Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature
While controls over the Earth’s climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific cons...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2021-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 |
| _version_ | 1797747447002300416 |
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| author | Mark Lynas Benjamin Z Houlton Simon Perry |
| author_facet | Mark Lynas Benjamin Z Houlton Simon Perry |
| author_sort | Mark Lynas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | While controls over the Earth’s climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:51:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3d5c4b684b40401ba0c2f5041db77515 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:51:39Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-3d5c4b684b40401ba0c2f5041db775152023-08-09T15:07:39ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262021-01-01161111400510.1088/1748-9326/ac2966Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literatureMark Lynas0Benjamin Z Houlton1Simon Perry2Visiting Fellow, Cornell University, Global Development, Alliance for Science , B75 Mann Library, Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of AmericaCornell University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Global Development, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of AmericaAlliance for Science , Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of AmericaWhile controls over the Earth’s climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966global warmingclimate changescientific consensus |
| spellingShingle | Mark Lynas Benjamin Z Houlton Simon Perry Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature Environmental Research Letters global warming climate change scientific consensus |
| title | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature |
| title_full | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature |
| title_fullStr | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature |
| title_full_unstemmed | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature |
| title_short | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature |
| title_sort | greater than 99 consensus on human caused climate change in the peer reviewed scientific literature |
| topic | global warming climate change scientific consensus |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 |
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