Physicists send letter to Senate — Cite 160 scientists protest regarding APS climate position

Since I’m not legally allowed to show the American Physical Society logo (they complained last time) this will have to do:

consensus

A GAGGLE IS NOT A CONSENSUS

You have recently received a letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), purporting to convey a “consensus” of the scientific community that immediate and drastic action is needed to avert a climatic catastrophe.

We do not seek to make the scientific arguments here (we did that in an earlier letter, sent a couple of months ago), but simply to note that the claim of consensus is fake, designed to stampede you into actions that will cripple our economy, and which you will regret for many years. There is no consensus, and even if there were, consensus is not the test of scientific validity. Theories that disagree with the facts are wrong, consensus or no.

We know of no evidence that any of the “leaders” of the scientific community who signed the letter to you ever asked their memberships for their opinions, before claiming to represent them on this important matter.

We also note that the American Physical Society (APS, and we are physicists) did not sign the letter, though the scientific issues at stake are fundamentally matters of applied physics. You can do physics without climatology, but you can’t do climatology without physics.

The APS is at this moment reviewing its stance on so-called global warming, having received a petition from its membership to do so. That petition was signed by 160 distinguished members and fellows of the Society, including one Nobelist and 12 members of the National Academies. Indeed a score of the signers are Members and Fellows of the AAAS, none of whom were consulted before the AAAS letter to you.

Professor Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

Professor Fred Singer, University of Virginia

Professor Will Happer, Princeton University

Professor Larry Gould, University of Hartford

Dr. Roger Cohen, retired Manager, Strategic Planning, ExxonMobil

List of 160 signers of the APS petition available at http://tinyurl.com/lg266u

Regarding the National Policy Statement on Climate Change of the APS Council: An Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society

As physicists who are familiar with the science issues, and as current and past members of the American Physical Society, we the undersigned urge the Council to revise its current statement* on climate change as follows, so as to more accurately represent the current state of the science:

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, accompany human industrial and agricultural activity. While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive scientific literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both plants and animals.

Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth’s climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate.

The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes – natural and human –on the Earth’s climate and the biosphere’s response to climate change, and promotes technological options for meeting challenges of future climate changes, regardless of cause.

* The statement of the APS Council, adopted on November 18, 2007 is as follows:

“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.”

— APS News; January 2008 (Volume 17, Number 1)

SIGNATURES:

30 October 2009 162 Signatures

Harold M. Agnew President, General Atomics Corporation (1979 -1984) White House Science Councilor (1982 -1989) Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1970 -1979)

E.O. Lawrence Award 1966, Enrico Fermi Award 1978, Los Alamos Medal (with H.A. Bethe) 2001 Member National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering; Fellow APS, AAAS

Sol Aisenberg President, International Technology Group Formerly Staff Member, MIT; Lecturer, Harvard Medical School; Visiting Research Professor, Boston University

Ralph B. Alexander Former Associate Professor of Physics Wayne State University President, R.B. Alexander & Associates Technology and market analysis in environmentally friendly materials and coatings Author, Global Warming False Alarm (Canterbury)

Moorad Alexanian Professor of Physics and Physical Oceanography University of North Carolina -Wilmington Member Mexican Academy of Sciences, American Scientific Affiliation

Louis J. Allamandola Director, Astrochemistry Laboratory NASA Ames Research Center Fellow APS, AAAS Member ACS, American Astronomical Society, International Astronomical Union

James L. Allen Engineer/Scientist International Space Station Program The Boeing Company (retired)

Arthur G. Anderson Vice President and former Director of Research IBM (retired) Member National Academy of Engineering, Fellow APS, Fellow IEEE

Eva Andrei Professor of Physics Rutgers University Fellow APS

Robert H. Austin Professor of Physics Princeton University Fellow APS, AAAS; APS Council: 1991-1994, 2007-2010 Member National Academy of Sciences, American Association of Arts and Sciences

David A. Bahr Associate Professor and Chair Department of Physics Bemidji State University

Franco Battaglia Professor of Chemical Physics and Environmental Chemistry University of Modena, Italy Life Member APS

David J. Benard Aerospace Scientist (retired) Co-Inventor of the Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser

Lev I. Berger President California Institute of Electronics and Materials Science Author, Semiconductor Materials; and Material and Device Characterization Measurements (CRC Press)

Stuart B. Berger Research Fellow and Divisional Time-to-Market Manager Xerox Corporation (retired)

Ami E. Berkowitz Emeritus Professor of Physics University of California at San Diego Fellow APS

Barry L. Berman Columbian Professor and Chair Physics Department The George Washington University Fellow APS

