UPDATE 1/28: Full text of Dr. Theon’s letter has been post on the Senate website and below.
This is something I thought I’d never see. This press release today is from the Senate EPW blog of Jame Inhofe. The scientist making the claims in the headline, Dr. John S. Theon, formerly of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, has a paper here in the AMS BAMS that you may also find interesting. Other papers are available here in Google Scholar. He also worked on the report of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident report and according to that document was a significant contributor to weather forecasting improvements:
The Space Shuttle Weather Forecasting Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. John Theon, was established by NASA Headquarters to review existing weather support capabilities and plans and to recommend a course of action to the NSTS Program. Included on the panel were representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.
EPW press release below – Anthony
Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]
Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]
“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.
A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.
The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ] In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.” More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”
The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey: & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% – now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”
On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
# # #
ORIGINAL FULL TEXT LETTER SENT VIA EMAILS:
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:50 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sponsored IT training links:
Best quality 640-553 dumps written by certified expert to help you pass 642-456 and 70-536 exam in easy and fast way.
I’ll add my bravo for Dr. Theon’s coming out of the skeptic closet and subjecting himself to ridicule for speaking truth to power.
OT to the post but in the spirit of the thread. One point that I never see emphasized is that the CO2 feedback mechanism used to drive the models implies that the climate is unstable. If true, one wonders how the Earth has been relatively temperate for at least the few hundred million years. Since the earth in the distant past was far warmer and had much higher levels of CO2 then now, how did we ever have the ice ages? Would not the dominate impact of CO2 overwhelm the subtle changes caused by the Milankovitch cycle?
Has anyone tried to initialize their favorite GCM to the conditions just prior to the current ice age just to see that we indeed get that first Pliocene glaciation. How about initializing the GCM to the middle of the most recent glaciation. Does the model predict the current Holocene interglacial? Given their inability to predict short term trends, I would hope that the models could be validated using some of the reasonably well understood long term trends. I hope that some of the new money flowing into the climate modeling community would support validation of the models against the reality of the ice age from which the planet is enjoying a brief respite.
John Galt says:
In fact, you are wrong…The actual forcings relative to those in Hansen’s scenarios fall a little below his middle scenario, Scenario B. And, the temperature has generally followed that scenario…There has been some deviation below it in the last few years but I don’t think the difference is statistically-significant. Of course, given that the climate model he used for that had a climate sensitivity at the high end of the current IPCC estimate, we should hope that we do eventually see some statistical deviation low of his estimate. Otherwise, it would suggest the climate sensitivity is not only in the IPCC range but at the high end of it.
There are plenty of ways in which the models can and are being tested, just as evolution is tested without having to actually watch evolution occur in the lab. (Well, you can see what creationists call “micro-evolution” in the lab but this doesn’t convince them that “macro-evolution” occurs.) I suggest reading the IPCC reports for further discussions.
Zer0th (11:07:29) :
Anthony, Simon Evans…
“Climate models are useless” is the Subject line of the second email.
and Sarah (11:12:28)
Thanks – I missed that. My apologies for the red herring.
I’m a bit surprised that a scientist would be make such an absolute statement in print, but thereyago.
Benjamin (10:29:32) :
You know, bottom line
the planet is getting warmer, whatever we can do to curb this trend is a good thing.
So models don’t work, well duh…. the whole of science is a compramise, to fit models.. this is hardly news. The map will never be the territory, but an aproximation is an aproximation….
Seems to me this is just republican backlash or fuel companies etc. and those that are growing fat on contributing to climate change, for example all the Petrolium producers.. Perish the thought that things be made cleaner and more efficient!
Ben —
I sympathize with your confusion, but your sociology is weak. Many, like myself, who are coming to doubt the veracity of AGW theory, are traditional liberals. Things can and should be made cleaner and more efficient. I would hope that informed conservatives will share this view — and I think that more and more of them do. But we should also not be stampeded into taking expensive actions that will have little or no effect to ameliorate a CO2 “crisis” that may not — I believe now *does not* — even exist. We have enough real problems to deal with.
I suggest you review the evidence that is now piling up that AGW warming either does not exist at all or is, at least, very unlikely to produce the catastrophic consequences that Hansen et. al have irresponsibly predicted. Following these threads is a good start. Based on the accumulating data on Solar Sunspot cycle 24, it looks to me that we’re in for quite a cold snap over the next decade, if not longer.
