Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991-2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstract...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental research letters 2013-06, Vol.8 (2), p.1-7
Main Authors: Cook, John, Nuccitelli, Dana, Green, Sarah A, Richardson, Mark, Winkler, Bärbel, Painting, Rob, Way, Robert, Jacobs, Peter, Skuce, Andrew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
anthropogenic global warming
Climate
Climate change
Endorsements
Evolution
global climate change
Global warming
Greenhouse effect
Human
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Matching
peer-review
Ratings
scientific consensus
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Summary:We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991-2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.
ISSN:1748-9326
1748-9326
DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024