Don't Most Climate Experts Agree?

Is There a 97% Consensus on Climate Change?

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People often claim that there is a “consensus” of 97% of scientists and academic institutions as “proof” that “the science is settled’. They are misleading you. Very few people have actually read the claimed “consensus” studies in detail. The 2014 Friends of Science report "97% CONSENSUS?  NO! GLOBAL WARMING MATH MYTHS & SOCIAL PROOFS. The “Science” of Statisticulation" reveals there is no such consensus on human-caused global warming as claimed in these studies.

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Science is not a democracy. Israeli‐American physics professor at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Nir Shaviv explains that science is about evidence and not consensus. The following is from the National Academies of Sciences handbook: On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research.

 

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In other words, skepticism is an integral and valuable part of scientific inquiry and process.

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So, what do the “97% consensus” scientists generally agree on?

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1. The earth has warmed a bit less than one degree Celsius since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1860.

2. Human industrial activity and emissions, especially since the 1950s, likely contributed to that warming. There is no agreement about how much of the warming was due to human industrial emissions.

3. Climate change is real. Over the past 4.5 billion years of earths history, it is clear that climate changes all the time, often in cyclical patterns that are unrelated to the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.

4. Carbon dioxide has some warming properties in the atmosphere; there is no scientific agreement on the ratio of this impact (known as “climate sensitivity”). In the geological record, we see that carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is not the cause but a consequence of climate change due to outgassing of carbon dioxide as the oceans warm.

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Many people think that climate change is a new phenomenon driven only by carbon dioxide from human industrial emissions and activities but climate has always typically changed in cycles. Natural forces of climate change are chaotic and have complex dynamic interplay.

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Dr. John Harper discusses various natural climate change factors in this series of short videos.