End of the consensus

Roger Pielke Snr has posted up the results of a survey into the opinions of bona fide climate scientists into the whole phenomenon of global warming. The actual work was performed by Fergus Brown, with the supervising team including both mainstream and more sceptical scientists.

The results were pretty much as I'd expected, and therefore seem to have been a surprise to some on the more mainstream side of the argument.

1. The largest group of respondents (45-50%) concur with the IPCC perspective as given in the 2007 Report.

2. A significant minority (15-20%), however, conclude that the IPCC understated the seriousness of the threat from human additions of CO₂ .

3. A significant minority (15-20%), in contrast, conclude that the IPCC overstated the role of human additions of CO₂  relative to other climate forcings.

4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO₂  into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.

There is a follow up thread on Fergus Brown's blog here.   

Comments

[Peter Risdon]

It's more pronounced a contrast with received wisdom when peer reviewed papers are surveyed:

http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2007/08/consensus-news.html

"Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results."

Source: U S Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966"

[Peter Risdon]

Ugh. Didn't notice the html escaping.

[Bishop Hill]

I've fixed it for you Peter.

I like Squarespace, but this is one bit that annoys me.