Global Warming Skeptic Finds He Now Believes It Is Real
Charleston Gazette
31 October 2011
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming
spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate
scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right:
Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller
was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global
warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in
analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of
"Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of
scientists.
Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the
1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of
California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match
those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
NASA.
He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming
world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different
from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for
decades.
What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to "The
Daily Show" is paying attention is who is behind the study.
One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the
Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of
skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and
David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and
other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions.
Muller's research team carefully examined two chief criticisms by
skeptics. One is that weather stations are unreliable; the other
is that cities, which create heat islands, were skewing the
temperature analysis.
"The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a
skeptic two years ago," Muller said in a telephone interview. "And
now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had
previously been reported had been done without bias."
Muller said that he came into the study "with a proper
skepticism," something scientists "should always have. I was
somewhat bothered by the fact that there was not enough
skepticism" before.
There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing
temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a
place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research
the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate
scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such
as coal and oil.
Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how
much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.
Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide
created by fossil fuels.
"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he
said. Still, he contends that threat is not as proven as the Nobel
Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it
is.
On Monday, Muller was taking his results - four separate papers
that are not yet published or peer-reviewed, but will be, he says
- to a conference in Santa Fe, N.M., expected to include many
prominent skeptics as well as mainstream scientists.
"Of course he'll be welcome," said Petr Chylek of Los Alamos
National Lab, a noted skeptic and the conference organizer. "The
purpose of our conference is to bring people with different views
on climate together, so they can talk and clarify things."
Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of the book "Fool Me Twice" that
criticizes science skeptics, said Muller should expect to be
harshly treated by global warming deniers. "Now he's considered a
traitor. For the skeptic community, this isn't about data or fact.
It's about team sports. He's been traded to the Indians. He's
playing for the wrong team now."
And that started on Sunday, when a British newspaper said one of
Muller's co-authors, Georgia Tech climate scientist Judith Curry,
accused Muller of another Climategate-like scandal and trying to
"hide the decline" of recent global temperatures.
The Associated Press contacted Curry on Sunday afternoon and she
said in an email that Muller and colleagues "are not hiding any
data or otherwise engaging in any scientifically questionable
practice."
The Muller "results unambiguously show an increase in surface
temperature since 1960," Curry wrote Sunday. She said she
disagreed with Muller's public relations efforts and some public
comments from Muller about there no longer being a need for
skepticism.
Muller's study found that skeptics' concerns about poor weather
station quality didn't skew the results of his analysis because
temperature increases rose similarly in reliable and unreliable
weather stations. He also found that while there is an urban heat
island effect making cities warmer, rural areas, which are more
abundant, are warming, too.
Among many climate scientists, the reaction was somewhat of a
yawn.
"After lots of work he found exactly what was already known and
accepted in the climate community," said Jerry North, a Texas
A&M University atmospheric sciences professor who headed a
National Academy of Sciences climate science review in 2006. "I am
hoping their study will have a positive impact. But some folks
will never change."
Chris Field, a Carnegie Institution scientist who is chief author
of an upcoming intergovernmental climate change report, said
Muller's study "may help the world's citizens focus less on
whether climate change is real and more on smart options for
addressing it."
Some of the most noted scientific skeptics are no longer saying
the world isn't warming.
Instead, they question how much of it is man-made, view it as less
a threat and argue it's too expensive to do something about, Otto
said.
Skeptical MIT scientist Richard Lindzen said it is a fact and
nothing new that global average temperatures have been rising
since 1950, as Muller shows. "It's hard to see how any serious
scientist (skeptical, denier or believer - frequently depending on
the exact question) will view it otherwise," he wrote in an email.
In a brief email statement, the Koch Foundation noted that
Muller's team didn't examine ocean temperature or the cause of
warming and said it will continue to fund such research.
"The project is ongoing and entering peer review, and we're proud
to support this strong, transparent research," said foundation
spokeswoman Tonya Mullins.