Human-caused climate change--Now even realer

John Cook from the University of Queensland and his colleagues have now put to rest the idea that there’s no consensus on global warming. Global warming is real, and it’s caused by humans. So say over 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies.

The researchers pored through nearly 12,000 published papers on climate science and separated them into ones that explicitly endorse anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, those that explicitly reject that premise, and those that offer no position on the matter. Of the papers that expressed any judgment at all on global warming, 97.1% clearly stated that humans were the cause. When the authors of the papers were asked to rate their own positions on global warming, that number increased slightly to 97.2%.

For perspective, Greg Laden points out that, among scientists, there's as much credence paid to the notion that humans are not causing global warming as there is to the existence of Big Foot.

The scientific community has spoken. Global warming is real and we caused it. It’s up to us to fix it if we can.  

Cook discusses his results below.

Still not convinced? By all means, check the results for yourself. Study author Dana Nuccitelli suggests you visit Skeptical Science's Consensus Project where you can sign up to review abstracts and make up your own mind. 

Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Way, R., Jacobs, P., & Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature Environmental Research Letters, 8 (2) DOI: 10.1088/1748–9326/8/2/024024.