Working climate scientists are almost unanimous in their view that the earth is slowly warming up and that human activity, particularly the combustion of fossil fuels, is the primary cause. But beneath that surface unanimity, predictions vary about how much the planet will warm in the future because of rising greenhouse gases. Scientists’ best guesses range from mild warming, to which the planet and its people might adapt easily, to temperature increases so extreme that life on earth would be radically altered. To get a better sense of how much uncertainty exists among top experts, and why, a group of researchers from Canada, Britain and the United States conducted in-depth interviews with 14 of the world’s leading climate scientists. They used a formal method called expert elicitation that is designed to explore the factors that are shaping experts’ views on a topic. The results are described in a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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