Ever heard that 97% of scientists agree with AGW?

[vendic]

If you accepted this much publicized statistic, like I did, prepare to be pissed off.

Here is the link to the actual study

Out of the papers reviewed rough figures:
33% supported AGW
66% made no position
0.7% Disagreed with AGW

So 1 in three scientific papers supported man made global warming.

Where did that 97% figure come from then?
They did this:
32.6/(32.66 +.7)

Basically arguing that of the papers that made a definite position on AGW, 97% were supporting it.
They completely ignored the 66.4% of papers that studied AGW and made no position on it.
IOW, 66.4% of scientific papers on man made global warming said the results were not conclusive.

That's a fucking big difference to the claim that 97% of scientists/scientific papers agree that man made global warming is real.

Then they asked the authors of those papers to self review, 98% of the scientists that wrote papers that man made global warming was real thought, thought that it was real. 2% rejected their own papers.

There was also a lot of controversy regarding the methodology, concluding that the system was biased towards the pro AGW camp.

For a more detailed analysis, check here

Scientists that were mis-represented in that paper as being for AGW when they were in fact not.
link

Just wow.

[SciFiFisher]

Please don’t tell me that the far right might be actually.... right about something?

1/3 of the studies concluded that Manmade Global Warming is supportable with the science.
2/3 of the studies concluded that MM GW can’t be proven or disproven with the science.

There seems to be verifiable bias on the part of the group who wanted to prove MMGW was conclusive.
Somebody re-intrepeted the data to make it sound scarier than it really was. And that more scientists actually supported MMGW theory than actually did.

I think there is also the difference between not stating a conclusion or a position on MMGW vs NOT agreeing that MMGW is real. IOW the papers who did not state a position may have felt the science should stand alone without an opinion from the authors. Many researchers are reluctant to state without ambiguity what the data actually means. I.e. we could interpret it one way. Or we can interpret it another way.

It is disingenuous to report that 99% of scientists agree that MMGW is a thing when it is actually 99% of those who stated a position or an opinion in their research.

Scientists are like Doctors. You can give 10 of them the same data/facts/symptoms and ask them to all agree. You can even lock them in a room and tell them no one is coming out until they all agree. I promise you that they will never come out of the room.

I may not be as outraged as others because I realized a long time ago that science was not perfect. Nor is it a religion. It is a pretty darn good way to systematically study the things going on around us however.

The reality is this:

MMGW is as dire as some people predict
MMGW is not nearly as dire as some people predict.
MMGW isn’t really a thing.

If we assume that man has some impact on the world then it probably falls somewhere between the first and the second options.
Decreasing our impact on the world so that we don’t poison it or make it totally uninhabitable is a good goal even if MMGW isn’t as dire as predicted.
Decreasing our dependence on a number of finite resources that will run out sooner or later no matter what the reason is a very good goal.

None of the above means that I am willing to turn my AC up to 80 in order to lessen my carbon footprint.

[Swift]

That may or may not be the source of the 97% value, but everything else I've read says the overwhelming vast majority of scientists understand (not "believe") that climate change / global warming is happening and is completely or largely driven by human activities. If it is "only" 90%, has it been disproved?

But you know what, I'm sorry but I'm not going to even read the links. I don't care anymore. The freaking planet is doomed and there ain't nothing I can do it about it. The deniers and the oil companies and the Kellyanne Conways of the world won. Blue is red, grass is purple, ketchup is a vegetable. Congrats.

Goodbye coral reefs, goodbye frogs, goodbye bees and polar bears.

I've debated this stuff literally for decades, and all the way back to FWIS v1.0 and before. I'm done.

I'll be dead and gone before the worst of the shit hits the fan. Sorry GJ, you were right.

(can you tell the prednisone is kicking my emotional butt)

[SciFiFisher]

flame:


I'll be dead and gone before the worst of the shit hits the fan. Sorry GJ, you were right.

