Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change

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Contents

1 Public opinion 2 Political section? 3 IPCC authors paragraph 4 1992 Gallup poll 5 Peisner 6 Rm IPCC intro text

Public opinion

An interesting link which I'll put here about public opinion, from Roger Pielke's blog: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000054

And this (2004/12/20) (http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041217-044511-3578r.htm) from the Washington Times, on Oreske.

Political section?

Just deleted a weasel worded political section which tried to compare with eugenics and nazis. Such sensational garbage is not needed. The section was added by an economics blogger who essentially has declared war on wiki climate articles. -Vsmith 02:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you think that I declared war on climate articles. I meant that only in how I thought new ideas would be received (and I'm sorry to say I was right). The example of eugenics is meant to illustrate that sometimes the scientific consensus is wrong and it's a valid point made by those who are concerned about the politizing of science. I'm open to ideas on how to make it less offensive and/or more clear.--Atlastawake 04:16, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No. Don't see any new ideas just more of the same old stuff. And weasel refers to the vague some ... argue - Who are the some? Vague claims are weasel claims. As to the eugenics and Holocaust comparison - it is simply inflamatory bull****. Maybe you should write a politicians opinion article, this one is about science, and bull**** would fit better there :-). Vsmith 04:56, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:27, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Perhaps (Atlast) if you would add some actual *science* people might take it better. If you want politics, then edit political articles. Some (notably scientists, economists and politial scientists) agrue that the issue of climate change has been hijaxed.. is *weasel words* because of the some and the lack of any specific examples. Being able to spell hijacked would be good too. Regardless, though, this page is about scientific opinion primarily and it doesn't need a long political section.

Lots of things here. First, I'm very confused. You quote political agencies at length but refuse to entertain the politics of these agencies? The article is called "Scientific opinion on climate change" yet you are refusing to consider how that opinion is shaped. Second, I agree "some" is a poor choice of words and I was hoping the wikicommunity would offer ideas for better wording, not delete information out-right. Third, I fail to understand how the eugenics/GW comparison is inappropriate...no one has offered a reason beyond they don't like it. Finally, I don't see anything in the article that resembles what I added. How can you call my contribution "same old stuff?" (Added by user:Atlastawake at 22:24 who doesn't seem to know how to sign his posts.)

Your addition was full of vague they say and such. It appeared to be trying to build some kind of conspiracy theory about the players in the climate game. These kinds of vague accusations is an insult to the dedicated scientists working on the real problem and an attempt to mislead the readers. This article is about scientific opinion, not political shenanegans. Trying to link the work these scientists are doing by a vague analogy to the eugenics problem and especially by throwing in the Hollocaust reference with the unstated assumption that the science of global warming is equated to the evils of the nazis. That kind of deliberate attempted slur was totally uncalled for and has made me view any of your edits with suspicion. The material you want to add is not there for the simple reason that as presented it is irrelevant besides being insulting. -Vsmith 23:25, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've already conceeded on my "they say" language but you've still avoided my larger points. You haven't told me why the analogy is false. You haven't told me why poltics doesnt belong in an article about a scientific opinion that concerned global warming, which is politically charged.

--Atlastawake 02:03, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Did you read my comments above? At least you now list your main source as a novel. That was most impressive! Novelist, journalists, economists ... ? This is an article about scientific opinion, not conspiracy theorizing by politicians and diverse other non-scientists. And your analogy from that great source is still an irrelevant insult. Vsmith 03:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Agreeing with Vsmith, but also... this page is about scientific opinion. Not politics. Arguing that this is a politically charged issue, so politics belongs here, would end up filling every issue with politicial stuff. Most of the politics type stuff on GW tends to end up on global warming controversy... have you looked at that?

I have and it's rather large already. My section definately belongs in this article as it offered a different take on how the opinion formed. Linking is needed, true. Exclusion is NOT. BTW, my main source isn't State of Fear (you assumed that) and the novel has factual evidence in it, which is what I exclusively used. Read the page just before the pair of quotes that kick off the book.--Atlastawake 05:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:40, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)) This page is for *scientific* opinion. And SoF is trash: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74.

