Expert credibility in climate change_Convinced-CE (98%) vs Skeptics UE (2%)_ Can THE 98% be mistaken or corrupt?

Like my young blog colleague, student at a leading Univ in Climate Change research, writing in his blog Fight Entropy, I came across this gem of a paper in the most read articles in PNAS

 To my mind, this is a paper which, for all intents and purposes, removes much of the uncertainty which has arisen in the interminable debates on the credibility of anthropogenic (human generated) origin of  climate change (ACC).   The paper is entitled "Expert credibility in climate change" by   William R. L. Anderegg,  James W. Prall,  Jacob Harold, and  Stephen H. Schneider, and is Freely available online through the PNAS open access option. [pdf] Contributed by Stephen H. Schneider, April 9, 2010 (sent for review December 22, 2009)

This date is important in the light of the Incident known to a wide public as Climate Gate which originated in November 2009 cf. TIME LINE in WIKIPEDIA 

Returning to the paper  "Expert credibility in climate change" 

The Discrepancy between the convinced experts (CE) [98%] and the rise in scepticism in the general public fired by the unconvinced experts (UE) [2%] led my young colleague climate scientist, at in his blog Fight Entropy to comment  "we are the 98% joke." 

 - Quick Summary of "Expert credibility in climate change" 

"Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC.

A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers (UE) relative to agreeing researchers (CE), and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive data set of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.


  - Research Ranking 



" The authors provide a broad assessment of the relative credibility of researchers convinced by the evidence (CE) of ACC and those unconvinced by the evidence (UE) of ACC." They claim that:

"consideration of UE researchers differs from previous work on climate change sceptics and contrarians in that the authors primarily focus on researchers that have published extensively in the climate field, although we consider all skeptics/contrarians that have signed prominent statements concerning ACC (6–8). Such expert analysis can illuminate public and policy discussions about ACC and the extent of consensus in the expert scientific community.


 - Results and Discussion Summarised (Numbers in brackets below refer to references in the full paper)



"We (the authors) provide a large-scale quantitative assessment of the relative level of agreement, expertise, and prominence in the climate researcher community. We show that the expertise and prominence,two integral components of overall expert credibility, of climate researchers convinced by the evidence of ACC vastly overshadows that of the climate change skeptics and contrarians. This divide is even starker when considering the top researchers in each group. Despite media tendencies to present both sides in ACC debates (9), which can contribute to continued public misunderstanding regarding ACC (7, 11, 12, 14), not all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise in the climate system. This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change." 

Endogeneity

The Authors are of course well aware of the imperfections of  their research credibility indicators  from reviewing the literature (cf? their references 21 to 29) 


"Publication and citation analyses are not perfect indicators of researcher credibility, but they have been widely used in the natural sciences for comparing research productivity, quality, and prominence (21–24). Furthermore, these methods tend to correlate highly with other estimates of research quality, expertise, and  prominence  (21–26).  These  standard  publication  and  citation metrics are often used in many academic fields to inform decisions regarding hiring and tenure..."

and again

"Regarding the influence of citation patterns, we acknowledge that it is difficult to quantify potential biases of self-citation or clique citation in the analysis presented here. However, citation analysis research suggests that the potential of these patterns to in fluence results is likely to decline as sample size of researchers, possible cliques, and papers analysed for citations considered increases (22, 25–28)."

Largely absent from my blogs in 2011,(a hectic year of much change in our personal lives) I thought such a paper would bring some serenity to such a crucial issue and united effort to such a global Issue.  Reading the literature opened by studying the current paper "Expert credibility in climate change"_ I was surprised to see that resistance to the required freely consented united stance and accompanying measures to alleviate " best-worst scenario prevision - designed to alleviate unwanted greenhouse gas and global warming (GW).

The subject is still a downer in any conversation among friends ie. if you wish to keep them especially if they have readily available coal at hand. GW-CC appears to be the subject to be avoided in our Presidential candidates here in France. Like the situation of EU anthropogenic debt there is no magic wand at hand.


MORE...