(can you tell the prednisone is kicking my emotional butt)

Not so we noticed.

[SciFi Chick]

flame:


That may or may not be the source of the 97% value, but everything else I've read says the overwhelming vast majority of scientists understand (not "believe") that climate change / global warming is happening and is completely or largely driven by human activities. If it is "only" 90%, has it been disproved?

But you know what, I'm sorry but I'm not going to even read the links. I don't care anymore. The freaking planet is doomed and there ain't nothing I can do it about it. The deniers and the oil companies and the Kellyanne Conways of the world won. Blue is red, grass is purple, ketchup is a vegetable. Congrats.

Goodbye coral reefs, goodbye frogs, goodbye bees and polar bears.

I've debated this stuff literally for decades, and all the way back to FWIS v1.0 and before. I'm done.

I'll be dead and gone before the worst of the shit hits the fan. Sorry GJ, you were right.

(can you tell the prednisone is kicking my emotional butt)

I might have to nickname you Eeyore.

[vendic]

flame:


That may or may not be the source of the 97% value, but everything else I've read says the overwhelming vast majority of scientists understand (not "believe") that climate change / global warming is happening and is completely or largely driven by human activities. If it is "only" 90%, has it been disproved?

You don't need to read the links. All they are is showing where that statistic came from. Many scientists are stating that their papers were misrepresented. They are flat out denying that they or their papers support AGW but the authors of this paper put them down as though they were.

Like you, I fell for the statistic. I fell for a few other things too. Now I'm going back through my long held beliefs to see if they actually stand up to serious scrutiny. I'm not happy that I'm seeing very compelling evidence that my opinions were formed by mis-representations of facts and flat out lies. I am happy however that I am getting to the bottom of it.

For the record, you'll be far better off reading the other thread in this forum. Particularly since you like astronomy. I loved the theory and it seems to hold up really well to both short and long term data. Our climate is dependent in part to our position in the Milkyway and as we move around, so does our weather. That was to me an astounding discovery.

[Rommie]

Yeah, I'm like swift, I don't have time for this bullshit either.

Climate change is a thing. I have read a lot of papers myself, and the evidence is damning.

If you really want to go down this road, I recommend starting with this website and reading at least the first ten reports debunking "arguments." . And this study gets a mention too, both at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced level. From advanced-

Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. In the self-ratings, nearly 1,400 papers were rated as taking a position, 97.2% of which endorsed human-caused global warming.

We found that about two-thirds of papers didn't express a position on the subject in the abstract, which confirms that we were conservative in our initial abstract ratings. This result isn't surprising for two reasons: 1) most journals have strict word limits for their abstracts, and 2) frankly, every scientist doing climate research knows humans are causing global warming. There's no longer a need to state something so obvious. For example, would you expect every geological paper to note in its abstract that the Earth is a spherical body that orbits the sun?

[Swift]

Like you, I fell for the statistic. I fell for a few other things too. Now I'm going back through my long held beliefs to see if they actually stand up to serious scrutiny. I'm not happy that I'm seeing very compelling evidence that my opinions were formed by mis-representations of facts and flat out lies. I am happy however that I am getting to the bottom of it.

I didn't fall for any statistic. I don't care about the statistic, its a number that sounds nice in a sound byte. And science isn't a popularity contest.

But, I have absolutely NO doubts of the truth of global warming or that humans are causing it. The only questions are the details, and what impact future, unpredictable human behavior will have. From what you written (and I'm sorry if I'm misinterpreting) you are a doubter.

To be real blunt, if you are a doubter, I guess that's your business, but I don't put that very far from denier. And AGW-deniers rate poorly in my book.

This is a battle for the protection of this planet. Sides are being picked. The battle is what, if anything, to do about AGW, not if it exists; that's settled.

And yes, I've already acknowledged I think my side has lost. But I'm not going to surrender to the enemy.

