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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
On an unrelated note, there’s another SC23 sunspot!
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
Grant Hodges: “I find that most people stand back from telling the truth or joining the fray if it might seriously cost them. … It is very lonely to take a stand while the outcome is still in doubt. I find most men are cowards.”
Everyone’s a hero–as long as it’s not High Noon.
This is a surprising development, however it will not effect the current US Administration policies towards the UN AGW climate doctrine.
The United Nations have been building this doctrine for twenty years now and the current structure and network is gigantic.
It involves thousands of NGO’s, (many of them advising Governments all over the world on policies), Environmental organizations, Scientific Institutes and Universities Representatives of the doctrine now have taken position dominating complete political parties including the one that currently holds the US presidency which means that our current President is part this pact.
It is their objective to mitigate the “devastating” effects of a run away world population that thrives on the industrialized mass production made possible by the abundance in cheap fossil energy.
Because any burning of fossil fuels generates CO2 this innocent plant food has been qualified as a poisonous gas that is responsible for the greenhouse effect to cause a catastrophic warming of the earths atmosphere, melting the Poles and rising the sea level. In short, Humanity will be grilled and drowned unless…our political elite get total control over CO2 emissions, read your life.
The US presidential elections represented the final crucial stage of execution of the Global Warming Doctrine.
Now the “right man is in the right place” we will experience the full effects of the doctrine.
Unfortunately it will take a lot more than a retired NASA Boss turned skeptic and The Best Science Blog WUWT to counter this one.
So unless you are a passionate tree huger that loves to drive an eco box that only operates at room temperatures, you better get organized and hit the streets before some of the elected geniuses decides to flick the switch on the life you’re used to.
The mess they will cause on the road to create their “Green Utopia” will kill more people than all the Communist and Socialist Regimes put together.
Oh, yeah right, I almost forgot to mention that, in my opinion, J.S. Theon can call himself anything but a climate scientist. Well, I must say he published some papers…
In fact, 4 papers in the last 20 years. Including one abstract on aldehyde hydrocyanation, one book chapter where actually no science is discussed (“the status of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is discussed in this chapter”), one named “My View of the Early History of TRMM” and finally one about the effect of turbulences on commercial aircrafts which has been cited… well, never over the last 18 years.
So, to me, with all due respect, J.S. Theon has so to say been scientifically inactive for the last 20 years at least. How can he proclaim himself a specialist in climate modelling? Is he the new “homme de la renaissance”? The typical knows-it-all?
Well
I guess President Obama has spoken on record as ‘being happy to listen to good ideas from wherever they may come’.
Is it perhaps time to put his words on record to the test and humbly request that a panel of some of the most eminent retired or soon-to-be-retired climatologists etc (the names in the article, including Simpson, Spencer, Christy et al) be allowed to explain, in simple layman’s terms, why AGW is, in the infamous words of Mrs Thatcher’s Press Secretary, the late Bernard Ingham, ‘bunkum and balderdash’?
At least then Obama wouldn’t be able to say that he hadn’t been given the benefit of dissenting views?
And he did, after all say in his inauguration address that ‘the US administration will respect science’. I think he was talking about Stem Cells, but I guess you might want to try Climate Science on him too?
IMHO
“In my opinion, the evolution of the American opinion is simply a proof that lobbying works..”
Though that may be true, I agree. And from my understanding we should leave all science behind and assimilate for the good. Your thinking is the epidamy of a ~snip~.
I will never be a part of your world.
This will never be reported by the BBC.
Flanagan
Catastrophic climate change is typified by the violent lurch upwards in temperature from -10C to +10C in fifty years immediately afteer the last ice age-within the time scale of human activity.
Unless you believe the sun is controlled by a giant thernmostat designed to keep us to exatly the same temperature, natural variability is all we currently are experiencing. The obserrved warming over the last 150 years is very minor, disappears when you look at periods even during the LIA -for example the early 1700’s, and todays values become negative when you examine the MWP, The Roman Warm periods and the Holocenes.
TonyB
I think it important we get confirmation this letter is real before making too much out of it.
If it is true it is a powerful weapon and perhaps ought to be fleshed out with Wirths admission that after choosing a hot day he turned off the A/C before Hansens congress hearing… and Hansens latest escapade in Britain defending vandals at Kingsnorth…hhis comments about deniers and the Nazis… and his belief about a 20 foot rise in sea levels in 90 years.
