Scottish Skeptic here has tabulated a ranking of climate science blog sites. To no one’s surprise Anthony Watts’s Watts Up With That? took the no. 1 spot, followed by Marc Morano’s Climate Depot. The ranking was done using internet site rating service Alexa.
First I’m really thrilled to see that NoTricksZone made it all the way to the number 13 14 spot, even bumping out RealClimate. I’m really surprised by this result. Not bad for something I’m doing on the side with the help of reader contributions such as those from Ed Caryl. Thanks to both loyal and occasional readers!
65% are skeptic or luke-warmer
Having done a quick count of the warmist sites, I came up with 48 from a total of 137. That’s crunches to be only 35%. That’s a far cry from the 97% the warmists like to try to have the rest of the world believe.
That means that almost two thirds of all climate science blogs are very skeptical or somewhat skeptical of the IPCC science (skeptic or luke-warmer). That’s hardly a consensus! Many of the skeptic sites are run by scientists and meteorologists…also showing that that “consensus among experts” is a complete myth.
Moreover, the top 20 sites are clearly dominated by skeptics.
Thrilled seems a good way of expressing this. Surprised, less so. You provide a forum for the world to know things we would never know otherwise and that folks are interested is obvious. I’ve learned much on NTZ I’ve not seen anyplace else and, in my list, you are in the top 5. Thanks.
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As one moves down in the rankings I think the meaning is less clear. Examples include Luboš Motl’s “the reference frame” that is only partly a “climate science blog” with many of his posts unreadable by a non-physics type; and then there is Bob Tisdale’s “Climate Observations” that most folks read via the cross-posts on WUWT. Bob has a large and supportive audience of WUWT readers.
Thank you for the mention and the opportunity. I am very happy to have contributed to your success.
Well done, you really deserve it. As John says, in my top 5 as well.
Thank you for being there.
Alfred
Just having fun…Hope to keep it up!
I look in on three climate blogs, and of course this is one of them.
Many thanks, Pierre, and as I usually comment only in months with two full moons (the original blue moon) I take the chance to wish you and your readers a Good Christmas and a Happy New Year.
You too!
[…] Shattered Consensus! Survey Of Climate Science Blogs Shows 65% Think Science Is NOT SETTLED!. […]
Thanks for everything you do, Pierre. You provide a resource for insight on European developments ignored on our side of the pond. Glad to help with the stats.
Best wishes.
Thanks!
You are just at the top of may favourites list. If I go on the internet, I start with you. Whether I go to WUWT depends on other things. So it goes.
Thanks, Mindert!
Congrats Pierre – and Ed as well. I enjoy your site every day. You’re way up on my favorite list along with Bish, WUWT and Steve MAC.
Thanks! But honestly I could barely carry their water. Without them we’d be practically doomed.
Well done Pierre, as I have come to read your offerings day by day I continue to learn new things and of the ‘goings on’ in Europe. Keep up the good work. Wishing you a happy Christmas and looking forward to 2014 full of fun, new things to learn, and a clobbering of the climate alarmists.
Thanks Robin…appreciate very much the compliment. Wishing you a fine Christmas season as well.
Well done Pierre. IMO definitely deserve to be higher but I suspect you have a pretty well educated audience.
There is great ignorance in the UK of most things German (me included) and you are doing a fine job in educating us (me).
Thanks
Thanks for the kind compliments. Just getting out the other view so that people can form a better-informed opinion. That’s what it has to be about.
Oh, this is sweet! Only in the Denier Universe does Alexa’s Popularity Ranking contradict peer-reviewed Science!
The whole claim would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that so far not any ‘skeptic’ has been skeptic enough to point out the fundamental flaws in this claim.
For starters, if Alexa’s Popularity Ranking beats scientific research, vaccines are bad, chemtrails exist and there is sufficient evidence to support the idea that people get adbucted by aliens on a daily basis.
Just because there are loads of websites out there which are frequently visited by lots of people doesn’t mean that whatever these sites profess is true and/or scientifically backed up.
Welcome back, Mitchell!
The point is that there is no consensus. And when it comes to blogsites on climate, the skeptics dominate impressively. Then again, I suppose the Scottish Sceptic could have not counted half of the blogs and then claimed that there was a 97+% consensus. I suppose that would be good enough to get by “peer review”.
“And when it comes to blogsites on climate, the skeptics dominate impressively. ”
That is because Science does not rely on blogsites but on peer-reviewed journals which is exactly where ‘skeptics’ lose, Big Time. And this happens with all kinds of well-established, generally well-accepted Science. You’ll also find that anti-vaccines sites will outrank (on Alexa) pro-vaccines sites for the simple reason that pro-vaccine advocacy is done via well-established peer-reviewed journals, not on individual blogs run by armchair experts.
You can’t compare a medical journal to a climate journal. On one side they are professional, and on the other they are run by, well, never mind. What is peer-review worth if even the lab janitor proves the theory wrong? When theory diverges from observations, then it’s wrong and there’s nothing to discuss.
“You can’t compare a medical journal to a climate journal. On one side they are professional, and on the other they are run by, well, never mind.”
Run by what? If you are so convinced that ‘climate journals’ are not professionally run and/or that there is some sort of conspiracy going on (it sure sounds like it), then surely you should not have any trouble pointing out just that.
BTW, there’s lots of climate science related papers being published in non-climate specific journals all the time. Are they part of the ‘conspiracy’ too?
“What is peer-review worth if even the lab janitor proves the theory wrong?”
Proves wrong where? On a blog or as a comment/rebuttal to the original paper? There’s a fundamental difference you know, in the real world.
There is so much bad logic in that statement, I don’t know where to start. So I won’t.
Oh, please do Ed, don’t hold back.
You’re right. Consensus doesn’t matter. If I were the only person in the world who knows that Global Warming is 100% Pure Fantasy, I would still be correct ! : ))
I did not say consensus does not matter; quite the contrary.
I merely stated that an Alexa Popularity Ranking can by no account be used to counter the multiple peer-reviewed papers on climate science consensus among climate scientists.
For starters, this very site ranks 14th on ScottishSceptics’ little ranking. Pierre is not a climate scientist. His opinion on climate science, while interesting, has no bearing nor impact whatsoever on the consensus among climate scientists. The same can be said about 99% of the ‘skeptic’ sites which make up the rest of the list.
If anything, ScottishSceptic’s list proves there’s lots of blogs and sites which are skeptic, something which is neither ‘a survey’ nor anything unexpected.
Mitchell, careful with the christmas candles, you’re surrounded by strawmen!
Congratulations, Pierre! And many thanks!
Thanks…makes me want to bust out the 16 year old Lagavulin.
I have the link of your web site right up in my bookmarks. I look at it everyday, certain that it will make my day. I also recommend your site whenever somebody is looking for information about climate from outside America-Canada. It’s a good way to get informed from abroad and be able to send it to our politics (Québec and Canada) in the hope they will avoid the big mistakes done in Europe.
Glückwünsche!
Well-deserved!