The existence of anthropogenic climate change remains a public controversy despite the consensus among climate scientists. The controversy may be fed by the existence of scientists from other disciplines publicly casting doubt on the validity of climate science. The extent to which non-climate scientists are skeptical of climate science has not been studied via direct survey. Here we report on a survey of biophysical scientists across disciplines at universities in the Big 10 Conference. Most respondents (93.6%) believe that mean temperatures have risen and most (91.9%) believe in an anthropogenic contribution to rising temperatures. Respondents strongly believe that climate science is credible (mean credibility score 6.67/7). Those who disagree about climate change disagree over basic facts (e.g., the effects of CO2 on climate) and have different cultural and political values. These results suggest that scientists who are climate change skeptics are outliers and that the majority of scientists surveyed believe in anthropogenic climate change and that climate science is credible and mature.
Natural Resources Social Science Lab, Department of Forestry & Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA;Natural Resources Social Science Lab, Department of Forestry & Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA;Matthew Huber, Department of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire and the UNH Institute for the Study of the Earth, Oceans, and Space, Morse Hall, University of New Hampshire, 8 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, USA;Natural Resources Social Science Lab, Department of Forestry & Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
Recommended Citation:
J S Carlton,Rebecca Perry-Hill,Matthew Huber,et al. The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists[J]. Environmental Research Letters,2015-01-01,10(9)