The Skeptical Science team has a paper coming out within a few weeks in the high-impact journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL) (many thanks to all who donated money to help make the paper freely available to the public). In our paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, we analysed over 12,000 papers listed in the 'Web Of Science' between 1991 to 2011 matching the topic 'global warming' or 'global climate change'.
Reading so many papers was an eye-opening experience as it hit home just how diverse and rich the research into climate change is. So before the paper comes out, we're inviting readers to in a small way repeat the experience we went through. Not just Skeptical Science readers - I'm emailing an invitation to 58 50 of the most highly trafficked climate blogs (half of them skeptic), asking them to post a link to the survey. In this way we hope to obtain ratings from a diverse range of participants.
You're invited to rate the abstracts of the climate papers with the purpose of estimating the level of consensus regarding the proposition that humans are causing global warming. The survey involves reading and rating 10 random abstracts and is expected to take around 15 minutes. You have the option of signing up to receive the final results of the survey and be notified when our ERL paper on consensus is published.
No other personal information is required (and email is optional). You can elect to discontinue the survey at any point, and results are only recorded if the survey is completed. Participant ratings are confidential and all data will be de-individuated in the final results, so no individual ratings will be published.
The analysis is being conducted by the University of Queensland in collaboration with Skeptical Science. I'm heading the research project as the research fellow in climate communication for the Global Change Institute.
Click here to participate in the survey.
Posted by John Cook on Wednesday, 1 May, 2013
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