Again, if I've completely misinterpreted what you are saying, I'm sorry.

[Swift]

I might have to nickname you Eeyore.

I've always related well to Eeyore (and no, that's not a joke).

[vendic]

To be real blunt, if you are a doubter, I guess that's your business, but I don't put that very far from denier. And AGW-deniers rate poorly in my book.

This is a battle for the protection of this planet. Sides are being picked. The battle is what, if anything, to do about AGW, not if it exists; that's settled.

And yes, I've already acknowledged I think my side has lost. But I'm not going to surrender to the enemy.

Again, if I've completely misinterpreted what you are saying, I'm sorry.

Yeah, you might have. I was a strong believer in global warming. I relied on various facts as they were given to me. This was just one of those. Whenever someone falsely represents data to further their cause, I start to worry.
What I'm saying is there is a lot of stuff that has been passed around as fact that just isn't.
Things like actual climate and astronomical physicists have been saying that they have been mis-represented.

I want to deal with the facts. Just the facts. Finding out that some of the facts I have been lead to believe are not really correct insults me, and it insults the very idea of scientific inquiry.

I doubt you would agree that scientists should start mis-representing data because they believe the cause to be true, is a wise thing to do.
I doubt you would agree that that mis-representation then being used to bombard the public and politicians to sway them to their cause is a good thing to do. Obama used that same statistic as support for his position. The data was actually wrong.

The study actually showed that 66% of studies don't draw a conclusion, and there were studies put in the pro camp that were not pro AGW. These are documented. I know you question that figure, have at it. You might want to consider that many scientists that published those papers are themselves stating openly that their position was mis-represented. That is a huge problem of bias.

What it means for me personally, is that I have to question my initial stance. That's where I'm at now. I might investigate further and find out that I still have the same opinion. I just can no longer assume that, so I am doing a sanity check.

But, I have absolutely NO doubts of the truth of global warming or that humans are causing it. The only questions are the details, and what impact future, unpredictable human behavior will have. From what you written (and I'm sorry if I'm misinterpreting) you are a doubter.

So if the science actually comes out to say its not, and the vast majority of scientists change their views, are you going to continue to have no doubt?
I genuinely ask because I want to know.
At what point would you change?
New data or a stream of studies that show the opposite?
The reason I ask, is that when a person is so sure of their opinion, that they create a cycle of confirmation bias.
Would you for example read a study that shows otherwise?

If not, then the world really is fucked.
Because we will refuse to accept the science based on our previously held positions, the net result will be that science is irrelevant, and it just morphs into faith.

We once believed the Universe was decelerating. Now we believe otherwise.
If we never look at the alternatives, we will never find them. If we only look at what confirms our position, we will never change it.

So no. I am not a denier. Nor am I so committed to accepting AGW that I refuse to accept the possibility that it is false.

[Swift]

The study actually showed that 66% of studies don't draw a conclusion, and there were studies put in the pro camp that were not pro AGW.

I think part of the problem here is that in the scientific, journal literature, there is generally not a "pro" camp and an "anti" camp, and scientists don't write papers like that.

You write a paper looking at one tiny aspect of the big picture. "Influence of pollution on shortwave albedo of clouds". J. Atmos. Sci. 34 (7): 1149–1152. Your abstract and your conclusions do not include the phrase "... therefore, global warming is real". That's not the point of the paper, it is to study one little aspect of the whole thing.

The big conclusions are left to the textbooks, the review articles, and the IPCC. That is the whole point of the IPCC, to look at all the science, in immense detail, combine it, and (here is the really thorny part), make some recommendations on policy.

So, count noses on obscure papers on chlorine content in ice cores as "pro" or "con" is not telling anyone anything

Anyway, I'm done

[SciFi Chick]

I'm not sure why the fact that vendic has dared to even question whether there might be some legitimacy to the idea that certain science is being suppressed or politicized is garnering such hostility. You may recall his lengthy defense of climate change, but challenging your beliefs is a good way to make sure you'll still up to speed and not getting complacent.

