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Climate Change Consensus Extends Beyond Climate Scientists, Purdue Study Indicates

Rosemary Gordon Posted by Rosemary Gordon|September 28, 2015

A Purdue University-led survey of nearly 700 scientists from nonclimate disciplines shows that more than 90% believe that average global temperatures are higher than pre-1800s levels and that human activity has significantly contributed to the rise.

The study is the first to show that consensus on human-caused climate change extends beyond climate scientists to the broader scientific community, Linda Prokopy, a professor of natural resource social science, said.

“Our survey indicates that an overwhelming majority of scientists across disciplines believe in anthropogenic climate change, are highly certain of these beliefs, and find climate science to be credible,” Prokopy said. “Our results also suggest that scientists who are climate change skeptics are well in the minority.”

Previous studies have shown that about 97% of actively publishing climate scientists believe in human-caused climate change, and a review of scientific literature on the existence of climate change indicated that about 97% of studies affirm climate change is happening.

However, no direct surveys had assessed whether the general agreement on the impact of human activities on the Earth’s climate extended to scientists in other disciplines.

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Prokopy and fellow researchers conducted a 2014 survey of scientists from more than 10 non-climate disciplines at Big Ten universities to determine the relative prevalence of belief in, and skepticism of, climate change in the scientific community.

Nearly 79% said they “strongly agree” and about 15% “moderately agree” that climate science is credible. About 64% said climate science is a mature science compared with their own field, and about 63% rated climate science as “about equally trustworthy” compared to their discipline.Of 698 respondents, about 94% said they believe average global temperatures have “generally risen” compared with pre-1800 levels, and 92% said they believe “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.”

Disagreement about climate change is rarely a simple dispute about facts, Prokopy said. People’s interpretation of information can also be influenced by their cultural and political values, worldview, and personal identity. Prokopy’s research team found that division over climate change was linked to disagreement over science — such as the potential effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s climate — but also differing cultural and political values, which the survey gauged in a section of questions on respondents’ general worldviews.

While cultural values did not appear to influence scientists as much as previous studies have shown they influence the general public on a variety of issues, including climate change, the survey indicated that “when it comes to climate change, scientists are people, too,” said lead author Stuart Carlton, a former postdoctoral research assistant in Prokopy’s lab.

“While our study shows that a large majority of scientists believe in human-caused climate change, it also shows that their beliefs are influenced by the same types of things that influence the beliefs of regular people: cultural values, political ideologies and personal identity,” he said.

Prokopy said she was “quite surprised to find cultural values influencing scientists as much as they are. This shows how strong these values are and how hard they are to change.”

Respondents’ certainty in their beliefs on climate change appeared to be linked to the source of their climate information. Certainty was correlated to how much of respondents’ climate information came from scientific literature or mainstream media, Prokopy said. The more respondents relied on scientific studies for information on climate change, the greater their certainty that human activity is causing the Earth’s temperatures to rise.

“Climate literature is very compelling and convincing,” she said. “Scientists are not fabricating their data.”

Nearly 60% of those who believe in climate change said they were “extremely sure” and about 31% said they were “very sure” average global temperatures have risen. Respondents who said they believe global temperatures have fallen or remained constant were “significantly less certain” in their beliefs, Prokopy said.

Carlton said the tendency of some media to portray climate change as more controversial among scientists than it actually is could decrease people’s certainty in whether climate change is occurring and its potential causes.

“The media probably do this for good reasons: They want to give each side of a story to try to be balanced,” said Carlton, now the healthy coastal ecosystems and social science specialist at Texas Sea Grant. “However, our study shows that there is very little disagreement among climate scientists or other scientists about the existence of climate change or the quality of climate science as a discipline. There are important questions about what we should do about climate change, but those are policy controversies, not science controversies.”

The survey results did not reveal many strikingly different responses by discipline, Prokopy said, though among the fields of study represented, natural resource scientists showed the highest amount of skepticism that global temperatures have risen.

Respondents across disciplines nearly unanimously agreed that climate science is credible, but views on its maturity and trustworthiness compared with their own discipline varied. Physicists and chemists, for example, rated climate science as a highly credible discipline but gave it lower marks in trustworthiness and overall maturity compared with their own fields. Prokopy said this was “not surprising given that physics and chemistry are some of the oldest, most established scientific disciplines.”

