I am highly confident that anthropogenic warming is occurring, with some concern that institutional pressures will tend to exaggerate the amplitude of warming predictions. As an aspiring geologist (master's level, for now), I'm unusually well-informed on the issue; I have spent considerable time discussing climate changes with geoscientists of various specialties (in particular, chemical oceanography, isotopic geochemistry, paleobotany, regional weather forecasting, and geobiology), and I have the education to read the primary literature comfortably. Working in the same labs as the experts has been especially helpful, since they have universally been happy to discuss complexities and uncertainties as I encounter them in my own studies. It's worth pointing out that my own work is not directly related to modern climate change, so my own 'insider status' is questionable.
I was less confident when I first entered the sciences than I am now, although I didn't ever qualify as a 'climate skeptic' except insofar as I was a skeptic with thoughts about the climate. The increase in confidence has been ongoing, with many causes- I recall a particularly visceral shift in perspective came when I saw researchers working with the concept of global reservoirs, a framework that clarified some issues for me and satisfied on an analytical level. (i.e. quantified global carbon budgets )
The up-close experience has also given me a good view of the structural distortions caused by scientific praxis generally and the enormous quantity of global warming funding in particular. The challenge in publishing negative results is well known; in the case of climate modeling, this tends to create a situation where researchers are constantly discovering that 'climate change may be even worse than we thought!!!!' and we never seem to hear 'actually, increased evapotranspiration may promote cloud cover and increase Earth's albedo, as a negative feedback loop to warming trends'. It's less clear to me that the extraordinary funding incentives are silencing doubtful researchers or skewing results towards a particular conclusion; the primary effect I've seen in the acadame has been some strained explanations about why the circulation patterns of epicontinental seas in the Pennsylvanian era are going to teach us about anthropogenic climate change. It's rather ironic that my concerns about the amplitude of IPCC predictions have more to do with broad scientific habits than with the politicization of the field.
If any of the climate researchers I worked with had reservations about the consensus in their field, they didn't say so publicly, or provide any hints I could detect.
[This is a first post, so I apologize for any formatting errors or breaches of protocol.]
Note: Please see this post of mine for more on the project, my sources, and potential sources for bias.
I have written a couple of blog posts on my understanding of climate forecasting, climate change, and the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis (here and here). I also laid down the sources I was using to inform myself here.
I think one question that a number of readers may have had is: given my lack of knowledge (and unwillingness to undertake extensive study) of the subject, why am I investigating it at all, rather than relying on the expert consensus, as documented by the IPCC that, even if we're not sure is correct, is still the best bet humanity has for getting things right? I intend to elaborate on the reasons for taking a closer look at the matter, while still refraining from making the study of atmospheric science a full-time goal, in a future post.
Right now, I'm curious to hear how you formed your views on climate change. In particular, I'm interested in answers to questions such as these (not necessarily answers to all of them, or even to only these questions).