Climate change: a profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives

Abstract

Climate scientists have played a significant role in investigating global climate change. In the USA, a debate has swirled about whether a consensus on climate change exists among reputable scientists and this has entered the policy process. In order to better understand the views of US climate scientists, we conducted an empirical survey of US climate scientists (N = 468) in 2005, and compared the results with the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) physical science report and policy summaries. Our results reveal that survey respondents generally agree about the nature, causes, and consequences of climate change, and are in agreement with IPCC findings. We also found that there is strong support for a variety of policy initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Moving beyond scientific agreement

“…Geologists, not counted explicitly in R10 but tallied here, comprise a much larger percentage of the skeptical community (25.7%), surpassing atmospheric scientists. These estimates are in line with other more Thus, climate change skeptics comprise a small proportion of US climate scientists and those that do publish in academic journals have on average much lower expertise in climate change science than IPCC authors (Rosenberg et al 2010;Doran and Zimmerman 2009;Anderegg et al 2010). I argue here that data about the training and background of these skeptical researchers indicates that these publishing differences are much more likely due less relevant expertise than to any sort of peer-review suppression.…”

Undergraduate Understanding of Climate Change: The Influences of College Major and Environmental Group Membership on Survey Knowledge Scores

“…The scientific community has reached a high level of consensus about the occurrence of anthropogenic global climate change (IPCC, 2013;Oreskes, 2004;Rosenberg, Vedlitz, & Cowman, 2010). In the United States, outside of the scientific community, there continues to be considerable debate and confusion surrounding the topic.…”

Knowledge, Information, and Views of Climate Change: An Examination of Coastal Stakeholders along the Gulf of Mexico

“…A final implication is that non-scientists with scientific training are less likely to fully accept the scientific position on climate change despite the scientific consensus [3,4]. In many ways this seems counterintuitive.…”

“…As the scientific community continues to solidify its consensus views about the reality of climate change [3,4] it is important to understand if the stakeholders that influence the coastal management accept this scientific conclusion. If these stakeholders are skeptical about climate change, they are less likely to advocate for policies that would promote mitigation and adaptation, which may help to explain the lack of policy action in countries like the United States.…”