IPCC authors paragraph

Removed paragraph - see Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for discussion. Vsmith 02:21, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The content of the paragraph has been resolved, and now a statement should be made here regarding it. This page is about "scientific opinion on climate change", and in order to properly assess the scientific opinion on climate change, the readers need to know exactly whose opinion they are assessing. For the sake of making the readers informed readers in this manner, the paragraph about the IPCC authors should be available to them as part of this page's referencing of the IPCC's view. — Cortonin | Talk 21:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 23:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your position here is inconsistent. We need (you assert) to know how the IPCC authors are selected - but we don't need to know how US National Research Council are; or the AMS, or... I really don't know why you want this factoid in here, but its clear its inappropriate, though quite reasonable on the IPCC page.

Because a group whose authors are chosen by governments does not necessarilly reflect scientific opinion, but rather the scientific opinion chosen by governments. This is an important and key distinction, and clearly pertains to defining what the scientific opinion on climate change is, and the IPCC's role in clarifying that. You may disagree with this if you find the IPCC infallible, but it's worth providing for others to note and decide on. — Cortonin | Talk 10:19, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:11, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Right. In other words you're fighting tooth and nail to get that text in because you think it denigrates the IPCC. We can tell you're doing this, because you haven't bothered to do it for any of the other institutions quoted on the page. The selection process for IPCC is (briefly, but rather more fully than here) described on the IPCC page, where it should be.

I have not a particular strong feeling about the sentence "Authors for the IPCC reports are chosen from [...]". In general I would leave it out for the reasons WMC did mentioned.

Nevertheless I would add a short explanation about the IPCC at the very beginning of the article. IMHO it is good custom to a least briefly characterize a term (here "IPCC") which is probably not known to the average reader without forcing him to open yet another link. The last version before Willams revert was: "[the IPCC], which is a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members".

IMHO the given formulation hardly discredits the reputation of the IPCC in any way (in fact I believe that the contrary is true, i.e. it improves credibility). By all means it gives the average reader at least some short information about the IPCC. -- mkrohn 21:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Hmmm... I see your point. But "chosen by UN members" is a probably not an accurate view of the selection process. If you want to describe the IPCC itself, why not just "a group of climate experts"? Though this is pretty well implied by its name, anyway.

For the record, whether or not we describe information should ABSOLUTELY NOT be decided by whether or not it improves or discredits the credibility of an organization, and that appears to be exactly how the above conversation is going. Make information correct, on topic, and relevant, and let the reader form opinions rather than giving opinions to the reader. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to the IPCC, that is an accurate view of the selection process (although they say "governments and other organizations" rather than "UN members", but as it was formed by the UN the extrapolation can be made to fit the Marco Krohn description in order to provide more information about how it was initially formed (which was by the UN). I consider "a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members" to be more descript than "a group of climate experts." First, who decided which researchers were experts? Second, it's not a randomly selected group out of possible climate experts, but instead a consciously selected group. It would be inappropriate to imply that the group is randomly selected or a complete set of all climate experts, as it is neither. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:06, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I agree to this extent: that you shouldn't be putting in info to try to discredit the IPCC. But unfortunately, you are. As for the selection process: its clear that its rather more nuanced, from the very link that you originally provided.

(mkrohn) My main argument was about giving the average reader information about the IPCC in the introduction. On the other hand it is important in which context you use information because it has influence on the reader. This means that the criteria you gave ("correct, on topic and relevant") are necessary criteria for inclusion of material, but hardly are sufficient. There are many examples for using the same information and give a different picture to the reader, e.g. after an election the same information is presented in a very different way if one looks into a liberal and conservative newspaper.

That said, it does make sense to discuss how to the average reader will perceive the information. The IPCC is probably the most important and one of the most credible organization that deals with aspects of global warming and thus it makes no sense to me to discredit the organization by emphasizing the selection procedure as you did in one of your first versions. -- mkrohn 11:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Saying that the IPCC authors are chosen by governments is about clarifying who the position is coming from. If a pundit goes on the news, and is sent there by a government, then that news organization should reveal that the pundit was sent there by that government, or the news organization is being misleading. This is a normal part of full disclosure. If CNN does a story on Time Warner, they start or finish the story with, "a parent company of CNN", as part of full disclosure. This does not mean CNN is saying that they're biased or wrong in the story, but simply means that CNN is being up-front with its affiliations. This is just standard practice as part of informing readers, viewers, and listeners. When people violate this practice, it's considered deceptive. There were pundits that the whitehouse recently sent around to news organizations to pump up the Bush administration's new social security plan, and these were not correctly described as being sent by the whitehouse, and when this was discovered it was viewed very poorly as being deceptive, whereas the same situation would be viewed as acceptable if the affiliation would be revealed at the start. It's no different with the IPCC. They are not an independent organization which formed in a vacuum, but an organization whose authors were chosen by certain governments, and this information should be revealed up front as part of full disclosure. — Cortonin | Talk 06:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) You (Cortonin) remain utterly unconvincing, for the reasons I gave above: for some reason you only care about the IPCC. How are the other organisations mentioned on the page formed? You don't care. Why not? The text you've written above applies to the AMS as much as IPCC. And, of course, if anyone does have a deep and overriding interest in the IPCC... they can just click on the link and find out, in more detail.

