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)
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Smokey,
Nice graph. I like to compare your graph with this one when attempting to “reason” with an eco-chondriac.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/WATTSSOLAR1.jpg
How many of you think we will see this very informative report on the news ?In my opinion the only news organization that may touch this is Fox News.
My sense is that Theon was stifled in taking action because, NASA had been politically cornered.
Hansen was brilliant in publicly saying he had been muzzled, because any disciplinary actions against him by NASA would then “validate” his contention of being muzzled.
We have a situation. Common sense – and for some time- reputable scientists have been telling us that this global warming/cooling is natures way. We’re but ants on an acre, something the enviro’s can not grasp. The main point is this, however: this fellow Hansen, and ex VP Gore have cried Fire in a crowded theatre and punishment is due, jail time at the very least.
Being a retired NASA scientist (among other things), I can relate.
Fresh out of school, my first research area was a dead end. Being new, I did not figure that out for a long time.
I was part of a team, we produced peer reviewed reports, we were considered world experts, and it was exciting. The team (including me) and our managers argued for funding every year which we got — even though some NASA Headquarters folks were “skeptical” of our research.
Finally, I figured out that we were “barking up the wrong tree” — but others on the team remained convinced regarding the value of the research. I did not attempt to “blow whistles”. I merely transferred to another department and continued my career (in what turned out to be a very satisfactory way).
The research continued for over a decade after I left. Ultimately, the research area was a “dead end” and not one dime of value was returned to the taxpayers. What was worse, I thought, was the wasted careers for those who kept on after I left.
So, nothing in the “revelations” surprise me. Sounds like business as usual. That is, people of good intent at all levels in the organization have difficulty recognizing/admitting failure and hesitate to say “no”.
Because he retired FIFTEEN YEARS AGO and was never Hansen’s boss.
Regarding his claim that Hansen was “never muzzled”, this was confirmed by independent investigation and Theon was no where near NASA at the time and in no position to judge.
Regarding his claim that some climate scientists are guilty of scientific fraud because they change data to fit models, well, he needs to provide some solid evidence of this serious charge. After he stops beating his wife.
For those who see this controversy as a battle between GOOD and EVIL, with the “doubters” on the side of GOOD, I say only, “Calm down.” Recall the obstacles facing the AGW crowd – this is why they tend to get hysterical. They feel that’s the only way they can get anything done. I, as a political super liberal, feel comforted by the built-in conservatism of society in this case!
Fads in science and social policy can do damage, but I fear little in this instance. Some bad policy may go into effect, but if the critics continue their good work, and as weather records continue their natural, changing course, the AGW crowd will loose steam. My prediction is that ten or fifteen years from now, people will be writing Ph. D. dissertaions on AGW as an example of science and public policy gone bad.
John A: nice story about Nikita, but what’s the point?
April E. Coggins (22:10:49) :
‘Pamela: Are you really looking forward to Prius powered vehicles towing trailers down Rattlesnake Grade?’
That can be done with the right type of wheel motors that can be swtiched to generators which could produce enough Eddy currents to make the vehicle safe for towing.
P.S. to my above post
In another parallel, the manager of our team was very forceful. He “believed”. He definitely skewed things at times to meet his biases. It was he who kept the research area alive. Reminds me of what Hansen may be doing — except Hansen has a lot more folks than the research team on board his train.
Flanagan
You are ommiting to look at the origin of the data you are using. IE GCMs, NASA adjustments, poor quality surface stations, etc Then look at the Climate audit site to study the invented statistics and you will see why we suggest that the science supporting CO² GW is weak.
We all ackowledge that CO² has the potential to warm BUT 0.04% ? and it is ‘highly likely’ (IPCC terms) that water vapor has a much larger affect and there is little science at the moment, other than from the playstation mob, to support the effects promoted by the hockey team and its supporters.
Being a physicist, I know about the absorption spectrum of CO² but I also know that of H²O. I suggest you review them, do the appropriate calculations and then think about the results.
OT, maybe: From the MET office website regarding HARCRUT3:
“We have recently changed the way that the smoothed time series of data were calculated. Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate esimate of the year as a whole. This is not the case and owing to the unusually cool global average temperature in January 2008, it looked as though smoothed global average temperatures had dropped markedly in recent years, which is misleading.”
Am I missing something? They have to change their process because January 2008 was “unusually cool.” And I thought HARCRUT might have better data than GISS.
I can only hope that something like this gets the attention of Obama such that he at least takes the time to listen to his reasons why he’s now a skeptic.
Given that his ‘energy czar’ belonged to Socialist International’s ‘Commission for a Sustainable Society’ which called for global governance and for the US to reduce our economy, I’m not holding my breath.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/
I hope Dr. Theon realizes that he has now joined with “climate criminals”, “traitors”, “blasphemers, people who are committing “intergenerational crimes” and “terracide”, and generally “bastards” who are “members of the global warming denial industry”, for whom there should be “Nuremberg-style trials”. Obviously, he’s in the pay of “Big Oil” and “Big Coal”, but sleeping at night could be a problem. Sarc/off
The AGW fraud is being exposed, the house of cards is collapsing, and those who can and who are smart enough are getting out while the getting is still good. The MSM though, still either don’t seem to get it, or simply want to keep the AGW fraud alive for as long as they can; probably a bit of both.
Craig: Time, science and history will ultimately settle the score.