Hard to believe he’s an employee of the Amrican govt sometimes.
TonyB
“Jim Norvell (17:53:17) :
I can’t wait to read about this over at RC.
Jim N”
I’ll bet on a high level of censorship about this!
Perhaps Tamino will add another luminary to his list of the terminal stupid.
What observed warming?
Flanagan (23:45:52) :
I’m tired of all this… Has someone else noted that that the main “scientific” opposition to the AGW theory is made of op-eds and vague declarations?
I’m still waiting for a paper showing in a coherent and (loosely) proved way that something else could be responsible for the observed warming… ”
You’re tired of it? Poor darling. Spare a thought for those of us who have had Gore and Hansen’s doomsday pronouncements stuffed down our throats. Well I’m still waiting for the paper that proves its CO2 and it does the warming its supposed to. Is there one? And not a computer model either. As its your theory, you have to prove it, not the other way round. Assume its all natural processes first and foremost.
“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.”
Translation: unknown retired old guy disses famous scientist. Sorry people. This ain’t news. News needs an issue and authorised spokespeople, not just a disagreement.
The rest of this so-called ‘press release’ is a standard rehash of Imhofe’s staffers’ usual prolix bilge. The technique is to make a grand announcement that someone disagrees with AGW, then attempt to give the announcement credibility by throwing in everything including the kitchen sink, hoping something will stick.
This is not journalism. It’s just cutting and pasting. If anyone wants to get excited about this sort of non-story, best to do so in the privacy of their own home. Whooping and hollering in public just looks silly and smacks of desperation.
This is something we have to see a lot more of.
Scientists, free from intimidation, coming out and telling us what they really think.
It’s high time that we stand up to the intellectual thuggery, smearing and intimidation practiced by the alarmists.
They all ought to step forward at the upcoming NIPCC Convention.
Flanagan:
I too am tired of all the AGW theory touted by publicly funded folk with a vested interest and others with a massive financial interest.
I am waiting for all these climate scientists with their wonderful theories and models to explain how the Medieval Warm Period and all the other climate optima are dut to carbon dioxide.
But there is no evidence for carbon dioxide driving any warming we may have had and computer models are GIGO.
quote: I’m tired of all this… Has someone else noted that that the main “scientific” oppositon to the AGW theory is made of op-eds and vague declarations?
I totally agree with this. I said a while ago that I hold great expectations for WUWT in the AGW debate but if it cannot go beyond the level of acting as Morano’s mouthpiece all its momentum (increasing amount of visitors, Best Science Blog Award) will be lost.
If you want to be serving the skeptic side of the argument you have to steer well clear of Inhofe’s blog, as at least 90% on it doesn’t hold up under closer scrutiny. For instance, I researched quite a few people on those lists of scientists myself and found out things that totally killed any credibility the list had for me.
Now, the way I see it is that the good skeptics have to start distancing themselves from the bad and incompetent skeptics. For when some renewed warming kicks in or the Arctic Sea Ice hits a new bottom their voice will sink because of all the excess weight from the incompetent or dishonest skeptics. But I believe a good skeptic voice is needed to combat the nefarious consequences of AGW mitigation, such as biofuels and emission trading.
I personally believe that AGW is real and even underestimated, so the parties that try to cash in on AGW must be stopped. With all the money already thrown at saving failing banks/car manufacturers and killing American soldiers/Iraqi civilians we cannot afford criminal profiteers taking advantage of AGW. There are actually measures that help mitigate AGW AND increase energy independence AND reduce pollution at the same time. It’s these measures that need to be promoted the most, irrespective of AGW being a reality or not.
So Anthony, please be very careful what stories you reproduce. Otherwise I fear you may be digging a hole for the side of the skeptic argument that has something useful to contribute. Better not to post anything for a few days than to reproduce unsubstantiated nonsense, that in the worst case might even be deliberate misinformation (of which I highly suspect Morano’s efforts).
One doesn’t require a competing scientific theory if AGW was never a good theory nor good science in the first place.
Without any good theory grounded in good science, the simple answer is to what is causing the warming is, we don’t know.
Better to know you don’t know than to believe wrongly that you know.
Flanagan
As soon as you produce a body of work that proves that AGW is loosely proven, the AGW theory has had over 20 years of data to compare to its predictions, how is it doing so far? Well 10 of those years just refuse to behave…
The IPCC did not do any science they only presented their opinion. Kinda like a technical Op-Ed.
