Survey of IPCC Climate Experts

DemandDebate.com, November 8, 2007

 

Introduction

 

Many claim that there is a consensus among scientists that manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), are harming global climate. To test the nature of this consensus, we surveyed the U.S. contributors to, and reviewers of the most recent scientific assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

 

Methodology

 

Survey questions (see Appendix) were sent to 345 U.S. contributors and reviewers of the IPCC’s “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Basis.” Respondents were asked to check the box that best represents their view.

 

Results and Discussion

 

Fifty-four responses were included in the final results (see Appendix).

 

The responses to the survey’s first four questions were predictable ─ between 83% to 90% of the respondents favored the view that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are driving or helping to drive global climate to unprecedentedly warmer temperatures and that limiting manmade CO2 emissions would reduce such climate change.

 

But despite the apparent “consensus” on these four questions, the responses to the last two questions expose that consensus as potentially meaningless.

 

Less than 50% of the respondents said that an increase in global temperature of 1-degree Celsius is flatly undesirable. Half of the respondents said that such a temperature increase is desirable, desirable for some but undesirable for others or too difficult to assess.

 

Among survey respondents, then, there’s no consensus on desirability of 1-degree Celsius of global warming ─ twice the level of warming that occurred during the 20th century.

 

When asked about the ideal climate, only 14% said that the ideal climate was cooler than the present climate. Sixty-one percent said that there is no such thing as an ideal climate.

 

But if there’s no agreement on what the target climate should be, what precisely is the point of taking action on global warming? What is the climatic goal at which we are aiming?

 

A couple other notable results include the astounding 20% who said that human activity is the principal driver of climate change. So was there no climate change before mankind? And if there was natural climate change before man, why not now also? Forty-four percent didn’t think that the current global climate was unprecedentedly warm.

 

The survey results indicate that when asked routine questions about the climatic role of manmade CO2, the IPCC scientists surveyed responded for the most part with the Pavlovian manmade-CO2-is-bad view seemingly demanded of them by the IPCC. But when you ask questions that are off the usual script, the supposed consensus seems to readily fall apart.

 

And let’s not forget that many climate experts no longer participate in the IPCC process because they perceive it to be biased. Dr. Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, for example, resigned from the IPCC because, “My colleague and I repeatedly found ourselves at loggerheads with persons who insisted on making authoritative pronouncements, although they had little or no knowledge of our specialty.”

 

There’s also the Petition Project, [Suggested link is http://www.oism.org/pproject/] where 19,000 scientists have signed a petition questioning the scientific basis of climate alarmism.

Appendix: IPCC Survey Questions and Results

 

 

Question #1. Which best describes the reason(s) for climate change?

[   ] Human activity is the principal driver of climate change. 20%
[   ] Human activity drives climate change, but natural variability is also important. 63%
[   ] Natural variability drives climate change, but human activity is also important. 11%
[   ] Natural variability is the principal driver of climate change. 4%
[   ] No opinion. 2%

Question #2. Which best describes the role of manmade CO2 emissions in climate change?

[   ] Manmade CO2 emissions are the principal driver of climate change. 17%
[   ] Manmade CO2 emissions drive climate change, but other natural and human-related      factors are also important. 70%
[   ] Other natural and/or human-related factors drive climate change, but manmade CO2 emissions are important. 6%
[   ] Other natural and/or human-related factors are the principal drivers of climate change. 6%
[   ] No opinion. 2%

Question #3. Which best describes the impact on global climate of controlling manmade CO2 emissions?

[   ] Limiting manmade CO2 emissions would have a strong impact. 72%
[   ] Limiting manmade CO2 emissions would have some impact. 19%
[   ] Limiting manmade CO2 emissions would have no impact. 0%
[   ] It would be impossible to discern the impact. 7%
[   ] No opinion. 2%

Question #4. Current mean global temperature is:

[   ] Unprecedentedly warm and getting warmer. 56%
[   ] Within natural variability but moving to unprecedentedly warmer levels. 31%
[   ] Within natural variability and stable. 4%
[   ] Not a useful metric. 4%
[   ] No opinion. 5%

Question #5. The climatic impacts of a mean global temperature that is 1-degree Celsius warmer than today are:

[   ] Undesirable. 48%
[   ] Desirable. 4%
[   ] Desirable for some and undesirable for others. 39%
[   ] Too difficult to assess. 7%
[   ] No opinion. 2%

Question #6. The ideal global climate is...

[   ] Warmer than the present. 2%
[   ] Cooler than the present. 13%
[   ] Occurring today. 17%
[   ] There is no such thing as an "ideal" global climate. 61%
[   ] No opinion. 7%