The 97% figure has not been debunked, of course. It is an old conservative figure. The actual, current figure is much, much higher.
Unless you want to listen to a self-described 'scientist' (of the Sarah Palin variety, apparently) who doesn't even understand the very simple basic mechanisms that allow salty warm water to reside below fresh cold water in many polar situations.
Lets see I have a PhD in the sciences, taught for a couple of years at university, have published close to 40 papers on subjects ranging from stratigraphy, structural geology, organic geochemstry, rock mechanics and petroleum basin analysis whereas you are, let me remember now...a school teacher? Yes I can see where everyone would think you more credible.
There are several published papers and another in press that address the problems with Cook's analysis which resulted in the faux 97% number. Irrespective of the fact consensus has no place in scientific studies.
- Cook claims that 97% of the scientific literature takes a position on climate change when most acutally does not.
- noted problems with sampling in that it wasn't representative of the scientific literature, their conclusions being about the papers they happened to look at rather than the literature as a whole.
- attempts to replicate their search criteria for papers resulted in many more papers they did not include, all of which disagreed with the hypothesis
-their sample of papers was padded with irrelevant papers . Tol pointed out that 3/4 of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter.
Legates, D. R., Soon, W., Briggs, W. M., & Monckton of Brenchley, C. 2013. Climate Consensus and 'Misinformation': A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change. Science and EducationHowever, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic
Tol, R. S. J. 2014a. Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the literature: A re-analysis. Energy Policy, 73(0): 701-705Removing irrelevant papers, I find that, rather than 3%, up to 10% of papers explicitly disagree with the hypothesis that climate change is real and largely anthropogenic. Cook et al. report a time trend towards greater endorsement. This, however, is due to an increase in the number of papers that are not on the causes of climate change. Although Cook et al. survey a large number of papers, the number of published papers is larger still. The sampled papers are not representative of larger samples of papers, and probably not representative of the population either. Cook's sample statistics are just that. No conclusion can be drawn about the level of consensus in the wider literature. The sampling strategy may have worked in favour or against the measured consensus on the hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change. The data reported by Cook et al. show signs of error: Taking their ratings at face value (Legates et al., 2013), 7% of the ratings are wrong, and biased towards endorsement of the hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change. Furthermore, the rating data show inexplicable patterns, revealing an inconsistent survey instrument (or worse). Cook et al. failed to report that their data fail their own validation test. The full data-set would shed further light on possible causes of these problems but is unavailable. Cook has refused to release such diagnostic tests as the ratings profiles of individual raters, and the histogram of times between ratings.
this was followed up by a second paper by Tol pointing to additional problems:
Tol, R. S. J. 2014b. Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the literature: Rejoinder. Energy Policy, 73(0): 709
and he has another one in press at the moment.
comments from Tol to the Guardian where Cook tried to defend his 97% number and attempted to villafy Tol:
Cook’s sample is not representative. Any conclusion they draw is not about “the literature” but rather about the papers they happened to find.
Most of the papers they studied are not about climate change and its causes, but many were taken as evidence nonetheless.
Cook’s claim of an increasing consensus over time is entirely due to an increase of the number of irrelevant papers that Cook and co mistook for evidence.
The data is also ridden with error. By Cook’s own calculations, 7% of the ratings are wrong. Spot checks suggest a much larger number of errors, up to one-third.
Cook tried to validate the results by having authors rate their own papers. In almost two out of three cases, the author disagreed with Cook’s team about the message of the paper in question.
So sorry, the study was crap statistics. IF the method is flawed the result is irrelevant. But it has become a go to statement for those who know almost zero about the various sciences that fall into the realm of climate study...so I guess you have that going for you.