The Bray and von Storch 5th International Survey of Climate Scientists consists of over a hundred statements related to climate change and its effects. For each statement, respondents indicated their level of agreement or opinion via a seven-point scale. Around a third of the 651 respondents were involved (as author, reviewer, etc.) with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (2014 IPCC AR5).
Without further ado, here are a few of the responses:
Climate models accurately simulate the climatic conditions for which they are calibrated. Strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7):
How would you rate the ability of global climate models to simulate a global mean value for temperature values for the next 50 years? Very poor (1) to very good (7):
Extreme weather events are a major consequence of climate change. Agree not at all (1) to agree very much (7):
Although some climate change skeptics find validation in these numbers, the survey authors insist their intentions are scientific and not partisan. As they say in a recent blog:
We, Hans von Storch and myself, would like to clarify that, in undertaking the surveys, we attempt to produce results that are as objective as possible. It is not our intention to provide fodder for this camp or that camp, we are not acting as partisans of any particular persuasion and we do not particularly appreciate being stuck with a label assigned by some third party imagination.
John Cook, responsible more than anyone for the myth of the 97% scientific consensus, wrote that an "accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support for climate policy". But simply knowing there is a consensus that anthropogenic climate change is happening provides little policy guidance. The main purpose of policy is to minimize or neutralize the harmful effects of climate change - and, as the Bray and von Storch survey amply shows, there is little consensus on what those effects might be. Resolving the areas of scientific uncertainty and disagreement can only lead to better policy prescriptions.
Reference:
Cook J, Nuccitelli D, Green S A, Richardson M, Winkler B, Painting R, Way R, Jacobs P and Skuce A 2013 Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024