Is the climate consensus 97%, 99.9%, or is plate tectonics a hoax? | Dana Nuccitelli

A new study argues the 97% climate consensus estimate is too low, while deniers claim it's too high

Four years ago, my colleagues and I published a paper finding a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature on human-caused global warming. Since then, it's been the subject of constant myths, misinformation, and denial. In fact, last year we teamed up with the authors of six other consensus papers, showing that with a variety of different approaches, we all found the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is 90-100%.

Most of the critiques of our paper claim the consensus is somehow below 97%. For example, in a recent congressional hearing, Lamar Smith (R-TX) claimed we had gone wrong by only considering "a small sample of a small sample" of climate studies, and when estimated his preferred way, it's less than 1%. But in a paper published last year, James Powell argued that the expert consensus actually higher - well over 99%.