Venomous attacks against the scientific community have markedly decreased since the introduction of Labor’s carbon pricing scheme, one of Australia’s leading climate change experts says.

Professor Will Steffen, science adviser to the Department of Climate Change, also told senators on Monday that extreme weather events this summer weren’t normal but ‘‘a climate on steroids’’.

Labor senator Doug Cameron told Professor Steffen he’d detected a drop in the public ‘‘venom’’ against climate change in the past few months, and asked if scientists had noticed the trend as well.

‘‘Your perception is correct on that, senator,’’ Professor Steffen told a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra.

‘‘Certainly in my own case, the attacks have gone down quite considerably.