Absolutely none. Scientists thoughts and the objective truth need not be correlated in any way. There are theories that are true that no scientists has ever thought of yet. There were theories that were "true" between 30 and 50 years before the consensus decided to concur.
Note: I put that "true" in quotes because scientists do not establish truth, they just get closer to explaining it. One hope that they always get closer but moving further away, albeit temporarily, is also an option. For example, Newton thought light was corpuscles, then it changed to waves, then it went back to particles (photons) albeit working sometimes like a wave and now they think that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise.
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Does anyone know the answer to my GISS temperature history question?
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/in...
The percentage of scientists that agree or disagree on a scientific theory is not basis for if the theory is "true". Any scientific theory must stand as the best explanation for the observations being made. There are times that observation methods are not available. Such as Einstein's theory on gravitational lensing. At the time, this theory was not testable. It was not until later that many parts of Einstein's Theory of Relativity could be tested.
The AGWT is well understood as are its core components.
Greenhouse gases trap heat on a planet - demonstrated
CO2 is a greenhouse gas - demonstrated
Human activity has raised the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere - demonstrated
No other scientific theory comes close to out performing the AGWT. None.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is not just from our emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the biggest contributor to AGW, for now. Our reshaping of the lands also contribute.
If the theory is useful to the Cause, it doesn't need any percentage. It will simply be parroted as fact. How much garbage have we heard, from increased termites to increased poison ivy, etc. Obviously science doesn't depend on consensus and polling. That is left to politics.
Scientific theories are not true or false. They are not -guesses-. A scientific theory is a framework scientists come up with to fit all the data, the observations scientists make and the results of experiments. And the theory then suggests new places to look for data, and new experiments to do. Theories are judged by their usefulness. If they point scientists in the right direction to find more data, then they're useful.
In the global warming debate you have scientists pointing out that the earth is growing warmer, and they are able to point to a lot of evidence--temperature readings over the years, ice cores from Antarctica, snow caps melting, glaciers disappearing, etc. etc. On the other side you have a few scientists who work for the big oil companies who simply say 'No it isn't' but who have no real data to back themselves up. There is nothing on earth that EVERYONE agrees to!
Besides, the anti-global-warming side actually has several arguments, and they switch back and forth depending on the evidence presented to them in the debate. The positions are:
1. There is no global warming at all. The whole thing is a delusion! (In some cases: "There is global COOLING!")
2. Okay, there is global warming but it's natural. The earth has grown cooler and hotter all through history. Nothing to be worried about.
3. Okay, it's pretty bad, but it's not humans causing it, it's volcanoes or animal farts or whatever, and there's nothing we can do about it.
4. Okay, it's caused by humans but there's nothing we can do to stop it.
5. Okay, we -could- stop it but it would cause worldwide poverty and disaster.
When you hear a 'scientist' arguing against global warming he'll start with 1, and then when the evidence proves him wrong he'll move on to 2 or 3. But in his next debate he'll start back at 1. Whereas scientists that 'believe in' global warming, their story doesn't change because there is no real evidence to refute it!
"Anthropogenic" is the key word. I'm guessing that 100% of scientists would agree that Natural Climate Change can't be stopped. Differentiating between what is "anthropogenic" and what is "natural" seems to be about 0.87C in 350 years in the minds of arrogant climate scientists.
If no "anthropogenic" CO2 had been added and the Earth had remained at 280ppm for the past 350 years, would the "consensus" be that the ground-based temperature anomalies would show absolutely no warming?
The "UHI (urban heat island) Effect" is just one element that affects ground-based temperature anomalies. I doubt that they could ever agree on how much the UHI Effect has on these temperatures (0.1C, 0.2C, 0.3C, etc...). CO2 is where their focus lies. Factoring in UHI is just another impossible avenue for "climate clowns" to ever figure out.
The real question is : Are humans a "natural" part of the Earth? ... and therefore, anything they add to the climate is also "natural"?
What would that "consensus" be?
Its only 77 Scientist
We all have heard that global warming is real because 97% of scientists believe it's real. What is the minimum number of scientists required to believe an idea that will make that idea true? Does a theory become true when 51% of scientist believe it's true, or does it require 67%?