Perhaps you should look-up lobbyist, it has nothing to do with American Public Opinion it actually has to do with elected officials and special interests, and we know what way they are leaning! The Environmental lobby is twice the size of most groups. The government gives more assets (Public Money) to environmental groups than any other, in the form of financing, grants, endowments, land trusts titles, regulation enforcement, prosecution and special injunctions.
More money has been lost in US manufacturing industries due to environmental issues than any other, including labour. That is why CA is trying to get exemptions to get infrastructure spending rolling. Did you know it takes less than 5 years to plan and build a transit train route, but takes almost 7 years for environmental approval.
The environmental lobby is one of the most powerful forces in western government(s) it is the same in Canada and the EU.
Sierra Club ( just one group, search the database for your favorites )
re: previous post
Here is the Industry as a Total
I was dismayed when the ‘debate’ began to get politicised, now I am doubly so as it is clear that some wish to push it past the political and into the personal.
If anyone has earned the right to have a Press Release treated with extreme caution it is surely Mr Morano in whose universe, when it suits his purposes, the presenter of a TV gardening show is a member of the set of ‘prominent scientists’.
But let us assume we are being told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. The timeframe is interesting – when exactly did Dr Hansen ‘embarrass’ the agency? Dr Theon is apparently referring to Dr Hansen’s Congress testimony over two decades ago. Not exactly breaking news then. Given the startlingly good record of the temperature projections presented on that occasion, I speculate that many climatologists would give their right arm for such ‘embarrassment.’
And most of Dr Hansen’s complaints about NASA censorship actually date from around 2005 onwards, at least a decade after Dr Theon left his position.
I do not doubt Dr Theon’s sincerity and I respect his experience and qualifications, and his decision to voice his views, nor do I question that he is keeping his expertise up to date by reading the academic journals and other literature, however while he is reading papers on the latest climate science, Dr Hansen is writing them. While Dr Theon is writing pieces for the AMS about his time at NASA, the same august body, who one would assume are equally aware of the current state of the science, recently awarded the good Doctor their highest honour.
Fascinating.
Flanagan, the point is we just don’t know enough about how this highly complex system works to give definitive answers.
Catastrophic AGW is just a speculative hypothesis with lots of dollars, media hype and government support. Therefore, on that basis along it is taken as fact to by many people.
Therefore, all other attempts to explain a highly complex natural system are, by nature going to be incomplete, and will require lots of support and further research before anything definitive can be said. But they are in for a hard road with a lot of obstructions.
The best we can say is that there are some speculative models about how the whole system works and is driven (long term). But unfortunately, those that control the money have the power to pass speculation as fact, and undermine competing views.
Look at it the other way, Mr Flanagan.
Where is the proof that the GW is ma
I’ll try that again
Mr Flanagan, where is the proof that GW is man made?? Only the data issueing forth from the Hockey team supports it, et alors ???
1) Retired 15 years ago.
2) His real work (papers) stop around that time as well.
3) Was “in effect” Hansen’s superviser, presumably in contrast to “in reality”.
4) Has absolutely no first hand knowledge of the Bush years, or whether or not Hansen was muzzled.
[snip, BCL stop the childish commentary. Your only purpose is to troll. BTW how is that bigfoot research coming along? Any new photos or radio shows? – Cheers Anthony]
John Philip, did it occur to you that Dr. Theon, like more and more people in the scientific community, has become so fed up with the claims that the unmeasurably small effect of CO2 on temperature [which may, in fact, be a negative forcing], that he finally decided to say something? And this isn’t just another scientist joining the swelling ranks of those questioning Hansen’s unleashed attacks on anyone who questions catastrophic AGW. This is Hansen’s former superior.
Hansen spouts his version of reality all the time to anyone who will listen — then runs and hides out from any questioning himself. Is no one else allowed to respond, without instant attacks from the warmist contingent? Can’t you people just respond to the merits, instead of nitpicking issues like the amount of time since Dr. Theon retired, or by demanding that a supervisor in charge of dozens of other scientists must also continue doing personal research and writing papers? That is not how the real world works.
The fact that Hansen has complained, with a straight face, that he has been “muzzled” by the Bush Administration when he gave some 1400 interviews to the press and others says something about his non-existent veracity. That is a fact that goes directly to Hansen’s credibility.
You are more rational and civil than many of Hansen’s supporters, John. Don’t you have problems with the situation he has created for himself?