I'm sorry you don't want to discuss it swift. Perhaps you've debated with people that have an agenda or already have their minds made up and aren't interested in new data, but you'd be mistaken if you think that's what is going on with vendic. We should be thrilled when our dearly held beliefs are challenged. This is what debating is for, to see which ideas stand the test of scrutiny.

I know you said you're done, so I don't know if you'll even read this, and perhaps you really are done, but I hope you aren't going off in a fury thinking vendic is an evil idiot.

[vendic]

The study actually showed that 66% of studies don't draw a conclusion, and there were studies put in the pro camp that were not pro AGW.

I think part of the problem here is that in the scientific, journal literature, there is generally not a "pro" camp and an "anti" camp, and scientists don't write papers like that.

I agree with you, the scientists that are complaining are agreeing with you. That scientific paper labeled them as pro AGW.
That's exactly what they are complaining about. They have stated that their papers do not draw any conclusions either way but were put in the category of supporting AGW and their papers were then used to make up this false statistic that everyone is using.

I don't see why me pointing out that one flawed paper has made a claim that is now a common argument used in climate change discussions. Even Obama used it.
That's just wrong and I'm saying that it is wrong.

[Tarragon]

I remember in 5th or 6th grade, when we learned the Earth was not a sphere, but an oblate spheroid. The whole class decided we'd been lied to by the scientific orthodoxy and that we should re-consider Flat Earthism. After all, globes are made by wrapping flat pictures around a ball, so obviously there's something to it.



Seriously, are you trolling us for fun? I mean, you appear to go to great lengths to research and understand both sides of the issue of Feminism in the Red Pill thread, but in this one the answer to your criticisms is right in the same study you say supports your rejection of it.

Thanks for giving us an ironic demonstration of the flaws of relying upon "received opinion." I get tired of "science communicators" who take the shortcut of using the Appeal to Authority Fallacy instead of taking the time to explain how and why people need to understand statistics enough to comprehend scientific probability. And how politicians and their acolytes meme-ify and weaponize these "facts" to increase buy-in, assuming the public is too busy to do their homework to see if the studies support what the Pols and Sci Coms are saying. This, of course, allows opponents to point out the flaws in their overly-broad simplifications, which induces polarization, political paralysis, and epistemological paranoia in order to energizes each side's base with enough righteous indignation driven other-ism to keep the mouse clicks and the campaign donations flowing.

Meanwhile, if people had simply retained what they learned in high school about reading comprehension, basic math, and logic, they'd realize that when a study says its researchers analyzed over twelve thousand abstracts looking for statements of opinion on Climate Change/Global Warming, and then reports which percentage of the opinion-stating abstracts are pro and con, that that's exactly what it did. Maybe if the researchers had had the time, money and manpower to read the studies in their entirety, they'd arrive at an answer for the studies that did not make a discernible statement of opinion on the existence of Climate Change/Global Warming in their abstracts. But they didn't, so they didn't. That'd be a great follow-up study... like how this was a follow-up study to earlier claims of consensus (although some people think the ~97% consensus number originated with this study instead of Oreskes in 2004, Doran in 2009, and Anderegg in 2010, and may not realize it was supported by Verheggen in 2014, Stenhouse in 2014, and Carlton in 2015).

I'd be curious to look at the studies that did not have a discernible position on AGW in their abstracts. I wonder how many of them were about oddball technical stuff, like: comparing historic thermometer design based on its exposure to radiative heating from indirect light and the proper correction for each glass type; analysis of numerical models for quantifying the effects of Relativity on radiation-based cloud density detectors operating at high altitude on Earth based on what was learned from the Mars Science Laboratory; how to design a remote sensing image analysis algorithm to track cloud transparency to IR (without getting your study classified by the government due to National Security issues about nuclear explosion detection), and; proper valve design for bovine breathalyzers.