Anderegg et al's reply to Aarstad: Risk management versus “truth”


Anderegg et al's reply to Bodenstein: Contextual data about the relative scale of opposing scientific communities. 


Anderegg et al's Reply to O’Neill and Boykoff: Objective classification of climate experts

Supporting Information Anderegg et al. 10.1073/pnas.1003187107 

I will return to the GW theme in the light of my rapid update in order to write this log. Many of these peer reviewed papers are well worth reading and deserve as strong an echo as possible.

CHEERS Anderegg et al

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Materials Science and Engineering Defined

1st Basic Rule of Good Management, Leadership must have credibility.

1st Basic Rule of Good_Management: GOOD LEADERSHIP NEEDS CREDIBILITY: "Walk the Talk, Time Gentlemen Please!*

If the talk is all about austerity and the in thing is budget restrictions, it is not to say that our ministers happily apply the famous principle: "Do as I say, not what I do.
"Despite the crisis, therefore, the executive members have some difficulty in giving the facilities offered to them by the Republic. Spending it is difficult to know, as if he was still indecent to demand accountability on the use of public money.

Journalists break their teeth on these issues. But politicians, (as peers) and as part of their function (Job Specification) have proceedures which allows them  to seek clarification. Of the thousands of French parliamentarians, there is one, Rene Dosière, who decided to use the powers that are given by its function. This member of parliament (related to the Socialist Party) for the Deprtment of Aisne has been for some years now the expert on these sensitive issues which anger the executive.

The two appartments of Mr. Estrosi, Minister for Industry.

An executive who is obliged to provide answers to the "honorable" member. Even if these responses are sometimes slow to come (a few weeks to a few years ...!) And sometimes intentionally inaccurate or incomplete. Even inaccurate.

Take for example the question asked in late May on staff accommodation attributed to the ministers and state secretaries. The answer appears to be exhaustive, however  the response concerning Mr Christian Estrosi (Industry) appears only one mention to his apartment in the rue de Lille, while he himself admitted to benefitting from two staff houses, one where he lives, rue de Lille, the other at Bercy, he "used the latter when he ended his days work." Paris is a big city ...

Answers to take with some relative distance, but which nevertheless give a reasonable idea of the volume and use of public subsidies for those who are responsible.

Un-necessary work programmed on Residence formally attached to Matignon  annexed  by President Sarkozy and the work envisaged billed to Matignon (Prime Minister Fillon's allocated budget)

We learn for example that French President M. Nicolas Sarkozy, not content to attach the residence of the Lantern (an annex of the Palace of Versailles with gilding, paintings by masters and park but also with a pool and tennis), vested up Prime Minister in 2007, did a cost of "adjustments." Work that has not really started yet the budget of the Elysee (110 million) since they were essentially supported the President's request, by Matignon, for the modest sum of 390,000 euros over three years. A sum which, unlike the work done at the Elysee Palace may not have intended to "improve working conditions" of staff, since it is only a secondary residence.
80 000 euros of private aircraft for the Ministry of Culture

We also learn that our President is not alone in having a taste for travel. Take for example the Ministry of Culture, whose too Parisian side is often a source of criticism from  some ill intentioned spirits.[sarcasm] He, instead, spent lavishly to disseminate knowledge in the provinces and abroad.

In 2009, according to official figures he has just given the "air travel in France, overseas or outside the office of Minister of Culture and Communication" amounted to 403 000 "Taxes".
A sum which includes travel by commercial airliner and those operated with aircraft from the former Glam (now Etec, depending on the Air Force). A fleet that does not seem sufficient to the needs of Culture admits that about 80 000 trips in 'private plane. " Rigor? You said rigour?

*Glossary: Time Gentlemen Please! is the barman's call warning UK Pubs closing The preceding  call is " Last drinks, gentlemen".

Read also on Rue89 and Eco89 ref below
► "The Budget Ministry is the department that are the best paid '
► stampede of journalists in apartments Estrosi

REFERENCE and Supporive links for the above claims below (in french)
http://www.rue89.com/argent-elus/2010/10/22/de-la-difficulte-de-savoir-combien-nos-chers-elus-depensent-172447