I'm dealing with one thing at a time. I don't know why you find that so odd. One does not try to edit all of Wikipedia in a single night. As for the AMS, it is an open-membership scientific society. If I so choose, I can sign up right here (http://www.ametsoc.org/memb/apps/index.html). This policy of openness is standard in essentially every scientific society, as you should be quite familiar with. The IPCC has no such application form, because its membership is not open. Instead, its authors are selected by governments. This is fine to do, but we should not then present it as an open scientific society, because it is instead an organization with government selected membership. — Cortonin | Talk 10:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 12:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Well, you're finding the IPCC section quite controversial. Why not - since you really don't mind whether you do IPCC, or AMS, or whatever first - go on and do a less controversial one? But of course, thats laughable. We all know that in fact you care nothing for the others. And your version of the IPCC author seclection is wrong.

Your tendency to view every single edit as a "my side versus your side" war is extremely annoying. It makes talking to you very difficult, and makes finding a compromise with you extremely difficult, because you take every edit as either supporting your side or attacking your side. IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! Please stop treating this place as a petty warzone. Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I began by assuming your good faith, but you have long since eroded that, by your POV edits. Please stop your patronising remarks.

Perhaps you missed the part of Wikipedia policy that clearly explains that EVERYONE has a POV. That means I have one AND you have one. The people who think they don't have a POV are the ones who have the most difficulty accepting and including other POVs, and this is why we are encouraged to recognize our own POV. Good faith has to be applied regardless of whether someone supports your view or opposes it, otherwise it misses the entire point of good faith. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The IPCC author selection is, literally by quote, "from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works." [1] (http://www.ipcc.ch/about/app-a.pdf) If that doesn't say to you that there is a government list selected with consideration of the views they have expressed in the past, then I'm sorry, but that's certainly what it says to me. It's an organization formed by a political body with government influence over the author list which writes down its views. It's necessary to mention that as part of full disclosure about the IPCC. — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Once again you are reading what you want to from a document, rather than whats in it. For one thing, the text you cite is for Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors - not all authors. In fact, numerically, its for a minority of authors. Now lets read the full quote:

Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors are selected by the relevant Working Group/Task Force Bureau, under general guidance and review provided by the Session of the Working Group or, in case of reports prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the Panel, from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works. The composition of the group of Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors for a section or chapter of a Report shall reflect the need to aim for a range of views, expertise and geographical representation (ensuring appropr iate representation of experts from developing and developed countries and countries with economies in transition). There should be at least one and normally two or more from developing countries. The Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors selected by the Working Group/Task Force Bureau may enlist other experts as Contributing Authors to assist with the work.

It becomes quite clear that the truth is far more nuanced than your bald "selected by govts"; and I shall continue to resist your crude attempts to politicise the article. Its actually quite unclear what role, in practice, govts have in selecting authors. For any outsiders reading this private spat, I'll point out that I have no objection to the info being in wikipedia: in fact, its in IPCC, and I've recently moved it up into the intro there. What I object to is Cortonins inaccurate paraphrase.

While we're in the business of quoting, lets keep going:

At the request of Working Group/Task Force Bureau Co-Chairs through their respective Working Group/Task Force Bureau, and the IPCC Secretariat, governments, and participating organisations and the Working Group/Task Force Bereaux [sic] should identify appropriate experts for each area in the Report who can act as potential Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, expert reviewers or Review Editors.

In other words, the whole team (not just lead authors) is restricted to those approved by the corresponding governments. It doesn't get much more clear. This is a government chosen team, not an independent or open research team. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Good grief: you can quote it, but you can't read it!

