Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated
by Frank Newport, Gallup News
PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup’s annual update on Americans’ attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years has become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence. In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.
These results are based on the annual Gallup Social Series Environment poll, conducted March 4-7 of this year. The survey results show that the reversal in Americans’ concerns about global warming that began last year has continued in 2010 — in some cases reverting to the levels recorded when Gallup began tracking global warming measures more than a decade ago.
For example, the percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question. In 1997, 31% said global warming’s effects had been exaggerated; last year, 41% said the same, and this year the number is 48%.
…
Americans Divided on Causes of Global Warming
In a sharp turnaround from what Gallup found as recently as three years ago, Americans are now almost evenly split in their views of the cause of increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century.
In 2003, 61% of Americans said such increases were due to human activities — in line with advocates of the global warming issue — while 33% said they were due to natural changes in the environment. Now, a significantly diminished 50% say temperature increases are due to human activities, and 46% say they are not.
Americans Less Sure About Scientists’ Beliefs
Since last fall, there have been widespread news accounts of allegations of errors in scientific reports on global warming and alleged attempts by some scientists to doctor the global warming record.
These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming. Roughly half of Americans now say that “most scientists believe that global warming is occurring,” down from 65% in recent years. The dominant opposing thesis, held by 36% of Americans, is that scientists are unsure about global warming. An additional 10% say most scientists believe global warming is not occurring.
The percentage of Americans who think most scientists believe global warming is occurring has dropped 13 points from two years ago, and is the lowest since the first time Gallup asked this question back in 1997.
Implications
The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans’ attitudes about global warming. Most Gallup measures up to 2008 had shown increasing concern over global warming on the part of the average American, in line with what one might have expected given the high level of publicity on the topic. Former Vice President Al Gore had been particularly prominent in this regard, with the publication of his bestselling book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” an Academy Award-winning documentary movie focusing on his global warming awareness campaign, and Gore’s receipt of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
But the public opinion tide turned in 2009, when several Gallup measures showed a slight retreat in public concern about global warming. This year, the downturn is even more pronounced.
Some of the shifts in Americans’ views may reflect real-world events, including the publicity surrounding allegations of scientific fraud relating to global warming evidence, and — perhaps in some parts of the country — a reflection of the record-breaking snow and cold temperatures of this past winter. Additionally, evidence from last year showed that the issue of global warming was becoming heavily partisan in nature, and it may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect. A forthcoming analysis here at Gallup.com will examine shifts in global warming attitudes in recent years among various demographic and political groups.
…
Read the entire poll results at Gallup News
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Vincent (08:25:19) :
I never said that investigating natural feedbacks is not science, I said that treating the output from a climate model projection the same as if it was observed data, is not science.
Agreed.
In fact, they don’t investigate natural feedbacks at all. They actually select only the feedbacks that conform to their predetermined ideas and ignore any countervailling feedbacks.
Can you give me an example? I don’t see how ‘they’ can be ignoring feedbacks – after all, understanding feedbacks helps us to understand palaeoclimate (e.g. how the Earth responds to Milankovitch cycles) as well as 20th/21st Century climate – volcanic eruptions, ENSO, solar cycle etc. Isn’t an understanding of feedbacks essential to understanding the large changes in climate from ice age to interglacial to ‘hothouse’ world from relatively small changes in solar forcing?
“The only energy the Earth receives is radiation from the sun. The only energy it loses is radiation to space. If the one exceeds the other, the Earth will warm up. Agreed?”
Agreed, but so what? I never refuted that greenhouse gases don’t lead to a rise in temperature. It is the feedbacks that are important. If feedbacks are positive, temperatures will reach a higher level; if feedbacks are negative, temperature rises will be less than the 1.2c predicted for a doubling of CO2 without feedbacks
Yes, you’re quite right. How do you explain palaeoclimate without positive feedbacks? For example, would you accept that the last glacial period saw around 5ºC of global temperature change from ~7W/m² of forcing? If so, that means a climate sensitivity of ~0.75°C/W/m², i.e. ~3°C from the ~4W/m² forcing you would get from a doubling of CO2.
Confusion has its rewards. But Americans should remain concerned. AGW has now come to the little tweeters in the backyard:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8560000/8560694.stm
Roger Knights (12:22:27) :
…the “simple physics” model overlooks or underplays the effect of the earth’s built-in thermostat.
Here’s a WUWT article decrying simple physics thinking:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/27/the-unbearable-complexity-of-climate-2/
The trouble with your cited article is that it says things like this:
“The IPCC says that if CO2 doubles, we will get a rise of around 3C in the global temperature. However, there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim, only computer models.”
