structural:summarization, information:highlighting
2015–2019

The 5th International Survey of Climate Scientists by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch took place over December 2015 and January 2016. Unlike the past surveys, the scientists were no longer questioned on their opinion of the IPCC, and there was much more focus on extreme event attribution. In other ways, it had replicated the methodology of the previous surveys, with most responses ranked on a 1-to-7 scale. There were over 600 complete responses: 291 (45.2%) had been working in climate science for over 15 years, while 79 (12.3%) had 0 to 5 years of experience. When asked "How convinced are you that climate change, whether natural or anthropogenic, is occurring now?", 79.3% said they very much agreed (7), 1.2% were "neutral" (4), and only 2.1% were 1–3 on the scale. To the question "How convinced are you that most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes?", 47.7% had very much agreed, 26% agreeing to a large extent (6), 9.8% to a small extent (2–4), and 1.9% did not agree at all (1). 46% had very much agreed that climate change "poses a very serious and dangerous threat to humanity" and 26% agreed to a large extent, while 2.2% did not agree at all. 75.8% said that the level of uncertainty in climate science had decreased since 1996, while 13.6% said it had increased. 75.7% said that the level of risk associated with climate change had increased considerably since 1996, while 5% said it had decreased.