Evidence of Human-Caused Climate Crisis Has Now Reached ‘Gold Standard’-Level Certainty, Scientists Say
“There’s a one-in-a-million chance humans are NOT warming the planet.
A new report offers “gold standard”-level certainty that humans are contributing to the climate crisis, leading to rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and extreme weather events. (Photo: Christopher Michel/Flickr/cc)
Most Americans now recognize the scientific community’s consensus that human activity is fueling the climate crisis, according to polls—but for those who are still unconvinced of the conclusion reached by 97 percent of climate scientists, a new study makes an even more definite assertion.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California found that the information available can now be classified as “five-sigma”—a standard in the scientific community meaning that there is a one-in-a-million chance that the same data would be observable if humans were not causing the planet to grow warmer through activities like fossil fuel extraction. The classification represents a “gold standard” level of certainty.
There’s a one-in-a-million chance humans are NOT warming the planet.#climate#climatechange https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1QE1ZU?__twitter_impression=true …
“The narrative out there that scientists don’t know the cause of climate change is wrong,” Benjamin Santer, who led the study, told Reuters. “We do.”
Scientists applied the same “five-sigma” measure to research confirming the existence of the Higgs boson subatomic particle in 2012, a finding that was received with applause from the science community and the press.
The report, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, builds on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2013, which found that it was “extremely likely” that humans were causing the climate crisis—with a 95 percent chance.
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