More Scientific Consensus on Global Climate Change (As If We Needed It)

Remember that "97%" number?  Remember how it states that 97% of all climate scientists agree with the science of global warming?

Here's another paper to confirm it.

The study's primary (?) author, has a quick and easy FAQ explaining the science without too much science-y jargon.  Here's what the study found:

Our results are consistent with similar studies, which all find high levels of consensus among scientists, especially among scientists who publish more often in the peer-reviewed climate literature.

Cook et al. (2013) found that 97% of papers that characterized the cause of recent warming indicated that it is due to human activities. (John Cook, the lead author of that analysis, is co-author on this current article.) Similarly, a randomized literature review found zero papers that called human-induced climate change into question (Oreskes, 2004).

Other studies surveyed scientists themselves. For instance, Doran and Kendall-Zimmermann (2009) found lower levels of consensus for a wider group of earth scientists (82% consensus) as compared to actively publishing climatologists (97% consensus) on the question of whether or not human activity is a “significant contributor” to climate change. Our results are also in line with those of e.g. Bray and von Storch (2008) and Lichter (2007).

In our study, among respondents with more than 10 peer-reviewed publications (half of total respondents), 90% agree that greenhouse gases are the largest – or tied for largest – contributor to recent warming. The level of agreement is ~85% for all respondents.

The interesting thing about this survey is that they didn't limit the questions to ONLY peer-reviewed climate scientists.  They asked a broad array of scientists and then correlated each scientist's area and level of expertise with how much they agreed with climate science.  Guess what they found?  Take a look:

[IPCC]AR4 authors are generally domain experts, whereas the survey respondents at large comprise a very broad group of scholars, including for example scientists studying climate impacts or mitigation. Hence we consider this to be an extension of the observation -in this study and in e.g. Anderegg et al. (2010) and Doran and Kendall-Zimmermann (2009) – that the more expert scientists report stronger agreement with the IPCC position. Moreover, on the question of how likely the greenhouse contribution exceeded 50%, many respondents provided a stronger statement than was made in AR4. Using a smaller sample of scientists, Bray (2010) found no difference in level of consensus between IPCC authors and non-authors. [Emphasis added to the link.]

Not only that but they found this interesting bit of info tucked into the corners:

Scientists with dissenting opinions report receiving more media attention than those with mainstream opinions. This results in a skewed picture of the spectrum of scientific opinion. Whether that is problematic is in the eye of the beholder, but it may partly explain why public understanding lags behind scientific discourse (e.g. the “consensus gap”).

So if I am reading this correctly, just short of all peer-reviewed climate scientists agree with climate science.  The farther away you get in expertise you are, the less likely you'll be in agreement with the science and the more likely you'll be hit up for an opinion in the media.

Interesting.