Over the last 15 years, what event has affected public perception of AGW the most?

Tough call. I think because the public is so in tune with the media, it has to be either AIT or Climategate. Kyoto barely registered with most people (at least Americans). And most people don't take much notice of scientific reports, even those as significant as the IPCC reports.

But millions of people watched AIT, and it raised public awareness on the subject. It also made Al Gore the face of AGW, which is why deniers constantly engage in ad hominem attacks on him. And because of the massive media (mis)covereage of Climategate, millions of people were influenced by that as well.

It's possible to compare the two by looking at some polling numbers. AIT came out in mid-2006, and Climategate happened in late 2009. After AIT's release, the percentage of Americans believing global warming is anthropogenic increased just 3%. After Climategate, it decreased 8%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global...

Of course these weren't the only events during the periods in question influencing the public perception on global warming. For example, if you look at the Gallup data asking Americans when they think the effects of global warming will begin to happen, the percentage saying 'now or within the next few years' dropped more from early 2008 to early 2009 than it did from early 2009 to early 2010. But there was also no significant increase from early 2006 to early 2007.

Based on those poll results, I'm going to have to go with Climategate. Considering that Climategate was a media-manufactured controversy and all the scientists involved have been exonerated, it's a pretty sad indictment of the American public that it appears to have had the largest impact on their perception of AGW. You know how public perception works - guilty until proven innocent, and even after proven innocent, you still carry the perception of guilt. An apparent scandal has more influence on the public opinion than decades worth of scientific research. That's just sad.

*edit @ bz* "An Inconvenient Truth...has been largely reversed by climategate and other revelations."

WTF did Climategate have to do with AIT? Geez deniers are just so crazy, you would think I'd be used to it by now, but the bizarre things they say just never cease to amaze me.

Bob's answer is interesting. It's the lack of things which weren't predicted to happen happening. I guess that means no matter what happened, people like Bob would not be convinced that AGW is correct, because he expects a 3.9°C warming to happen in just a few years, rather than approximately a century as climate scientists actually predict.

Economics and efficiency, is going to have a more profound effect. Though nether is tied to Climate directly.

Edit: Directly that would be "The Inconvenient Truth" or the Media, the average person hasn't a clue what the IPCC or Kyoto, or the Montreal agreements are.

My biggest splash came from the incompleteness of BVOC studies. Arguably droughts play a part but that's not a coherent factor, so if your looking for specifics. Obviously the Supreme ruling that CO2 is a pollutant has the upper hand, if its litigated your screwed.

It was the exposure of UN ambitions for a global governance structure, hidden in the draft texts for a global climate treaty , that was discovered by Willie Soon, and publicized by Christopher Monckton last year, that woke the public up to what was really going on in their name.

The subsequent revelations about large scale scientific advocacy , when seen in this light, were then enough to shatter the blind faith in science and the reluctant trust in politicians to do the right thing.

The rise of Fox news.

People who trust Fox can use it as a misinformation hub and echo-chamber. Anything that disagrees is liberal bias.

A perfect example was when everyone on Fox went on and on about the statement by a scientist that there had been "no statistically significant warming in 15 years", when not one effing commentator spent a second explaining to the audience what the term "statistically significant" means in statistics (which totally changes the meaning of the statement). The term was twisted into oblivion by these Fox "news" liars and enemies of truth. It went from "Statistically significant" to just "no significant warming" then finally right down to just, "there has been no warming in 15 years". Then I watched in amazement as the show "Fox and friends" ran a headline saying, "scientist takes U-turn on global warming", when in fact the scientist in question said flat out in the interview that he agreed with the IPCC report, agreed that most of the warming in the last 50 years was anthropogenic, and the misleading headline was aired despite the actual interview being posted for all to see online.

This was another typical Sherrod moment, where Fox ran with the precise opposite of what was said, literally ridiculing GW science and a man who was directly saying that there is almost a 95% chance that the warming seen in the last 15 years was *not* due to random signal noise, but to anthropogenic causes.

Fox also took every chance it possibly could to consider the snow storms in D.C. as direct evidence of the impossibility of GW, despite that winter being one of the warmest recorded.

I rest my case. Fox news gives the uninformed a reason to stay that way.

