By Brendan Wissinger
In this blog post I will be talking about the scientific consensus on Climate Change. I will be talking about what the consensus is among scientists and among papers and scientific organizations.
Among studies there is a 97% consensus on anthropogenic (human caused) climate change. This has been proven through multiple studies (NASA). One of these studies was by John Cook et al, and pulled 11,944 random studies from 1991 to 2011. They found 66.4% of abstracts gave no position on Climate Change, 32.6% said that Anthropogenic climate change is real and 0.7% rejected anthropogenic climate change and 0.3% said the cause was uncertain. Of abstracts giving a position 97% said that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (Iopscience).
Another one of these studies is the Oreskes Study, in 2004, done by Naomi Oreskes who did a survey of every peer reviewed abstract on the subject “global climate change” published between 1993 and 2003. She couldn’t find a single paper that rejected the consensus that that anthropogenic climate change is real and currently occurring (skeptical science). Oreskes did find 75% of the papers accepted the consensus and 25% didn’t mention it and 0% said that anthropogenic climate didn’t exist. The Oreskes has been stated as not giving the full breath of scientific opinions(AGU).
Furthermore, of scientists opinion show results that are just as high, and the more expertise a scientist has the more likely he or she is to believe in anthropogenic climate change. In the study by Peter Doran in 2009, graphed the support of anthropogenic climate change by expertise in the area. Overall 82% of the scientists supported anthropogenic climate change, of non-climatologists, 77% supported anthropogenic climate change, but 97.5% of actively publishing climatologists supported anthropogenic climate change (Skeptical Science).
Another study done by Harris Interactive showed that 97 percent of scientists said that temperatures gone up in the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that the increase was anthropogenic (US News). Another study, Anderegg in 2010 that quantified all scientists that have signed declarations accepting or rejecting the scientific consensus found, that 97% to 98% of scientists agreed that human caused climate change and that scientists that disagreed published about half the number of papers as scientists that agree with anthropogenic climate change (Skeptical Science).
Many scientific organizations have backed anthropogenic climate change. Of United States scientific organizations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Medical Association, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, The Geological Society of America have backed anthropogenic climate change. One of the organizations represents climate scientists, the American Geophysical Union stated:
“Based on Extensive Scientific Evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. There is no alternative explanation support by convincing evidence”.
The other organization that represents climate scientists, the American Meteorological Society has stated:
“Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades….The IPCC’s 2013 report and USGCRP’s 2017 and 2018 reports indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century.”
The US National Academy of Sciences also supports anthropogenic climate change saying “Scientists have known for some time from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate primarily through greenhouse gas emissions. (NASA)” In addition 80 national academies of science agree with anthropogenic climate change, including Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Guatemala, Jordan, Japan, South Korea, Iran, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, The Netherlands, Mozambique, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Skeptical Science). Also the US Global Change Research Program, a US government agency said “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization primarily as a result of human activities.” (This agency itself is a consortium of 13 US government agencies.). Lastly the IPCC stated that
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.”13
“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. (NASA)”
In conclusion, there is a robust scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Climate Change, that proves this as fact in studies, scientist’s own opinions and in the backing of scientific organizations. This proves without a doubt the existence of human caused Climate Change.
Global Climate Change and Society 