Estimates of climate sensitivity are calculated from our knowledge of atmospheric physics and can be tested against what we know about palaeoclimate and also the climate of recent decades, so to say that there is “absolutely no evidence” would be completely wrong. With a very low climate sensitivity it would be impossible to explain the large swings in global temperature from the relatively small changes in forcings represented by Milankovitch cycles.
Dirk H. said:
“DirkH (16:59:55) :
“R. Gates (11:17:00) :
[…]
We’ve not had a positive anomaly in arctic sea ice since 2004…and this is constitutes as trend.”
Really?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
________
Yes, really Dirk. Please read more carefully…note, I said “arctic sea ice”, yet you gave me a global sea ice chart. We all know, and have acknowledged that the antarctic sea ice has show a slight uptrend (though not as strong a slope in the uptrend as the arctic has had a downtrend). And we might just be beginning to see a slight downtrend in the global sea ice actually developing as the antarctic has had recent negative anomalies, though the arctic has had none since 2004. If AGW models are correct (though that take into account the effects of the thinning ozone layer over the antarctic), then in the next few decades, or perhpas even sooner, we will begin to see a leveling and then downtrend in antarctic sea ice as well.
I was actually thinking that because of the recent deep solar minimum that we might actually see a positive anomaly in the arctic sea ice this spring, and certainly we still could, but the odds grow less each passing day in March, and by mid-April, the arctic will be really heading back down toward the summer minimum for arctic sea ice, and the chance of a positive anomaly decreases. The fact that we’ve not seen a positive anomaly in arctic sea ice, even with the deep solar minimum, show the power of GH gases over solar cycles, and this is a central part of the AGW hypothesis.
R. Gates (15:58:45),
The ultimate sea ice cherry-picking is to concentrate exclusively on the Arctic. Global ice extent is all that matters when discussing the anthropogenic global warming conjecture.
Smokey said:
“Global ice extent is all that matters when discussing the anthropogenic global warming conjecture…”
In a few years time, remember you said this, though I’m sure you won’t. In the meantime, you’re simply wrong. Arctic sea ice is the ideal candidate (or canary in the coal mine) when trying to get a signal that something is changing with the climate. It is part of the region of the planet that has long been identified as being of the earliest to show the longer term effects of AGW.
Now the fact that the antarctic sea ice has not declined in the same way as the arctic, and in fact has been slightly increasing, poses problems for AGW models, but the existence of the ozone hole over antarctica offers one reasonable (except to AGW skeptics) explanation. Be that as it may, the only reason that Global Sea ice has not shown a signifcant decline is that to some extent, the growth in the antarctic has balanced the loss in the arctic, though the upward slope of antarctic sea ice is not as steep as the downward slope of sea ice loss in the arctic.
If AGW models are correct, in the next few decades (at the most) we’ll start seeing a decline in the Antarctic sea ice as well, and then your global sea ice will decline as well…as it is already very very close already since arctic sea ice is declining faster than antarctic is growing, so the balance begins to tip toward a net global decline.
Yes, I know the AGW skeptics love to claim that arctic sea ice loss is cherry picking, but it was predicted by AGW models years before it actually began to show up, and it was also predicted to be one of the first signals…and low and behold…here it is…
Watch John Christy demolish the shifty, tap-dancing Gavin Schmidt regarding the alarmist cherry-picking of the Arctic:
Phil Jones voluntarily “stepped down” after the “media firestorm”??
Ri-i-i-i-i-ght.
What brought about the media firestorm was the shocking exposé of the rampant corruption within the CRU and its sister organizations.
The truth is that Jones was forced to step down. Anyone who says Jones voluntarily gave up his job is either mendacious or an ignoramus. And I’m not accusing Gavin Schmidt of being ignorant.
I’m sure you’re not arguing that plants are going to decide to photosynthesise faster in order to save us from global warming.
I was talking to a plant just the other day and asked it to decide if deficit spending could have a long term positive effect on the economy. The plant flat out refused to decide.
Plants decide nothing. They respond to the environment. More CO2 + warmer temps = faster growth. So yes. If plants have any “say” in the matter they will save us from global warming.
son of mulder (23:48:15) :
Bill that’s true for birds that survive the nest but it’s the smaller ones that lose that initial battle when it gets colder as they can’t compete effectively with their larger siblings for the rationed food in the nest, so they never get to the stage of the lifecycle that you describe.
Okay, now I’m tracking. In my neck of the woods (literally), most birds don’t establish families until there *is* a decent food supply — of course, there are always exceptions, such as the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks mourning doves, but they’ll make up for losing an early brood by breeding and nesting a second time, after the warm weather is firmly established — I’ve seen that happen twice, due to fluke ice storms in late April.
Larger siblings don’t always get all the food — the *assertive* ones do, every time. And, in the absence of a steady supply of food, only the assertive ones, who are usually the first to hatch (big surprise, right?) survive.