?? It says what I said it says. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On a side note, is that how you really think politically controversial science should be conducted?? In times past we had a lot of trouble when powerful religious influences dictated who were acceptable authorities to speak on science, and religiously controversial science suffered. It's not much better when powerful political influences do the same. I'm not the one who politicized the issue, I'm simply pointing out that it already is politicied, and needs to be openly so rather than silently so. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your tireles *assertion* of IPCC politicisation is tiresome. You would do far better to learn something about the science, and then try and write about that. The almost total lack of science input in your contributions is obvious. Alternatively, if politics is what interests you, write on political articles. But please don't put your political POV into science articles.

The IPCC is a body chosen and guided by governmental bodies. The politics is intrinsic in the issue, and I'm sorry that you can't seem to see that. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As for my contributions, I have contributed plenty of scientific information to Wikipedia (and I would kindly ask you to refrain from personal attacks if your horse-blinders cause you to feel otherwise), I'm just not of the view that you can pick one scientific conclusion and define it as true without acknowledging the other reasoned conclusions and the humanities and conflicts of the scientists involved when these show up as relevant issues. You clearly have a very different view on this, and think that once you have made a conclusion about a scientific topic, it is factual, and no one should dispute it, or else they are clearly wrong. Every single person in the past who has ever taken that view has been proven wrong, but maybe you're the first one. But whatever your view, you need to respect the other views on here, even on scientific topics. Because news flash: Science is not done, and its conclusions are not unchangeable. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1992 Gallup poll

Sheldon Rampton 06:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC) The figures cited by Joe Bast et al regarding a 1992 Gallup poll are wrong. I took the trouble to do a Nexis search and found two reports from 1992. The first was a March 6, 1992 news release distributed by Greenwire and headlined "66% of climate scientists see greenhouse effect." I'll quote the relevant excerpts:

The Gallup Organization interviewed 400 scientists with memberships in the American Geophysical Union and/or American Meteorological Society by telephone 10/14-25, 1991. Margin of error +/- 5%. The poll was commissioned by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, which describes itself as "a nonprofit organization devoted to clarifying the dialogue between scientists and engineers, and the general public." The Center is funded by grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Richardson Foundation and the Philip McKenna Foundation.

Q. "Do you think that global average temperatures have increased during the past 100 years?"

Yes 60%

No 15

Don't know 25

Q. "In your opinion is human-induced greenhouse warming now occurring?"

Yes 66%

No 10

Don't know 24

Note: Of the 66% who said they believe human-induced warming is now occurring, 63% (or 41% of the total sample) said the current evidence substantiates the phenomenon, 32% said it doesn't and 5% didn't know.

Q. "What do you think is the percent probability of human induced global warming raising global average temperatures 2 degrees celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years?"

More than 50% 47%

Less than 50% 37

The second Nexis report on this poll consisted of the transcript of a February 13, 1992 press conference held by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, at which they discussed the survey. According to CSTM's Mark Mills:

We found through the Gallup poll that the majority of scientists believe that the global average temperature -- 60 percent being the majority -- believe that the global average temperature has actually increased over the past century. However, the Gallup poll shows that only 19 percent of the scientists believe that this temperature increase was due to human causes, was human induced.

Now, we've done something very deliberate and specific here. We're separating out history, the historic record, from the future, from this point forward. So, what we found in the Gallup poll is that scientists essentially are rejecting the possibility that human-induced global warming has occurred, thus far.

The poll also found, though, that a large share, a majority, 66 percent, believe that global warming is now underway, human-induced global warming, which is an intriguing result. But juxtaposed against that is the same group of scientists of which only 41 percent -- a minority -- will state that the scientific evidence supports that belief or assertion.

You'll note that the 19 percent figure claimed by Mills does not appear in CSTM's actual news release, and it in fact contradicts Mills' statement that 66 percent of scientists believe that human-induced global warming is underway. I suspect that the 19 percent figure reflects some more specific question, such as "Do you believe that human causes are the sole or main cause of the temperature increase during the entire twentieth century?" You'll note that he doesn't provide the wording for the question which he says drew the 19 percent response (whereas the news release provides the exact language of each question). The Scaife, Richardson and McKenna foundations which funded this survey are all right-wing U.S. foundations with a history of funding global warming skepticism, and it's quite possible that Mills was trying to find a nugget of detail from the survey that would satisfy his funders.

Moreover, the figures that Bast cites ("18 percent thought some global warming had occurred, 33 percent said insufficient information existed to tell, and 49 percent believed no warming had occurred") cannot be found anywhere in either the news release or the transcript of the news conference. Bast is also wrong about the date when the survey was conducted. He says it was conducted on February 13, 1992. That's actually the date when the news conference took place. The survey itself was conducted from October 14-25, 1991.

