Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Climate change: a profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Climate scientists have played a significant role in investigating global climate change. In the USA, a debate has swirled about whether a consensus on climate change exists among reputable scientists and this has entered the policy process. In order to better understand the views of US climate scientists, we conducted an empirical survey of US climate scientists (N = 468) in 2005, and compared the results with the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) physical science report and policy summaries. Our results reveal that survey respondents generally agree about the nature, causes, and consequences of climate change, and are in agreement with IPCC findings. We also found that there is strong support for a variety of policy initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • ABC News, Washington Post, & Stanford Poll (2007) The Environment. http://www.eesi.org/briefings/2007/Energy%20&%20Climate/5–4–07_Climate_polling/GW%202007%20ABC%20News%20Release.pdf

  • Agrawala S (2004) Adaptation, development assistance and planning: challenges and opportunities. IDS Bull 35(Part 3):50–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bell J, Sloan L, Snyder M (2004) Regional changes in extreme climatic events: a future climate scenario. J Climate 17(1):81–87

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bray D, Krück C (2001) Some patterns of interaction between science and policy: Germany and climate change. Clim Res 19:69–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burkey J, Harris T (2006) Impacts of privatization: use of multimodal survey. Soc Sci J 43(4):617–628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaffney J, Marley N (1998) New Directions: uncertainties of aerosol effects in global climate models. Atmos Environ 32(16):2873–2874

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gore-Felton C, Koopman C, Bridges E, Thoresen C, Spiegel D (2002) An example of maximizing survey return rates: methodological issues for health professionals. Eval Health Prof 25(2):152–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffin M (2007) NASA chief questions urgency of global warming. Interview with National Public Radio, 31 May. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10571499

  • IPCC (2007a) Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Summary for policymakers from http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

  • IPCC (2007b) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff S, Wynne B (1998) Science and decisionmaking. In: Rayner S, Malone E (eds) Human choice and climate change. Batelle, Columbus

    Google Scholar 

  • Karl T, Trenberth K (2003) State of the planet—modern global climate change. Science 302(5651):1719–1723

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis M Jr (2007) Al Gore’s science fiction: a skeptic’s guide to an inconvenient truth. Competitive Enterprise Institute Congressional Working Paper. http://www.cei.org/pdf/5820.pdf

  • Lindzen R (2007a) Why so gloomy? Newsweek Int 16 April. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek

  • Lindzen R (2007b) Professor Richard Lindzen debates global warming causes. Interview with Steve Baskerville CBS 2 Chicago, 28 April. http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=31988@wbbm.dayport.com&cid=6

  • Marengo J, Ambrizzi T (2006) Use of regional climate models in impacts assessments and adaptations studies from continental to regional and local scales: the CREAS (Regional Climate Change Scenarios for South America) initiative in South America. In: Proceedings of 8 ICSHMO. INPE, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil

  • Michaels P (ed) (2004) The predictable distortion of global warming by scientists, politicians and the media. Cato Institute, Washington DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Michaels P (ed) (2005) Shattered consensus: The true state of global warming. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD

    Google Scholar 

  • Nakićenović N, Swart R (2000) Special report on emissions scenarios: a special report of working group III of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • National Assessment Synthesis Team (2001) Climate change impacts on the United States: the potential consequences of climate variability and change. Report for the US Global Change Research Program. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council Committee on Abrupt Climate Change (2002) Abrupt climate change: Inevitable surprises. National Academies Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Analysis of Global Change Assessments (2007) Analysis of global change assessments: lessons learned. National Academies Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Oreskes N (2004) Beyond the ivory tower: the scientific consensus on climate change. Science 306(5702):1686

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patz J, Campbell-Lendrum D, Holloway T, Foley J (2005) Impact of regional climate change on human health. Nature 438(7066):310–317

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaefer B, Lieberman B (2007) Discussing global warming in the security council: premature and a distraction from more pressing crises. Heritage Foundation WebMemo #1425, April 16. http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm1425.cfm

  • Schneider S (2004) Abrupt non-linear climate change, irreversibility and surprise. Glob Environ Change 14(3):245–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change (SEG) United Nations Foundation (2007) Confronting climate change avoiding the unmanageable and managing the unavoidable. United Nations Foundation, Washington

  • Slovic P (1999) Trust, emotion, sex, politics, and science: surveying the risk-assessment battlefield. Risk Anal 19(4):689–701

    Google Scholar 

  • Slovic P, Malmfors T, Mertz C, Neil N, Purchase I (1997) Evaluating chemical risks: results of a survey of the British Toxicology Society. Hum Exp Toxicol 16(6):289–304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith B, Smith T, Gray G, Ryan M (2007) When epidemiology meets the internet: web-based surveys in the Millennium Cohort Study. Am J Epidemiol 166(11):1345–1354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder M, Bell J, Sloan L, Duffy P, Govindasamy B (2002) Climate responses to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide for a climatically vulnerable region. Geophys Res Lett 29(11):1514

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stocker T (2004) Climate change: models change their tune. Nature 430(7001):737–738

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stocker T, Marchal O (2000) Abrupt climate change in the computer: is it real? Natl Acad Sci USA 97(4):1362–1365

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The National Academies (2006) Understanding and responding to climate change: highlights of National Academies reports. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, National Research Council

  • UNDP (2004) Adaptation policy frameworks for climate change: developing strategies, policies, and measures. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • UNFCCC (2004) Application of methods and tools for assessing impacts and vulnerability, and developing adaptation responses. Background paper FCCC/SBSTA/2004/INF.13. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Bonn, Germany

  • USCCSP Subcommittee on Global Change Research (2007) Our changing planet. The US Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2007. Climate Change Science Program, Washington DC, pp 22–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams K, Ringer M, Senior C (2003) Evaluating the cloud response to climate change and current climate variability. Clim Dynam 20(7):705–721

    Google Scholar 

  • Yohe G, Tol R (2002) Indicators for social and economic coping capacity-moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environ Chang 12(1):25–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and Environmental Studies Program, State University of New York at Potsdam, Potsdam, NY, USA

    Stacy Rosenberg

  2. Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy, Texas A&M University, 4350 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843-4350, USA

    Arnold Vedlitz

  3. Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History, 3232 Briarcrest Dr., Bryan, TX, 77802, USA

    Deborah F. Cowman

  4. Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Sammy Zahran

Authors
  1. Stacy Rosenberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arnold Vedlitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Deborah F. Cowman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sammy Zahran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arnold Vedlitz.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rosenberg, S., Vedlitz, A., Cowman, D.F. et al. Climate change: a profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives. Climatic Change 101, 311–329 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9709-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9709-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation