Scientists losing war of words over climate change

Who understands the probabilities of climate change? Certainly not the general public, if psychological tests on volunteers in the US are to be believed.

The public, it seems, thinks climate scientists are less certain about their conclusions than they actually are. The results could explain why the minority views of “climate sceptics” get proportionally more attention from the general public than those of climate scientists.

…David Budescu of the psychology department at Fordham University in New York and colleagues asked 223 volunteers to read sentences from the IPCC reports that used these expressions. For example: “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.”

They then asked participants to estimate on a scale of 0 to 1 the probability conveyed by each sentence.

Participants tended to underestimate the certainty of the sentences. Three quarters of respondents thought “very likely” meant less than 90% certain, and nearly half thought “very likely” meant less than 66% certain.

New Scientist