You're right, Pols and Sci Coms are lying to us by oversimplification. But those who pick a side and choose to go to war with a weapon and a belief without adequately investigating and understanding the basis of that belief or factillogical weapons have also been lied to - by their own damn selves. Of course, a lot of people would rather lash out at others and become radicalized into nihilistic extremists instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

[vendic]

My position on all this is simply, I have no position till I go back through the data I thought I had and verify it and look at the alternate arguments before rejecting them. When I did this in the past I was guilty of confirmation bias. I'm now working hard to not have it, and let the data speak for itself as much as I can understand it anyway. Clearly I'm not a climate scientist and no one on this forum is, so we're all at some level relying on others to make our pov.
So is what I am doing pointless?
Probably. It sure won't affect anything either way.
What it will do however is educate me on all sides of the issue.
e.g. I found a guy who is listed as a climate denier. He is a climatologist and well respected. The reason he is classified as a denier is that he believes that humans are influencing the climate but not as simply as just CO2 and he is saying that the current estimates and models do not factor this into account. IOW, he is saying it's worse than what the general consensus is.
The reason he is classified as a denier?
Well, he doesn't agree it's just CO2, thus isn't towing the official line.
Now he too is complaining that he is getting rejected for research.

An interesting read: https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/ ... t-al-2010/

[squ1d]

But you know what, I'm sorry but I'm not going to even read the links. I don't care anymore. The freaking planet is doomed and there ain't nothing I can do it about it. The deniers and the oil companies and the Kellyanne Conways of the world won. Blue is red, grass is purple, ketchup is a vegetable. Congrats.

Goodbye coral reefs, goodbye frogs, goodbye bees and polar bears.

I've debated this stuff literally for decades, and all the way back to FWIS v1.0 and before. I'm done.

HAHAHAHAH

Epic!

[vendic]

While I was a a initially looking into AGW the main thing that swayed me was the signs of global warming. Sea level rise, glaciers receding etc. This was regularly attributed to AGW and cited as evidence. I saw many graphs of the changes. Most of the ones I looked at were starting in the 1900's or so. Now I'm looking a bit further back.

Here are a few things I've found:
1) Sea level raise has been constant since the early 1800's. That's a full century before the industrial age. There was some change in the rate since the industrial age pumped all that CO2 into the air but correlation doesn't equal causation.

2) Glaciers have been shortening since the early 1800's. That's a full century before the industrial age. They were growing then peaked and started their demise, then a century later, the industrial age started.

Again, I'm looking to find something to explain this that still supports AGW, but, if the events happened before humans started pumping out so much CO2 and arguably haven't significantly changed the rate of change once they did, it will need to be a very compelling reason how humans are responsible.

[vendic]

So sea level rise data. As I said, most places show it from about the start of the 1900's.
Some go just a bit before.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

You can see that it started before the industrial age. Even though their data only goes back to the 1870's, the sea level was already rising. Typically there is a cause and effect with an associated delay. So AGW sea level rise due to CO2 would start far later than when we first started to pump out the CO2. This is showing changes in sea level decades before CO2 was a factor. One can argue that the rate changed in the late 1950's to mid 1960's and that is due to human CO2 output but since the rate has doubled at most, it means the most sea level rise can be attributed to CO2 is about 50%. This is without exploring any other possibilities and it's all just due to CO2 emissions. Since this happened in Iceland around 0-150AD at a similar rate to what we observe now, I have to ask how they explain that time period as there was no CO2 emissions. That means there is a history of similar rates happening in the past to what we are seeing today that cannot be attributed to human activity. This needs to be addressed.

Here is the historical view from the CSIRO (Australia's leading scientific group).

The few very long tide gauge records all show an increase in the rate of sea level rise from the 18th century.

So the sea level has been rising since we had the means to record it, back in the 1700's and 1800's. This cannot be attributed to human emissions.