Climate-gate proved once and for all that the IPCC was being fed doctored papers, fraudulently authored and peer-reviewed by a small group of climate scientists with a green agenda and an axe to grind. Not objective seekers after truth. This was the tipping point for me after dozens of nagging inconsistencies in the AGW theory had already alerted me to be skeptical of IPCC conclusions.

Combine that with the Himalayan Glacier lie - they are not contracting/melting, the Sea Level Lie - no change this century to the long term trend, the Sea ice lie - melting icebergs don't effect sealevels, the Ice Cap Lie - they are not melting, and the CO2 lie - yes it's a greenhouse gas, but one that gets weaker the more of it there is! The warming effect has always been known by Climate Scientists to be proportional to the Log of the concentration; that is, the warming effect of the first 20ppm is the same as that of the next 400ppm. Why didn't they tell the IPCC and the Public that instead of bleating about completely imaginary "tipping points"????

I repeat "absorption of infrared radiation - is a logarithmic function of concentration. This curve is the familiar Beer's Law." This means if it is getting warmer, and that is now doubtful, it cannot be fixed by reducing CO2.

I think people generally look at the weather. When they have a hot spell they are more likely to believe in AGW and when they have a cold winter they change their mind. It is sad but true. What scares me is that these people vote.

Climategate, I fear. How often have you heard the words "hide the decline" linked to the years between 1999 and 2009, a period after they were written, and applied to measured temperature when they applied to the estimates explicitly and openly *discarded* in favour of measured temperature?

Edit: bubba, the internet is a two-way street. Look at us lot here and now; look at the people on sites like this who actually want to learn, not to rant; look at the real as well as the bullsht links that get posted here.

<<A Professional Scientist, subject to Professional Discipline, would not have been allowed under penalty of Law to make many of the statements that Al Gore made in that movie.>>

Ignoring the usual creepy attacks made on Gore by the Deniers and the "moderate" Non-Deniers, I find it interesting that this guy thinks that a "Professional Scientist" (sic) is restricted by "Law" (sic) in what he can claim.

EDIT

<<I would say it the lack of events.

The lack of 10 feet of sea level rise.

The lack of 3.9 °C temperature rise.

The lack of any global warming forecast being correct.

That is why the public has realized AGW was nothing more than a scam.>>

Those claims were not made in the link you posted. If yiou think they were, then it is due to reading difficulty on your part.

EDIT

Dana <<. It also made Al Gore the face of AGW, which is why deniers constantly engage in ad hominem attacks on him.>>

It doesn't explain why YOU engage in totally unfounded attacks on him, though.

The release of "An Inconvenient Truth" and the decision to allow public school educators to show it as if it were actually documented science. It is a very alarming precedent in my opinion!

A Professional Scientist, subject to Professional Discipline, would not have been allowed under penalty of Law to make many of the statements that Al Gore made in that movie.

EDIT: @ Paul's Alias 2;

You are absolutely prohibited from the Practice of a Profession without being a Professional in that field and therefore registered at your local level or higher, subject to discipline on the factual errors contained in any reporting that you provide, any advice that you give and any false claims provided. I cannot provide even casual advice with respect to my Profession without potentially being civally liable as well as open to Discipline by a Disciplinary Review Board!

It is obvious that you are either not a Registered Professional or have not read your Professional Code of Ethics or Practice!

The local weather. Nobody, neither skeptic nor warmer seems to understand that local weather does not mean overall climate. Have warmer than normal local weather and AGW is in full swing, have cooler than normal weather and AGW is over. You can claim one side partakes in this more than the other, but look around and it is obvious htat the general population on both sides of the fence look at the local weather more than anything else.

I don't think there was one single event, I think it really it depends where on the planet that people lived that got their attention. Though we can't point to a single weather event and declare it was cause by global warming, it’s people’s perception of the cause that gets them thinking. In North America it was to be Hurricane Katrina. In Africa, Asia and Australia it has likely been drought. You will quickly turn you into the most eco conscious protector of the planet when you start sweeping fish out of your living room as your island nation starts sinking below the waves. In Europe it was the heat wave of 2003 that killed over 40000 people. If you want one single event that got global attention I think it has to be Kyoto.

The problem is that unless you are hit with a major weather event every now and then the human memory will forget.