Scientific Opinions on Man-Made Global Warming

A recent survey of 3,146 earth scientists, conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago, indicates that there is overwhelming consensus among those surveyed that in the past 200+ years mean global temperatures have been rising and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

The authors of the survey contacted over 10,200 experts listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Department to take part in the on-line poll, according to the EurekAlert article.

Only those invited could participate and computer IP addresses of participants were recorded and used to prevent repeat voting. Questions used were reviewed by a polling expert who checked for bias in phrasing, such as suggesting an answer by the way a question was worded.

The two questions were...........

1. Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels?
2. Has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90% of the total surveyed agreed with question #1, while 82% agreed with question #2.

For question #2, the authors broke it down by climatologists, petroleum geologists and meteorologists.........

97% of the climatologists agreed that human activity has been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures, while that figure was only 64% for meteorologists and 47% for the petroleum geologists.

The author, Peter Doran made an interesting quote about the meteorologists, which I, as a 20-year meteorologist, personally think is pretty much on target....."Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon."

Doran also made a point about the climatologists....."They're the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it."

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Even though the survey from above may be quite revealing, we also remember the latest 2008 U.S. Senate Minority report, which indicated that more than 650 international scientists now dissent over man-made global warming claims.

The updated report now found a total of 650 dissenting scientists and former UN IPCC scientists from around the globe that challenged man-made global warming claims by the IPCC and Al Gore.

I looked through the updated report, which shows the newest batch of man-made global warming dissenters and skeptics and found a variety of chemists, economists, biologists, geologists, physicists and meteorologists, including our own Mark Paquette (Page 61), from AccuWeather.com, who is a frequent contributer to this blog on the weekends. I was not aware he was on the list and I doubt he knew about it either, but I will let him know.

On a final note........

Congratulations and best of luck to the new Obama Administration!