99.97% of Refereed Articles On Climate Say Humans Are Heating Globe

"There are all kinds of documents about human-caused global warming. Authors who believe it is occurring submit evidence that it is. Authors who don’t believe in it offer arguments that it isn’t. So there’s no proof that ANYTHING published is true."

The above lament of a typical reader expresses the difficulty in deciding whom to believe, since even non-expert advocates can often argue convincingly.

The way to resolve this quandary is to identify those who are acknowledged experts, and determine if they are in agreement.

If they are not in agreement, this informs the reader that the evidence is not strong enough in either direction to reach a conclusion.

If however the experts have reached a consensus, then you can accept that decision with high confidence. Likewise, if non-experts such a politicians argue for the side opposite to the experts’ consensus, then you can reject their position with the utmost confidence.

Refereed articles are the “gold standard” for establishing expertise, because the referees themselves are acknowledged experts and will accept for publication only those papers that meet the most rigorous criteria. Carefully note that for science-based articles, those criteria never allow a politically partisan viewpoint. Indeed, it would be considered highly unethical for scientists’ political opinions to influence their research articles in refereed scientific journals.

Because the presence or absence of anthropogenic global warming is an important topic for both climate change scientists and the general public, there have been multiple surveys in the 21st century of experts who have published in refereed scientific journals, and surveys of the refereed publications themselves. Over 95% of the experts have agreed that there is man-made global warming at least since the mid-1980s, and, contrary to the climate change deniers' myth, there was never a time in the last 100 years that climate scientists forecast global cooling [1].

That percentage has increased over the years as more and more information has become available. A 2021 survey found that 99% of climate scientists actively publishing in refereed scientific journals agreed that human activity is causing climate change [2], and a 2021 article assessing refereed journal studies published between 2012-2020 found that 99.97% supported anthropogenic global warming [3].

Because there is no scientific doubt with 99% confidence, anthropogenic global warming is designated “settled science.” And the average voter can conclude with high confidence that human-caused global warming is occurring.

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1. That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. As of 2021, at least 99% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers in refereed journals endorse the consensus position. https://skepticalscience.com/g...

2. Myers, K. F., Doran, P. T., Cook, J., Kotcher, J. E., & Myers, T. A. (2021). Consensus revisited: quantifying scientific agreement on climate change and climate expertise among Earth scientists 10 years later. Environmental Research Letters, 16(10), 104030. https://iopscience.iop.org/art...

3. Lynas, M., Houlton, B. Z., & Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 16(11), 114005. https://iopscience.iop.org/art...