While previous studies showed that many prominent climate science skeptics were physicists, Carlton said this survey did not show similar evidence.

“The proportion of physicists and chemists who believed in climate change was right around average.”

The paper was published Sept. 24 in Environmental Research Letters.

The Purdue Climate Change Research Center and the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources provided funding for the research.

 

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Rosemary Gordon is editor of American Vegetable Grower, a Meister Media Worldwide publication. See all author stories here.

Leave a Reply

Avatar for Matt Matt says:
September 28, 2015 at 11:16 am

“Scientists” is a very loose term. The whole “climate change” stuff is just a front to tax and control. That is ALL it is. Our climate is ALWAYS changing. This plant goes through natural cycles of cooling and heating. Some are fast and some are slow. The idea that HUMANs have caused a significant change to the climate is preposterous. A single volcano eruption can do a in a few days what may have taken humans centuries.

I would be MUCH more concerned about pollution and the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons technology that I would be about human caused “climate change.”

What is the end goal? To tax you more. That is the whole endgame of all of this “climate change” nonsense. If they want to do something meaningful, then how about controlling toxic heavy metals that get into the ground water, etc.

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Avatar for Gary Smith Gary Smith says:
September 29, 2015 at 6:25 pm

Matt, It must be hard to be so ignorant of actual science; as you so clearly are. The Department of Defense recently published a 20 page-ish study in which they relied on well-accepted studies to plan for their future. The longer we, as a nation ignore the reality of the issue, the more expensive it will get to deal with it, up to the point where we destabilize the weather over much of the planet. California’s drought may or may not be related to changed climate, but science clearly does indicate that droughts, mega-storms and other weather events like Hurricane Sandy become more and more likely as the climate warms.

For you to claim that humans are not behind the changes in our earth’s climate is what is preposterous. You’re absolutely wrong in every way in your inane comparison of a volcano to human beings dumping 25 Billion Tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. That’ s a lot of carbon, Matt – enough to make a very real difference over the long haul, which is exactly what we’ve been doing.

Do yourself a favor – get to a real source of science – NASA, EPA, DoE or IPCC, if you can really handle scientific reading. What you’ll find when you get there is a lot of people working very hard to find out what actually is going on.

Which is good, because our nation didn’t become great by ignoring challenges – we became great by facing them and beating them. THAT’s where opportunity lies, Matt, as well as future prosperity and security for our kids.

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Avatar for Debby Debby says:
September 30, 2015 at 9:56 am

Matt was RIGHT ON! Some people believe anything that the so-called intellectuals promote with their propagandizing. Don’t you ever wonder how they do all of that counting (i.e. carbon figures????)

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Avatar for gymnosperm gymnosperm says:
October 3, 2015 at 1:23 pm

“science clearly does indicate that droughts, mega-storms and other weather events like Hurricane Sandy become more and more likely as the climate warms.”

Wrong.

https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/hurricane_drought_20141.jpg

https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/percent-of-globe-in-drought.jpg

Science is not a popularity contest. Science is the exercise of beating back the superstitions that spring like demons into the human psyche. Sadly, climate change has become a demon charged issue like Prohibition or the Salem witch trials. Rather than do the years of research necessary to evaluate the issue, far too many “scientists” say, “Ah bullieve.”

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Avatar for keithsrv keithsrv says:
October 3, 2015 at 6:42 pm

Carbon dioxide increase does nothing at this point but provide an atmosphere that will allow plants to grow better with less nutrients. More does not cause warming because it is a logarithmic response to the increase and we passed that never as the level has never been below 100 ppm. Go check for a Dr Martin Hertzberg who is a past meteorologist and a combustion gas scientist, has done consulting work for Navy submarines etc. He is also a liberal in politics and has no skin in the game as far as money to cause him to be ethically compromised. Increased carbon dioxide is actually beneficial and just another buffer in our eco-system to aid plant growth as the population increases. It is mostly good to cut real pollution but not fake ones.

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Avatar for Chris Chris says:
September 30, 2015 at 8:07 am

I’m in total agreement. I consider myself an environmentally conscious individual, but I cannot fathom how “climate change”, “global warming” or whatever they decide to brand it tomorrow is our biggest concern. Seems there is a lot of money being wasted on an issue that we cannot change. Water quality and habitat conservation seem far more pressing and something we are far more likely to control.

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Avatar for R. Militello R. Militello says:
September 30, 2015 at 11:24 am

All the climate change idiots should learn to live in a dark room without heat or air conditioning and ride a bike to work instead of riding in a car and learn to survive by eating grass!

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Avatar for Annie Annie says:
October 1, 2015 at 6:31 am

They asked the wrong question. The NOAA data is clear that the average temperature has increased since pre-1800 levels, although that data probably skews to an increase in heat islands around cities. The question that needs to be asked of scientists is, “do you believe that global warming will be devastating?” It has been warming since the “Little Ice Age” (mid 1800s) and we are all just fine. Do most climate scientists expect substantial warming or just a continuation of what we’ve been having? The fact that they do not ask that question makes one wonder about the politics of it all.

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Avatar for keithsrv keithsrv says:
October 3, 2015 at 6:23 pm

All the NOAA data has been manipulated. They call it an adjustment, but it is always up for current readings and reduced for distant past readings. They go in to a babble about why, but we know it is for political reasons. Climate change is political science not real science. All Marxist forms of doctrines rely on what they refer to as educated idiots to further their agenda. With all the grant welfare money flowing their way (which they all say is inadequate) they sure would never do anything to jeopardize that flow and do much unethical to ensure the continued flow to their specialties if not an increase. Stories like this are just a means to suppress dissension as all the bad publicity about scandals and fudging data are catching up to them and people are catching on to the lies being promulgated.

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Avatar for Matthew Matthew says:
October 1, 2015 at 7:45 am

I’m curious…how much grant money is a climate scientist likely to receive if they don’t stand on the side of anthropogenic climate change? I think people’s inherent reluctance to accept the “data” is because 1) the subject is so geographically large and 2) earth time and human time don’t align. What is an acceptable number of reporting stations across the EARTH? All you need is 30 to be statistically significant, but c’mon. It’s not the data people are skeptical over, it the methodology. What is 200 years to the earth? What are the effect of solar flares to our climate? Many of the climate fear mongering is embedded in silly anecdotes like storms and drought. Hurricane Sandy? That’s a trend? Anyone care to look at hurricane predictions over the last decade? Katrina was just the beginning!! There have been aberrant weather events forever, and they will continue. The issue is so big and filled with so many variables, how can/should one not be skeptical? Not to mention the actual impact we can have today is a false narrative. If you tell someone who is 30 years old they will lose a year of their life if they don’t stop smoking marijuana, what’s the likelihood they’ll quit? What’s not up for debate is the acute negative impacts mankind can have on the environment and each other. So how about we focus on that on not whether someone’s position on environmental policy lies with directly with their stance on man-made climate change.

Gary, you sure are an angry elf. Not to mention still hanging on to the “great nation” thing. Still one of the best places to live to be sure, but greatness left building.

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Avatar for Jeremy Jeremy says:
October 1, 2015 at 10:14 am

Right on Matthew! You nailed it, Gary I think you can emerse yourself in all the data we have and still not have enough “proof” to justify more piling of debt on top of our future generations. I am a huge advocate for a clean sustainable environment but shutting down industries (clean coal by EPA) without significant alternatives is ridiculous. “Climate change” is certain and it belongs a few spots down on our “to do” list.

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Avatar for Wayne Western Wayne Western says:
October 1, 2015 at 10:07 am

SO in fact the American people are actually tired of hearing and paying for this crap. And now we need polls to try to convince people? Stories like this make the “science” world sound desperate and appear to be holding on to whatever they can before their last thread of credibility disappears. No one cares about what anyone believes when it comes to temperatures. Temperatures are numbers. They do not lie. Belief means nothing, but numbers do. Tell people the truth which is Climate Change is merely an agenda, ideology, or religion. No matter what you would like to call it, it is being forced on the backs of American people by the Democratic Party and liberals around the globe.

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Avatar for Bill Bill says:
October 1, 2015 at 11:28 am

When did consensus become a factor in science. I thought it was about facts and provable results. I grow blueberries and i cannot label them with a statement that consuming them will improve your vision or reduce your body fat. Blueberries are suspected in helping with both of these issues but since there is no factual evidence to prove them I cannot label them as such. Regarding climate change we all know it changes, that is indisputable, otherwise we would still be experiencing the first ice age. Its the man made part that is ridiculous. Only a generation of self important nit wits could come up with such a ridiculous idea. For those who buy in to this nonsense I need a favor. As a blueberry grower in Florida how I manage my farm can vary greatly during the fall and winter due to how cold or mild our fall and winter is. Knowing that computer models are far more accurate in the near future then the distant can someone tell me what is going to happen this winter in Florida? Numerous below freezing nights? No nights below 40? This makes a big difference. Also when will the current El Nino break. February, March, April, May? It makes a big difference in the Forida blueberry deal.

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Avatar for walker walker says:
October 4, 2015 at 3:10 pm

As a family farmer for 36 years we are constantly assessing our growing/production and marketing environment to enable better decisions to provide for our future success and happiness of our family and community. Change is constant. It is plain that we are experiencing greater frequency of extremes in environment…heat, cold, drought, sustained and/or more violent storms in just the pass 36 years. We wish that the Land Grant system and the USDA in the US would acknowledge climate change and work in three areas…Help us change our cultural systems to adapt to climate change; two, address the issue of ag’s contribution to global warming gasses, now above 30% globally; and three, help us to develop systems that relatively permanently sequester more carbon than we use in production and marketing… Government funding at the federal, state and local levels are disastrously to low. Corporate industry can not do this—they are by law required to maximize the bottom line…not save the world. Agriculture can help reverse the climate crisis …We can do this! But we need help

How? 1. Policies that either directly or indirectly pay for documented sequestration of Carbon in all cropping/animal production systems. 2. Policies that support perennializing of all our crops especially “commodity crops.” and 3. Polices that enable adaptation either directly or indirectly to climate change for the next 100 or so years or until the Climate Crisis has been averted. Obviously this is over simplified answer but it is an objective to work towards.

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Avatar for Chemie Babe Chemie Babe says:
October 5, 2015 at 2:45 pm

Climate Crisis! Back in the 1970’s I was in college and the big topic was the earth was rapidly cooling. Maybe even headed for an ice age. I remember watching a film about what a disaster it was going to be, 10 feet of snow in coastal California! It showed a very grim future. I really wish I could remember the name of that short film, it was shown in a political science class and I was really worried about what kind of life I would have. My father was a geologist and I told him what I had learned. His response was that the climate and weather were not static. Through out the history of the earth there had been changes, some so drastic that there had been big die offs of plants and animals all long before man ever walked the earth. I am pretty sure even back in the 1970’s “Global Cooling” was being blamed on human activity. He further suggested I change my major from political science to real science of some kind and stop listening to the “commie, pinko” college professors. I took his advise and switched to biology and later agricultural science. I also don’t listen to socialists, progressives, regular news channels, or any other purveyors of junk science.

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Avatar for Sam Updike Sr. Sam Updike Sr. says:
October 6, 2015 at 12:57 pm

What I see as wrong is that we are disparaging the credentials of those scientists who “doubt” that which is politically correct to believe. Our human tendency to do this dates all the way back to the dawn of the age of reason, e.g., the excommunication of Galileo, for the “heresy” of proposing that world is not flat. I would further posit the notion that anyone, who does NOT doubt the popular theory of anthropogenic global climate change, cannot truly claim to be a scientist! Indeed, the entire scientific method is centered around the concept of doubt. It is, therefore, a shame on us, if in fact, those scientists who attempt to prove the correctness of the popularly accepted theory of global climate change receive grants, while the doubters go begging. The true scientists are those who are carrying the true burden of scientific inquiry, that is, those scientists who strive to DISPROVE the theory, or at least to modify the theory to bring it in line with observed phenomena. To paraphrase the Geico ad, “If you are a scientist, you doubt. That’s what you do”
In addition, much work needs to be done in the arena of predicting what the consequences to the human race might be, as a result of climate change, assuming it is real, and we know which direction it is heading, as to warmer vs. cooler, wetter vs. drier, etc.. Before we go enacting enforceable draconian measures, which have the potential to deny the gift of life, especially to poor people, (and there will be a lot more of them, if we deny the use of fossil fuels, which are cheap compared to any know alternatives) we need to be absolutely sure that such measures are necessary to save the planet. From what? Warmer? Cooler? Hearing the discussion, It appears the answer depends on whom one asks! Lots more study is needed, and not just by those fake scientists who have already decided the theory is correct.

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