And references to Nature? That rag? Next it’ll be the National Enquirer or…the New York Times!
Follow the money. Who would benefit from schemes like the Cap and Trade? More research and study $. BTW does Al Gore have to give back the Nobel prize.
Sounds like Theon’s quite jealous of the attention Hansen gets.
So it’s not testimony, it’s not communication with the committee intended for making legislation, it’s . . . political hackery. Why doesn’t this guy write to the full committee? He’s afraid of controversy? He’s not up to defending his position? He needs to hide behind the skirts of the Republicans?
So, now you’re calling Bush’s NASA inspector general a liar?
How many more of the Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science does this guy erupt with daily?
Robert says:
See my response to Jeff Alberts. It does not imply instability. And, in fact, the paleoclimate history suggests that the climate is at least as sensitive to perturbations as the models predict. Here is a paper that discusses this: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;306/5697/821 It concludes
By the way, you use of the term “CO2 feedback mechanism” and your discussion also suggests that you are confused on this point. The feedbacks are present no matter what mechanism is causing the warming. Hence, your question about CO2 vs Milankovitch makes no sense. In the models, the feedbacks occur for all mechanisms.
Yes, the models can be used to study the temperature change between the interglacial and now. In fact, you don’t even need the models really (except perhaps to calculate the original forcings involved). All you do is take the estimated temperature change and divide by the estimated forcings and you get the climate sensitivity. (The main forcings, in order from strongest to weakest, are the change in albedo due to the ice sheets, the change in greenhouse gas levels, and the change in aerosols; the Milankovitch oscillations themselves do not produce a significant forcing since they just change the distribution of energy from the sun, not the total amount…although they are the cause of the growth or shrinkage of the ice sheets that cause the largest forcing.) Jim Hansen and others have done this calculation…and it gives a result about right in the middle of the IPCC range for the climate sensitivity.
The breach in the wall of ‘consensus’ just got a whole lot bigger!
“It is a well-documented fact that the Romans tended vineyards in England, where it is now too cool and wet for vineyards”
Skeptics have a greater obligation to get their facts right.
http://www.internetwineguide.com/structure/ww/v&w/europe/uk/vwuk.htm
Just being a layman, I could understand how scientists could misread the correlation between CO2 and temperature, but surely there can be no doubt which is the driver in the sun temperature correlation, all that is needed surely is to discover the mechanism, if in fact there is any significant warming.
From US News
Professor Gore’s Climate Change Lecture Warmly Received by Senate
By Kent Garber
Posted January 28, 2009
Even the Republicans liked it!
The USA will pay heavily for going down this route of Carbon Stupidity.
Peter 11:48
Response to what are carbon capture demonstration projects
There are a number of existing technologies to remove CO2 from gas streams; typically a liquid with an affinity for CO2 is sprayed downward countercurrently as the CO2-rich gas flows upward past the droplets. Then the CO2 is separated from the liquid, and the liquid is recirculated.
http://www.nma.org/ccs/carboncapture.asp
The issues include cost to build, and energy costs to run these systems.
Btw, we have been running CO2 capture systems for decades in refineries and chemical plants. This is not a technology that needs billions thrown at it by the government. Kind of like re-inventing the wheel.
Just one man’s opinion.
Robert (12:38:38) : said
“It is a well-documented fact that the Romans tended vineyards in England, where it is now too cool and wet for vineyards”
Skeptics have a greater obligation to get their facts right.
I believe they are still digging artifacts out of the permafrost in Greenland using JACK HAMMERS.
Approximately speaking, the temperature will change by -3C to +3C.
A lot of people are oversimplifying. No one is seriously meaning the sun has no influence (if they are, they they are, indeed, whack). The gist of it is that the sun doesn’t vary enough to have a governing influence on major changes. Though with day and night and seasons, the heat moves around a lot, and causes the weather we see day to day. And of course the climate…
[snip, this has nothing to do with this discussion, and is only a way to draw traffic to our own blog. This blog is not a tool for that purpose.]
Well, I only imply instability because we’re told there are “tipping points” and that there is a climate crisis going on as we speak. Instability is simply a matter of perspective.
Alex (11:43:03) :
Reading some fragments of this thread…
It strikes me how some people can type with a straight face that the sun has no influence on climate…
I’m not aware that anyone has said that. What I expect has been said is that the variation in observed solar output cannot in itself alone account for the changes in climate.