Here's the link: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hi ... ndred.html

Maybe there is an explanation, I'm not looking for that yet. My first step is to look at the data that is not agreeing with the accepted view that it's all due to AGW and then see what I can find that explains that once I have all the contrary evidence.

The same seems to apply for the glaciers. They too started receding before the industrial age. I have to collect more information on that though.

No I am not a denier. Nor am I a blind supporter. I want to examine the data critically, as much as I can. What happens when I do that I have no idea. It will probably still point to AGW but I'm not deciding that it will or won't.

[vendic]

Now, having showed above that there is conclusive data that the sea level started rising in the 1700's, continued in the 1800's and 1900's, I will show you what bugs me. This is they type of stuff I had read in the past and accepted. Because, you know, climatologists and education departments should know what is going on"

Scientists agree that the changes in climate that we are seeing today are largely caused by human activity, and it's climate change that drives sea level rise. Sea level started rising in the late 1800s, soon after we started burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels for energy. When burned, these high-energy fuel sources send carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat from the sun and traps it, warming the atmosphere and the planet.

That bolded statement is completely false according to CSIRO data sets. The data conclusively shows it started rising well before the late 1800's.
The statement that scientists agree with this means that either the scientists are wrong, or consensus of their opinion is wrong, or of course, the multiple sources of tide gauge data that the CSIRO used were wrong.
The conclusion of the paragraph is then suspect. Sure it may be true, but it was not the case before the rising sea level and this completely dismisses it.

That was on the Smithsonian Museum site, there were three PhD's that reviewed.
http://ocean.si.edu/sea-level-rise

The problem I'm seeing here is that they have formed an opinion based on incomplete data.
The conclusions then formed are not possible to be correct since they are not even aware of the previous trend prior to human CO2 emissions.
I'll have to dig further into it, right now though, anyone that claims sea level rise happened only after human CO2 emissions started is just factually wrong. Even using their own data from 1880 it makes no sense.

[vendic]

Found a climatology course that has PDF lectures.
https://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/

Have fun.

[Tarragon]

Who are you reading that's been saying the sea wasn't rising until the Industrial Revolution? Most sources I'm familiar with say sea level started rising after the Last Glacial Maximum, and hasn't stopped since.

I could tell you what I've read that answered those same questions when I had them, but I don't want to shortcut your adventure. Have fun.

[vendic]

Who are you reading that's been saying the sea wasn't rising until the Industrial Revolution? Most sources I'm familiar with say sea level started rising after the Last Glacial Maximum, and hasn't stopped since.

I could tell you what I've read that answered those same questions when I had them, but I don't want to shortcut your adventure. Have fun.

I am having fun.

I just posted a link to one source. It's not the only one. Almost all climate sea level rise papers only list 1880 onwards. It's harder to find them that date back further.
There were many people who were saying it was rising after the ice age but then it leveled off. Then it started to rise again about the late 1800's. They attribute the rise from the late 1880's to AGW. You don't have to go far to find them.

I agree with you that it started long ago. Which therefore excludes AGW as a source. That's not however the way it is sold to the general public.
AGW is responsible for the vast majority of sea level rise is the standard message.

[vendic]

So glaciers were also used to justify how AGW is real and affecting the Earth.

Not from what I am seeing though.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/767

The graph of the averages shows that the peak length happened about 1800.
The drop started around 1815 and has continued to fall.
From 1815 to 2000 (when the graph ends) the drop is near linear.
The is no jump due to CO2 emissions at all.
The falling length of the glaciers started before coal and the industrial revolution. Even if it coincided there is a delay time that needs to be factored and the fall precedes CO2 emissions rather than follows them. Hence, CO2 is not responsible for the loss in glaciers.
Again, I have to see how this is explained by those who support the theory of AGW being the cause of the loss of the glaciers but it will have to be some pretty impressive explanation since it started before the CO2 emissions.

