The Amount of scientists on either side of the global warming debate?

Question

I'm wondering how many actual scientists (not people who just say they are) support each side of the debate. My search to actually discover this has been hampered severely by many inaccurate numbers that seem to consist of anyone who has heard of science putting their names to paper in support of either side. Any accurate estimations that can be supported would be very beneficial. Thank you.

Answer 1

In 1610, Galileo said that the earth revolved around the sun (Copernican theory of the universe)

EVERY OTHER scientist on earth disagreed with him!

There was a consensus of scientists who said that he was wrong. (Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories)

Why do you imagine the number of scientists who agree with the theories of global warming matters?

Answer 2

This topic is not even debated in the scientific community.  There are a few scientists that aren't convinced that global warming is caused by humans, and almost none that don't believe it at all.  Any debates within the scientific community are about the actually contribution of humans and natural causes (both are responsible) or the actual consequences (we know there will be consequences, we just don't know exactly what they are).

Answer 3

Almost all climate scientists who are actively doing research (the experts) agree that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.  See the 'Consensus' section in the link below for proof.

You'll get people saying 'oh well 31,000 people signed this petition saying man-made global warming is wrong', but those kinds of lists always make up less than 1% of the available population.  See 'Lists of Skeptical Scientists' in the same link below.

Answer 4

Why, one might wonder, is there such insistence on scientific unanimity on the warming issue? After all, unanimity in science is virtually nonexistent on far less complex matters. Unanimity on an issue as uncertain as "global warming'' would be surprising and suspicious. Moreover, why are the opinions of scientists sought regardless of their field of expertise? Biologists and physicians are rarely asked to endorse some theory in high energy physics. Apparently, when one comes to "global warming,'' any scientist's agreement will do.

Answer 5

Sure:

The "debate" does not exist. Man-made global warming has been shown to exist--and that is the end of it. In science, once a hypothesis is shown to be correct, there is no further debate--it's not like a political issue.

therefore:

% scientists who think man-made global warming is real : 100%

% who don't : 0%

Any supposed skeptic is not a scinntist. I fthey claim to be, they are frauds.

Answer 6

In terms of actual scientists: You'll be hard pressed to find any that think there even is a debate (since it's already been pretty much settled in the scientific literature and all natural causes have been ruled out).

There is also a distinct lack of peer reviewed articles claiming that it's not happening or that it's natural.

Answer 7

"since it's already been pretty much settled in the scientific literature and all natural causes have been ruled out"

Bestonnet, you really should stop making things up.

All natural causes have not been ruled out.

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Edit:

Bob wrote

"Maybe 95-99% support the mainstream view."

Any reference? Any poll, any survey? Anything?

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Edit2:

I think crabby was sent here to make the proponents look bad.

Answer 8

Maybe 95-99% support the mainstream view.

EVERY major scientific organization in the US has issued an official statement that global warming is real, and mostly caused by us.  They wouldn't do that unless a large majority of their members agree.  The last holdout was the American Institute of Petroleum Engineers.  They withdrew a position that said it was unproven because their members were resigning in large numbers in protest.  The following wikipedia article is not opinion, it's easily checkable facts.  I use that cite because it gathers a lot of facts in one place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_...

A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers found about 900 that either supported the mainstream, or were neutral.  None opposed it.  That's changed a little recently, but not significantly.  It's still more than 100:1.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

The example of Galileo above is a good one.  Once Galileo brought the data (the phases of Venus) in, the scientific community overwhelmingly supported him.  It was ignorant "skeptics" who opposed Galileo, not scientists.  The same is true of global warming today.  The data is in, and scientists overwhelmingly support it.

The bottom line:

"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the AGU or EGU meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists (not the famous ones, the ones at your local university or federal lab). I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts at the Fall meeting (the biggest conference in the US on this topic) that support your view - you won’t be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can’t credibly argue it doesn’t exist."

Gavin Schmidt, NASA