Robert (12:01:31) :
One point that I never see emphasized is that the CO2 feedback mechanism used to drive the models implies that the climate is unstable. If true, one wonders how the Earth has been relatively temperate for at least the few hundred million years. Since the earth in the distant past was far warmer and had much higher levels of CO2 then now, how did we ever have the ice ages? Would not the dominate impact of CO2 overwhelm the subtle changes caused by the Milankovitch cycle?
I’m not sure I follow you – you’re suggesting that the equilibrium is stable yet wondering how we had ice ages?
The effects of the Milankovitch cycle are thought to have been small globally but significant on a regional/seasonal scale. Whatever the equilibrium that pertained before, the growth of ice sheets introduced a cooling albedo effect. GHGs don’t ‘fight against’ a rebalancing of the budget!
The fact of significant climate variation in the past attests to the many factors other than the sun that influence our climate. We might have spent billions of years in a near-snowball state when the sun was weaker were it not for the changing parameters that we are considering today.
I find it a little bit odd that some seem to think that the ‘Dalton Minimum’ spectre means we are heading for a cold period. We are at the bottom of a solar cycle now – there’s no sensible reason to think that solar output will diminish from here!
Leif Svalgaard (10:57:01) : said,
I have done precisely what you suggest for both solar minimum and solar maximum eclipses and I tell that there is no difference I could feel.
So, live up to being on ‘the best science blog’ and realize that what we should be talking about are the minute variations in the solar output. There is no evidence for those controlling the climate in a big way.
Dr Svalgaard , could it be that you do not know the actual mechanism.
Alex says:
Who has said that? But, see what Leif says. The issue is not whether or not the sun has a strong influence on the climate; rather, the issue is whether the VARIATIONS in solar irradiance have a strong influence. And, the answer seems to be that these variations are generally very small on the timescales of interest (of order of a century). In fact, the direct forcing due to changes in solar irradiance are about an order of magnitude or so smaller than the forcing due to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.
The only way it seems to make the sun the dominant driver is to posit some sort of strong amplification mechanism specific to solar. One such hypothesized mechanism is the sun modulating intergalactic cosmic rays which in turn modulate cloud formation. However, this mechanism is still very speculative and, furthermore, the warming seen over the last 30 years or so does not seem to have been accompanied by any significant trend in cosmic rays.
Sure, from a cooler period to a warmer period. Why not start from 1934?
Tim Clark (11:24:53)
I am a little confused by the italics but I sense we are saying the same thing – see my further comment in response to Joel Shore – PaulHClark (09:55:23)
Leif Svalgaard (10:57:01)
I hold you in the highest regard but I have a problem with anyone who says the sun is not the driver of the earth’s climate.
I suspect we may get into semantics but let me try an analogy – the driver of a business is its income (there is nothing else). In a very similar way unless you can convince me there is another source of energy for our climate then I would suggest there is only one driver – the sun.
Whether the sun is the ‘moderator’ of our climate is another issue (and a big one which is why I still have an open mind about the AGW theory – they just need to convince me it works empirically – like your doubts about the sun no-one has shown CO2 forcings work in the real world – to me at least.
Just like a business has income as its sole driver the moderator of its success is a very complex equation of all the other effects on its ability to turn that income into value. So it is with the sun.
For our climate there are geomagnetic effects, atmospheric effects, oceanic effects, wind and sea current effects, albedo changes, cosmic ray intensity changes, aerosol changes and effects, …….. ad nauseam (Leif that bit was obviously not for you please undersatnd) and when someone works out how they all interact we will have a climate model that works. BUT our climate will only ever have one input/driver – just like a business.
How long have those wine operations have been running?
I think the point is, most of the wine production in GB is small holdings of relatively recent date. Just because there are a handful of operational wine operations now (during a warming period by the admission of the AGW folks) does not invalidate that for a considerable period of time vineyards were not profitable in GB
Here’s how the AGW “philosophy”, so warmly embraced by our avowedly Socialist Government in the slightly-United Kingdom, can penetrate the most unusual nooks and crannies of society and its institutions.
Once the civil servants think that the Man-at-the-Top believes in something they vie to out-do each other to impress him with their “devotion” to the same cause, coming up with the most outlandish schemes which they justify as ‘assisting in combatting AGW. No further argument or discussion is permitted.