Perhaps. The problem is that the AGW machine, although in trouble, is still in place, and capable of doing a great deal of harm. There is both a scientific as well as political side to this. But, it should be pointed out, it is the AGW industry which created the political side, most notably with the UN’s IPCC. Furthermore, the politics go far beyond the usual liberal vs conservative type of debate, since it’s been pointed out numerous times that many liberals and/or Democrats are skeptics
or climate realists. This issue actually encompasses truth vs lies, science vs pseudo-scientific propaganda, and freedom vs authoritarianism.
Given what is at stake here, is there any wonder people’s emotions run high at times? Indeed, one would have to be a robot to NOT be passionate about this.
Wowfail:
WUWT won Best Science blog because folks like you are in a small minority. Who is really the epic failure?
Congrats, Anthony, on surpassing 8 million hits!
Re: Steve M. 06:28:05
Where did you find that statement? I can’t see this.
I was wondering for quite some time why Metoffice has not renewed their graphs, some from November, some even from April 2008. I sent hem an e-mail yesterday asking about that and got a reply that it was forwarded to some specialists who would get back to me. Nothing so far apart from the fact that they have (interestingly soon after my mail?!) replaced the year 2007 with 2008 without redrawing the graphs (that still show only 2007 with 0.4C anomaly as the end) themselves at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
and these plots still end with Nov. 2008
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/temperatures.html
Metoffice used to redraw the graphs simultaneously with new data coming in and it seems to me that they are uncomfortable showing the picture of temps going visibly dow. Reading what you just posted, it really seems to be the case – they are sitting and thing about what to do? Sounds like a conspiracy theory but…?
about the feedback : as the troposphere gets hotter, the water vapor pressure increases (this is known for, well, centuries) which means more water can be stored in the same space. Now, satellite measurements exist since the mid 80s that prove that a more humid atmosphere strongly increases the Greenhouse effect (a paper in Nature, I can find it if you like).
So basically, the first and most important feedback is already observed.
Smokey
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?
What evidence is there that Dr Theon holds that view? His issue, as reported, is with the reliability of models as predictive tools. As for the views of the scientific community at large, I refer you to the two surveys recently discussed hereabouts showing a substantial majority (97% among climate scientists) who hold the view that human activity is a significant driver of global temperature change.
Nobody seriously disputes that greenhouse gas concentrations have been increased by human activity. The size of the resultant radiative forcing is actually quite well-quantified, within an uncertainty of about 5%. The question with perhaps the highest uncertainty is by how much this increased forcing will increase the global temperature. Here the published estimates cluster around a value of 3C for a doubling of CO2. Personally I steer clear of the emotive word ‘catastrophic’, [though one could argue that it was an individual catastrophe for those already killed] and you will not find it in any IPCC document either, however such a rapid change in global temperatures is almost certainly unprecedented in the history of civilisation. The human price notwithstanding, the financial costs have been quantified by Stern, Garnaud, Yohe and others and all agree that a combination of mitigation and adaptation produces a large positive benefit-cost ratio.
You are convinced that Hansen has the science wrong. His political views are informed by his research which is peer-reviewed and published in the academic literature.
I would point especially to the ‘Target CO2’ and ‘Trace Gases’ papers. Perhaps you could explain exactly where he is mistaken, or point to other papers that demonstrate his errors? From one standpoint, there’s a danger that the prominence given to a long-retired academic who might have managed Dr Hansen a decade and a half ago, and the torturing of a single sentence from his bio beyond all reason will appear like a tacit admission of an inability to put a dent in the hard science.
Over to you.
hectic post!!
A new Cycle 23 region has grown! 🙂 I was going to comment about a tiny cy 23 area that popped up 2 days ago but I forgot… well it looks like it might fetch a number soon..
This reminds me of the whole dogma and mysticism surrounding the number 23… solar cycle 23 seems to be proof of this 🙂
Watch the news come out… The register.uk has it, more to follow I’m sure
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22John%20S.%20Theon&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn
Methinks that there is a fire in the temple.
sorry for all the typos. I should really check before hitting the submit button
bigcitylib:
1) & 2) Therefore what? He is no longer capable of critcal thinking?
3) Not sure why this even matters, but what point are you making…Dr. Hansen was actually independant of Dr. Theon?
4) Not first hand maybe but certainly not limited to water cooler gossip. Woodward and Bernstein had no first hand knowledge of Watergate either.
This is the real “smoking gun” here…a profound commentary on climate models:
—
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.
—
And in the case of Hansen’s group at GISS, we really even don’t know what their climate models are doing because they apparently don’t know how to document their numerical models adequately, be it Model E, GISTEMP,…sad, but true…
Richard North (05:15:07) :
This is why science and “being right” is not enough. The truth will not prevail of its own accord. You have to understand that the scare phenomenon has its own dynamics and rules. To defeat it, you have to break the cycle.
This cannot be stated too many times.
Whether anyone likes it or not, the cultural & political elements of this have to be confronted as well.
For crying out loud, they’re targeting my 2-year-old on Noggin now. Scientific evidence to the contrary isn’t going to stop Moose & Zee’s new “Eco-Rangers” gig.
Re: myself 06:54:05
OK I found the Metoffice statement:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
It seems that, in order not to show cooling, they have just not used the 2008 data for the smoothing at all?
And the grapphs I was referring to earlier still are not up to date