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Download Hi-Res ImageDownload to MS-PowerPointCite This:Environ. Sci. Technol. 2014, 48, 16, 8963-8971
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Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming

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† PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, PO Box 303, 3720 AH Bilthoven, The Netherlands
‡ Energy Research Centre of The Netherlands ECN, PO Box 1, 1755 ZG Petten, The Netherlands
§ University of Queensland, 4072 Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia
∥ University of Western Australia, Crawley Washington 6009, Australia
⊥ Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), PO Box 201, 3730 AE De Bilt, The Netherlands
*Phone: +31 20 525 8271; e-mail: [email protected]
Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2014, 48, 16, 8963–8971
Publication Date (Web):July 22, 2014
https://doi.org/10.1021/es501998e
Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society
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Abstract

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Results are presented from a survey held among 1868 scientists studying various aspects of climate change, including physical climate, climate impacts, and mitigation. The survey was unique in its size, broadness and level of detail. Consistent with other research, we found that, as the level of expertise in climate science grew, so too did the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming. The respondents’ quantitative estimate of the GHG contribution appeared to strongly depend on their judgment or knowledge of the cooling effect of aerosols. The phrasing of the IPCC attribution statement in its fourth assessment report (AR4)—providing a lower limit for the isolated GHG contribution—may have led to an underestimation of the GHG influence on recent warming. The phrasing was improved in AR5. We also report on the respondents’ views on other factors contributing to global warming; of these Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) was considered the most important. Respondents who characterized human influence on climate as insignificant, reported having had the most frequent media coverage regarding their views on climate change.

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The Supporting Information contains background information on the following topics: Aggregating fields of expertise, comparison between tagged and self-declared fields of expertise, attribution, consensus, contribution of other factors to warming, aerosol cooling versus GHG warming, climate sensitivity, and media exposure. This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

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Cited By

This article is cited by 24 publications.

  1. José L. Duarte . Comment on “Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming”. Environmental Science & Technology 2014, 48 (23) , 14057-14058. https://doi.org/10.1021/es504574v
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  7. Stephan Lewandowsky, Toby D. Pilditch, Jens K. Madsen, Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey. Influence and seepage: An evidence-resistant minority can affect public opinion and scientific belief formation. Cognition 2019, 188 , 124-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.01.011
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  10. Jeffrey A Harvey, Daphne van den Berg, Jacintha Ellers, Remko Kampen, Thomas W Crowther, Peter Roessingh, Bart Verheggen, Rascha J M Nuijten, Eric Post, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ian Stirling, Meena Balgopal, Steven C Amstrup, Michael E Mann. Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy. BioScience 2018, 68 (4) , 281-287. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix133
  11. Warren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, Judith Tsouvalis. Beyond Counting Climate Consensus. Environmental Communication 2017, 11 (6) , 723-730. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965
  12. Amelia Sharman, Candice Howarth. Climate stories: Why do climate scientists and sceptical voices participate in the climate debate?. Public Understanding of Science 2017, 26 (7) , 826-842. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662516632453
  13. Stefan Drews, Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh. Scientists’ views on economic growth versus the environment: a questionnaire survey among economists and non-economists. Global Environmental Change 2017, 46 , 88-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.08.007
  14. . Institutional Integration. 2017,,, 273-292. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118793985.ch11
  15. Adam Mayer. Will Democratization Save the Climate? An Entropy-Balanced, Random Slope Study. International Journal of Sociology 2017, 47 (2) , 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207659.2017.1300465
  16. Wenxia Xie, Jun Zhang, Lixin Xu, Jianhong Lv, Hui Zhong, Changdong Sheng. Influence of particles on mass transfer performance for CO 2 absorption using K 2 CO 3 solution in a random θ-ring packed column. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 2017, 58 , 81-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2016.12.020
  17. James Lawrence Powell. The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Matters. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 2016, 36 (3) , 157-163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617707079
  18. Daniel Bedford. Does Climate Literacy Matter? A Case Study of U.S. Students’ Level of Concern about Anthropogenic Global Warming. Journal of Geography 2016, 115 (5) , 187-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2015.1105851
  19. Harry Dowsett, Aisling Dolan, David Rowley, Robert Moucha, Alessandro M. Forte, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Matthew Pound, Ulrich Salzmann, Marci Robinson, Mark Chandler, Kevin Foley, Alan Haywood. The PRISM4 (mid-Piacenzian) paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Climate of the Past 2016, 12 (7) , 1519-1538. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-1519-2016
  20. Harry Dowsett, Marci Robinson, Kevin Foley. A global planktic foraminifer census data set for the Pliocene ocean. Scientific Data 2015, 2 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2015.76
  21. Candice Howarth, Richard Black. Local science and media engagement on climate change. Nature Climate Change 2015, 5 (6) , 506-508. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2629
  22. Craig McClain, Liz Neeley. . F1000Research 2015,,, 300. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.5918.2
  23. Lucas Bergkamp. Adjudicating Scientific Disputes in Climate Science: The Limits of Judicial Competence and the Risks of Taking Sides. SSRN Electronic Journal 2015, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2679252
  24. Craig McClain, Liz Neeley. A critical evaluation of science outreach via social media: its role and impact on scientists. F1000Research 2014, 3 , 300. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.5918.1

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