Icarus,
“Can you give me an example? I don’t see how ‘they’ can be ignoring feedbacks.”
Sure. Feedback due to increasing albedo from cloud genesis is not included in climate models and neither is the decreasing albedo due to black carbon soot. Solar activity is only considered in terms of total TSI whilst ignoring indirect mechansims such as the effect on the ozone and on cosmic rays that could effect cloud seeding mechanisms. Obviously, these areas are poorly understood, but that is irrelevant to my point.
“Yes, you’re quite right. How do you explain palaeoclimate without positive feedbacks? For example, would you accept that the last glacial period saw around 5ºC of global temperature change from ~7W/m² of forcing? If so, that means a climate sensitivity of ~0.75°C/W/m², i.e. ~3°C from the ~4W/m² forcing you would get from a doubling of CO2.”
An ice age would require a negative feedback right? I presume your point is that climate changes result from CO2. In that case how do you account for the late Ordovician glaciation that occured during rising CO2 levels ( about 15 times higher than today)?
R. Gates,
“Be that as it may, the only reason that Global Sea ice has not shown a signifcant decline is that to some extent, the growth in the antarctic has balanced the loss in the arctic, though the upward slope of antarctic sea ice is not as steep as the downward slope of sea ice loss in the arctic.”
Don’t forget that the antarctic sea ice measurement does not include snow accumulation on the antarctic continent. On balance, this nets out to a global increase of water in the solid state.
R. Gates (17:59:38) :
Arctic sea ice is the ideal candidate (or canary in the coal mine) when trying to get a signal that something is changing with the climate.
Except during those times when the ice accumulation is affected by factors other than warming — say, the collapse of an obstacle which had previously allowed ice to accumulate in the Arctic Ocean by preventing the wind from moving the ice out into the Atlantic.
Vincent (12:20:35) :
…Feedback due to increasing albedo from cloud genesis is not included in climate models and neither is the decreasing albedo due to black carbon soot. Solar activity is only considered in terms of total TSI whilst ignoring indirect mechansims such as the effect on the ozone and on cosmic rays that could effect cloud seeding mechanisms. Obviously, these areas are poorly understood, but that is irrelevant to my point.
You’re certainly right that those are valid feedbacks and that the effects of clouds are less well understood than other factors, but I don’t see you supporting your argument that “they don’t investigate natural feedbacks at all. They actually select only the feedbacks that conform to their predetermined ideas and ignore any countervailling feedbacks“. Do you actually have any evidence to back up that assertion? My impression is that in fact climate scientists do try to include all relevant factors – what would be the point of not doing so? They would surely just get results which weren’t consistent with reality. The fact that the planet is warming up as climate scientists have predicted for many years seems to me to give us some confidence in the science.
An ice age would require a negative feedback right?
No. Negative feedbacks act to suppress change, such as your example of cloud cover. Suppose the world warmed up from an enhanced greenhouse effect but as a consequence cloud cover changed in such a way as to raise albedo and thus return the planet to radiative equilibrium *before* it would have otherwise have done so – that would be a negative feedback. If the world cooled but cloud cover changed in such a way as to decrease albedo, that would also be a negative feedback – cooling would be less than it would be otherwise. In both cases the feedback would act to limit change rather than amplify it.
To get an ice age you need *positive* feedback – i.e. the small changes in forcings due to orbital cycles are *amplified* by changes in ice cover, vegetation, greenhouse gases etc. and cause a greater drop in global temperature than the forcing alone would cause.
I presume your point is that climate changes result from CO2. In that case how do you account for the late Ordovician glaciation that occured during rising CO2 levels ( about 15 times higher than today)?
We have discussed this before. The Ordovician was mostly a warm world. 450 million years ago the Earth was a different place – the continents were in different places (largely in the southern hemisphere) and the sun was about 2% cooler, so you wouldn’t expect any particular level of CO2 to result in the same climate as it would today. In particular, in the late Ordovician most of the dry land on the planet was centred on the South Pole where massive glaciers formed, causing shallow seas to drain and sea levels to drop.
If you want to characterise the effect that forcings are likely to have on the Earth *today*, you need to look at conditions that were not so dramatically dissimilar to what we have today. Figures from the Last Glacial Maximum indicate around 5ºC of temperature change from around 7W/m² of forcing – i.e. around 0.75ºC/W/m². This paper discusses several different ways of estimating current climate sensitivity and concludes that the most likely value is around 3ºC, supporting previous calculations:
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf
I would be interested in your answer to my earlier question – How can you have a very low climate sensitivity due to negative feedbacks, as you seem to be arguing may be the case, whilst at the same time having such large swings in climate from ice age to interglacial to hothouse world as a result of small changes in insolation?