[Tarragon]

I just posted a link to one source. It's not the only one. Almost all climate sea level rise papers only list 1880 onwards. It's harder to find them that date back further.
There were many people who were saying it was rising after the ice age but then it leveled off. Then it started to rise again about the late 1800's. They attribute the rise from the late 1880's to AGW. You don't have to go far to find them.

I agree with you that it started long ago. Which therefore excludes AGW as a source. That's not however the way it is sold to the general public.
AGW is responsible for the vast majority of sea level rise is the standard message.

What is it they list 1880 onwards? Are they saying that the sea level only rose since 1880? Or are they saying that only since 1880 can sea level begin to be attributed to mankind. And if so, are they saying that it's because AGW only started in 1880, or only became detectable since 1880, or only started to be recorded directly or reliably in 1880 (whereas proxy data and sparce and poorly sourced data and anecdotes might be excluded)?

Ignoring the possibility that human activity might have been a factor since as long as people have been pumping CO2 into the air above natural background processes since mankind invented fire, is sea level rise limited to one source? Can human activity add to the natural background rise in sea level?

What effect does the way it's being sold to the general public affect the data? The statement: "AGW is responsible for the vast majority of sea level rise is the standard message," seems vague. Is that from a scientific paper, and did it state it the timeframe or provide other context?

It's hard to know what to say and what to ask when you refer to uncited papers without specific quotes and numbers. But this is your voyage of discovery, and you're the captain of that ship, so I won't tell you where to sail. I know it seems like uncharted territory, but it's actually very well charted.

However, I am heartened to read this: "I have to see how this is explained by those who support the theory of AGW being the cause of the loss of the glaciers but it will have to be some pretty impressive explanation since it started before the CO2 emissions." You know what you need to do next, and I know those papers exist. Carry on, sir.

[vendic]

What is it they list 1880 onwards? Are they saying that the sea level only rose since 1880? Or are they saying that only since 1880 can sea level begin to be attributed to mankind. And if so, are they saying that it's because AGW only started in 1880, or only became detectable since 1880, or only started to be recorded directly or reliably in 1880 (whereas proxy data and sparce and poorly sourced data and anecdotes might be excluded)?

I've seen papers that claim it's due to AGW, or that AGW is the dominant reason. That can't be the case since it started well before humans were pumping huge amounts of CO2 into the air. The CO2 levels were still at average levels till the mid 1800's. That's documented. So if the seas and the glaciers were already being affected, it simply can't be to AGW. There is also a lag effect. CO2 being released doesn't instantly make these things happen. It take a long time for oceans to heat up and glaciers to melt.

Ignoring the possibility that human activity might have been a factor since as long as people have been pumping CO2 into the air above natural background processes since mankind invented fire, is sea level rise limited to one source? Can human activity add to the natural background rise in sea level?

Not if you look at the CO2 levels. They were stable till about the late 1800's. In 1850 it was still at average long term levels.

What effect does the way it's being sold to the general public affect the data? The statement: "AGW is responsible for the vast majority of sea level rise is the standard message," seems vague. Is that from a scientific paper, and did it state it the timeframe or provide other context?

It's all over the place. Fear mongering. The Oceans are rising, the glaciers are melting, we are the cause.
If you want specific articles I can find them for you but it's pretty much what is being told to us, even by climatologists.

It's hard to know what to say and what to ask when you refer to uncited papers without specific quotes and numbers. But this is your voyage of discovery, and you're the captain of that ship, so I won't tell you where to sail. I know it seems like uncharted territory, but it's actually very well charted.

I gave one link. I'm going on what I was researching years ago and that was the accepted view. Humans are the cause, no if's or buts.

However, I am heartened to read this: "I have to see how this is explained by those who support the theory of AGW being the cause of the loss of the glaciers but it will have to be some pretty impressive explanation since it started before the CO2 emissions." You know what you need to do next, and I know those papers exist. Carry on, sir.