In any case, the Gallup poll is now more than 13 years old, and considerable new scientific data and research have appeared since then. Given that fact, I think the reference to this particular poll should simply be dropped from this article.

Article updated. (SEWilco 17:12, 3 May 2005 (UTC))

Peisner

(William M. Connolley 19:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)) I've removed Peisner. For a couple of reasons: firstly, his work hasn't been published: in fact, its been rejected. Secondly, there appear to be severe doubts as to whether his work has been done honestly: for more on that, and my own opinions, see http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/peiser.html?seemore=y#more. Including him before publication, or before this has settled down, is premature.

Restored. Science thinks that its being on the Internet is the equivalent to being in the journal, or that there are many similar results on the Internet. And your unsw.edu.au link only looks at the 33-34 in the "rejection" column, which still leaves quite a difference between Oreskes 75% and Peiser 38-41%. (SEWilco 20:38, 5 May 2005 (UTC))

The rejection didn't state that the work was invalid, but that the work was "not novel". (Of course, if it's "not novel", show me the other versions of this.) It's rather poor scientific practice to filter results in such a manner when they contradict earlier published results in the same journal. Rebuttal is an essential part of the scientific method, and it should not be carelessly discarded. — Cortonin | Talk 21:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that rebuttal is important. Wether information if filtered (as you say it) or the paper uses dubious scientific methods (as others say) is an interesting question, but it is out of the scope of Wikipedia. A work that is not published (for whatever reasons) surely does not belong here. -- mkrohn 01:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

It is published right here (http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm),

(William M. Connolley 21:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)) "published" in the context of science means, in a peer-reviewed journal, not on some web site. Otherwise I'll start quoting my blog as "published".

But this is not research, it is an analysis of published research. Thus, it does not need to be in a peer-reviewed journal to count as "published". It is a secondary analysis of primary sources. — Cortonin | Talk 22:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:20, 7 May 2005 (UTC)) Wrong. Peisner submitted it to science for publication. They didn't say: this isn't research, we won't publish it. They said it was junk, correctly. Peisner was unwise enough to reveal the 34-becoming-33 abstracts that he though rejected the consensus. Read them. Its quite plain from that that his categorisation is hopelessly wrong.

it just happens to have been rejected from the journal the original was published in. And it's not like this is new research which needs to go in a journal to count as "published", since it is an analysis of existing published research which is widely available. Go into ISI and search for yourself. Go through a few hundred yourself and you won't find the ratio that Oreskes says you will find. I called "bullshit (http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html)" on that study a while ago, because the original data is right there to view, and it doesn't match what she says it should. — Cortonin | Talk 04:49, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

From your reference: "Obviously, your refusal leaves me no option than to publicise the results of my analysis somewhere else [...]". So, let's wait until it is published "somewhere else". -- mkrohn 10:15, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

P.S. by the way: the "argument" for rejecting the paper is mmh dubious to put it mildly.

So if an unpublished work does not usually belong in Wikipedia, then the reason for an exception should be in the article also? However, do the various quotes from politicians and newspaper articles also not belong in Wikipedia? (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Has anyone the reference to the Dennis Bray paper where the claims ("fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity") made in [2] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/01/wglob01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/01/ixworld.html) are supported? I looked at his homepage and found a lot of results from a survey, but no statements like the 1 in 10 one. -- mkrohn 10:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone deleted what may be the relevant section Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Bray_and_Von_Storch.2C_2003, although we don't know whether Bray was referring to this. The "Papers" link contains rejected papers which may be relevant. (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Rm IPCC intro text

I've removed:

The IPCC is a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations, and under the auspices of the UNEP/WMO. [3] (http://www.ipcc.ch/about/app-a.pdf)

ts major reports are based upon material from a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations. The original scientific literature is often inaccessible to the layperson (both literally, because they do not have access to appropriate libraries, and because the scientific writing style is unfamiliar), but the summaries and position statements are usually written to be intelligible to any reasonably informed individual.

It is common to see the assertion that the IPCC represents the consensus of opinion of climate scientists (such as [4] (http://books.nap.edu/html/climatechange/summary.html)); it is also common to see this view disputed.

All this is from the IPCC page, and is unnecessary here. None of the other institutions quoted - AMS etc - are described, only linked to, where of course their descriptions are.