-888-789-9597

friendsofscience.org

E-mail: contact[at]friendsofscience[dot]org

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013/5/prweb10772757.htm