As I wrote, I was a huge believer in AGW. For the last few years I've had to examine my positions on various topics as there is so much misinformation out there. That's all I'm doing. Checking that what I have been led to believe is true. The only thing I'm not doing is accepting something unless it is both verifiable and logical. Claiming AGW caused the Oceans to rise and the glaciers to recede fits neither. So I'm looking at it as, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

e.g. http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2014/05/1 ... tudy-says/

Unless they can explain why the natural process of warming suddenly dropped off it's normal rise, this is complete crap. The natural rise constitutes about 50% of the rise if we just go by the pre-industrial rate of sea level rise. SO for humans to be responsible for 90% it means they should be able to demonstrate why the natural rate of warming has suddenly dropped and AGW has suddenly risen.

Here's why they concluded that:

The period analyzed was 1950–2005, overlapping between numerical simulations and hydrographic observations. For models and observations, thermosteric sea level was computed at each time step by integrating the specific volume anomaly down to 700 m at each grid point with constant salinity and equal to its initial field. The integration depth was determined by the availability of the observations. All thermosteric sea level fields were finally interpolated onto the same 1° × 1° grid and averaged into annual values.

Note that the rate prior to the 1950's was also rising and was not due to AGW. If you don't include the baseline then you are going to get the wrong results. By looking at the rates only after the 1950s they have excluded what was happening before. To top it off, they are relying on model simulations. As an engineer I can tell you that model simulations can be completely off even in a highly mathematical and well understood process such as electronics. Better simulators give better results but they never fully line up with the reality. That's for something that is so well understood and used that most of the World relies on those principles. As a design engineer I design something, model it and simulate it and then test it. Simulations get you in a close ballpark but not fully. This is for extremely well understood concepts. By comparison, climate is like playing darts blindfolded and claiming high accuracy. No offense to climatologists intended, but models and simulations that they are doing are no where near as well understood as the electronics field and that field has problems getting accurate results while being far simpler and far more defined.

Here's another: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... -rise.html

Human activities, such as burning coal and oil and cutting down tropical forests, have increased atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases and caused the planet to warm by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.
Rising temperatures are warming ocean waters, which expand as the temperature increases. This thermal expansion was the main driver of global sea level rise for 75 - 100 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution, though its relative contribution has declined as the shrinking of land ice has accelerated.
Land ice—glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets—is shrinking at a faster rate in response to rising temperatures, adding water to the world's oceans.
As the rate of ice loss has accelerated, its contribution to global sea level rise has increased from a little more than half of the total increase from 1993 - 2008 to 75 - 80 percent of the total increase between 2003 - 2007.

You'll notice the year 1880, it's always around this time frame. Yet the data is there that the Oceans were rising well before that, that glaciers were receding before that. If the Ocean was rising and the glaciers receding before the release of CO2 by humans, then the temperature was also increasing back then, by their own theory. Yet, they rarely acknowledge this fact. The rate that glaciers are receding is actually quite linear from 1815 onwards. They are claiming otherwise. Their own data however shows this to not be the case.
The first part I bolded, is totally true. What is misleading is that it was also the main driver for the previous 150 years before the industrial revolution. Why is that ignored?

See where I'm going?
I see lot of papers that are ignoring the historical data and only looking at the 1880's onwards, thus can see a clear link between CO2 emissions and temperature rise, Ocean rise and glacier recession. The problem is this was happening at the same rate prior to the CO2 being released. If CO2 is a significant factor, then where is the change in rate?

These are just the problems I'm seeing. I have yet to investigate the scientists explanations. Like I wrote though, they are going to have to be damned good to establish a link when there is no cause and effect in play. The effect was there before the claimed cause. That's a huge problem. The other huge problem is that they seem to constantly use data after the industrial revolution. So no baseline. I have an issue with that.

Sorry, must go cook. Lamb kebabs, on the grill. So I'm contributing to AGW! lol