Transcript Climate Science: An empirical example of

The four Bray-and-von Storch
surveys of climate scientists
from 1996 to 2013
- description and selected results
Hans von Storch and Dennis Bray
Institute of Coastal Research
HZG, Geesthacht, Germany
Overview
So far, four surveys among international populations of climate scientists
were designed and conducted, with the first in 1996 and the last in 2013, for
studying their opinions on climate change, on climate models but also about
the role of science and scientists in society and for policymaking.
While questions were not strictly identical, many of the questions remained
the same, and allow now an assessment to what extent opinions and
perceptions among climate scientists have changed over time. In the
presentation, some results derived from these surveys are reviewed.
Surveys of Climate Scientists’ Perceptions of the Issue of Global Warming
1996
2003
Sample
1000 scientists
unknown
Distribution
Distribution means
5 countries
Hard Copy
Response Rate
Appx. 40%
No. Questions
74
30 countries
Electronic
-uncontrolled
- posting request for
participation on
institutional lists
558 (undetermined
response rate)
106
2008
2013
Non-probability
convenience – 2677
scientists
35 countries
Electronic
-controlled invitation
Non-probability
convenience – 4491
scientists
35 countries
Electronic
-controlled invitation
Appx 18%
Appx 7%
76
132
von Storch, Hans, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
von Storch, Hans, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
Data from a series of four
climate scientists’ evaluations of
elements of climate models and
of climate change - with the first
from 1996 and the last from
2013 indicate a strong increase
in agreement concerning issues
of manifestation and attribution
of climate change while the
evaluation of climate models has
changed little in the past 20
years.
Obviously the growing conviction of ongoing man-made climate change is
based on a variety of explanations, with modelling not being the predominant
line of evidence. We suggest that it may be the repeated assessments by the
IPCC, based on paleoclimatic evidence and stringent statistical analysis of the
instrumental record which have led lead to the growing consensus of the
warming and its causation.
von Storch, Hans, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
The expert group behind the CSSP (2008)–assessment concludes that climate
modeling has been steadily improving over the past several decades. A similar
assessment is made by IPCC in its consecutive reports.
(Climate Models: An assessment of strengths and limitations, A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science
Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Department of Energy, Office of Biological and
Environmental Research, Washington, D.C., USA, 2008, p. 124.)
On the other hand, the survey among climate scientists does not reveal such
an advancement, as exemplified by the previous example and another
exemplary issue – how well models would reasonable assess the effect of
elevated Greenhouse gas:
von Storch, Hand, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
There is a growing consensus in science that climate change is real and can be
explained only by attribution this change dominantly to human emission of
greenhouse gases – at the same time, the media coverage has been
intermittently very intense, but the public concern (in the US and in Hamburg)
seems stationary.
von Storch, Hand, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
In 1942 Robert K. Merton tried to sketch the structure of the normative system of
science by specifying norms that characterized it. The norms were assigned the
abbreviation CUDOs: Communality, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized
skepticism.
Using the results of an the 2013 on-line survey of climate scientists concerning the
norms of science, this paper explores the climate scientists’ subscription to these
norms. The data suggests that while Merton’s CUDOs remain the overall guiding moral
principles, they are not fully endorsed or present in the conduct of climate scientists:
there is a tendency to withhold results until publication, there is the intention of
maintaining property rights, there is external influence defining research and the
tendency to assign the significance of authored work according to the status of the
author rather than content of the paper.
Communality Versus
Solitariness
Communality implies that
research results should be
the property of the entire
scientific community.
Scientific findings
constitute a common
heritage in which the
equity of the individual
producer is severely
limited.’
Solitariness, the counternorm of communality,
implies that findings
should be kept secret at
least until publication.
Disinterestedness Versus
Interestedness
Disinterestedness implies that
scientists should have no emotional or
financial attachment to their work, be
personally detached from truth claims,
accept conclusions shaped only by
evidence, and scientists should not
campaign for a particular point of view
or outcome. Disinterestedness also
reflects the quality of perusing
personal academic interests rather
than the interests of funding agencies,
policy priorities or institutional
strategies.
Interestedness means that the
scientist has personal interests at stake
in the reception of his or her results
and work.
von Storch, Hans, and Dennis Bray:
Manifestation and Attribution - more than models.
Manuscript under review
Bray, D., and H. von Storch, 2015:
The Normative Orientations of Climate Scientists.
Science and Engineering Ethics (2015), online
Selected Publications
Ratter, B.M.W., K. H.I. Philipp and H. von Storch, 2012:
Between hype and decline – recent trends in public perception of climate change.
Environmental Science & Policy 18: 3 – 8
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
An Alternative Means of Assessing Climate Models
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering, 5 (2011) 1053-1062
Bray, Dennis
The Scientific Consensus of Climate Change Revisited
Environmental Science & Policy 13 (2010) 340-350, 2011
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
"Prediction" or "Projection?": The Nomenclature of Climate Science
Science Communcation (2009); 30; 534
Bray, Dennis and Hans von Storch
Climate Science: An empirical example of postnormal science
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (1999) 439-455
Bray, D. and Has von Storch, 1999.
Climate Science and the transfer of knowledge to public and political realms
In: H. von Storch and G. Flöser: Anthropogenic Climate Change, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65033-4, 287-328
Self-assessments of scientists about
climate policy
Considering climate to be a natural
resource implies the need for its
governance similar to other natural
resources, and implies a relationship
with the economic well being of
societies.
On average, climate scientists
answered in the 1996 survey the
question “Climate should be
considered a natural resource” with
2.0 - indicating that they tend to
perceive the topic of their discipline to
extend well beyond the expression of
weather and its statistics.
Self-assessments of scientists about
climate policy
Climate scientists were asked if
they felt “There is enough
uncertainty about the
phenomenon of global
warming that there is no need
for immediate policy
decisions”.
Here there is undisputed
support for immediate policy to
be implemented with the
overall mean response of 5.6.
Self-assessments of scientists about
climate policy
When asked “To what degree do you
think it would be possible for most
societies to adapt to climate change
without having to make substantial
changes to current social practices?”,
the majority of scientists tended to
agree to some extent that there is a
need for many changes.
The estimation of the risk may be
considered a mostly natural science
activity but the acceptability of the
risk js definitely a political activity.
Climate scientists ..
•
•
•
•
transgress into policy-prescribing
regularly so,
uniformly (same direction) so.
Typical pattern of a science in postnormal conditions (high inherent
uncertaintry; high stake, urgend decisions, values in dispute).
• Climate science is in a post-normal phase (Funtovicz and Ravetz)
The surveys provide an interesting
data base
• About the changing positions held by climate scientists about
the state of climate science knowledge, specifically about
climate models, but also about the role of science and
scientists in the public and in informing policymaking.
• which covers the time 1996-2013 (corresponding to IPCC SAR
to AR5)
• Which may be extended, with a final survey possibly in 2016 –
but others may want to continue
• which is available to interested scientists.
We invite you
to use our data
Material and reports available on http://www.academia.edu
• 2013 data+code book at
https://www.academia.edu/7454421/CliSci_2013_Data_Set_Excel_Format
_with_code_book
• 2013 report
https://www.academia.edu/5211187/A_survey_of_the_perceptions_of_cl
imate_scientists_2013
• 2008 report
https://www.academia.edu/5068617/CliSci2008_A_Survey_of_the_Persp
ectives_of_Climate_Scientists_Concerning_Climate_Science_and_Climate
_Change
• 1996+2003 report
https://www.academia.edu/3077309/The_Perspectives_of_Climate_Scien
tists_on_Global_Climate_Change_1996_and_2003