Edwin X. Berry Atmospheric Physicist, Climate Physics, LLC Certified Consulting Meteorologist #180 Member American Meteorological Society

Frances M. Berting Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board and Committee (2000-present) Los Alamos County Council (2001-2008) Formerly Materials Scientist, Hanford (DOE), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Westinghouse, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Vladislav A. Bevc Associate Professor, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey (retired); Formerly Member of the Technical Staff, The Aerospace Corporation; Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution (Stanford University) Senior Member IEEE

Clifford Bruce Bigham Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (retired) Senior Member APS, Sustaining Member CAP

Arie Bodek George E. Pake Professor of Physics University of Rochester Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics (APS) 2004 Fellow APS

John W. Boring Professor Emeritus of Engineering Physics University of Virginia

Lowell S. Brown Emeritus Professor of Physics University of Washington Scientific Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow APS, AAAS

Daniel M. Bubb Associate Professor and Chair Department of Physics Rutgers University -Camden

Timothy D. Calvin President, Bearfoot Corporation (retired) Fabricated rubber products for the DOD, shoe and automobile industries Member ACS

William J. Camp Emeritus Director: Computation, Information, and Mathematics Sandia National Laboratories Co-founder, IUPAP Commission C-20, The Commission on Computational Physics Nova Award for Invention of the Cray XT3 Computer Architecture (Lockheed Martin Corporation) Fellow APS, Member IEEE Computer Society

Mark L. Campbell Professor, Department of Chemistry United States Naval Academy Life Member APS

Gregory H. Canavan Senior Fellow and Scientific Advisor, Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow APS

Jack G. Castle Senior Scientist Sandia National Laboratories (retired) Fellow and Life Member APS

Joseph F. Chiang Professor and Former Chairman Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry State University of New York, Oneonta Life Member APS

Roger W. Cohen Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs ExxonMobil Corporation (retired) Otto Schade Prize (Society for Information Display) 2006 Fellow APS

Barry D. Crane Project Director Institute for Defense Analyses Life Member APS

Steven R. Cranmer Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Karen Harvey Prize (AAS) 2006 Associate Editor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics Member: American Astronomical Society, American Geophysical Union

J. F. Cuderman Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff Sandia National Laboratories (retired), Life Member APS

Jerry M. Cuttler President, Cuttler and Associates, Inc. Engineering, consulting, and licensing services for the nuclear power industry President, Canadian Nuclear Society 1995-1996 Fellow Canadian Nuclear Society, Member American Nuclear Society

James H. Degnan Principal Physicist Directed Energy Directorate Air Force Research Laboratory Fellow APS

Joseph G. Depp Founding President and CEO, Accuray Incorporated (retired) Stereotactic radiosurgery technology Founding President and CEO, PsiStar Incorporated Life Member APS

Riccardo DeSalvo Senior Scientist Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) California Institute of Technology Member ASME

James A. Deye Nuclear and Medical physicist Life Member APS

Eugene H. Dirk APS Division of Astrophysics, and Division of Computational Physics Topical Groups on Gravity, and Precision Measurement and Fundamental Constants

David H. Douglass Professor of Physics University of Rochester Fellow APS

Paul J. Drallos President and CEO, Plasma Dynamics Corporation (retired) Kinetic & fluid dynamic computer simulation services

Murray Dryer Emeritus Scientist Space Weather Prediction Center (retired), NWS National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Member American Astronomical Society, American Geophysical Union, AIAA

William T. Duffy Jr. Professor Emeritus of Physics Santa Clara University

David F. Edwards Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (retired) Formerly Los Alamos National Laboratory; Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Colorado State University; Lincoln Laboratory, MIT

Albert G. Engelhardt President and CEO, Enfitek, Inc. Environmental control and security systems Senior Life Member IEEE

James E. Enstrom Research Professor Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center University of California at Los Angeles Life Member APS

Jens G. Feder Professor of Physics of Geological Processes University of Oslo Fellow APS

Douglas E. Fields Associate Professor Department of Physics and Astronomy University of New Mexico

Michael M. Fitelson Chief Scientist, Micro-Systems Enablers Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems

Harold K. Forsen Senior Vice President, Bechtel Corporation (retired) Governing Board, National Research Council (1994-2003) Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Engineering (1995-2003) Arthur Holly Compton Award (ANS) 1972 Member National Academy of Engineering; Fellow APS, ANS, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bruce L. Freeman Senior Experimental Physicist, Ktech Corporation Formerly Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M Coauthor Explosively Driven Pulsed Power (Springer);

Explosive Pulsed Power (Imperial College) Member IEEE Plasma Sciences, Directed Energy Professional Society

Peter D. Friedman Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Member American Geophysical Union, ASME, American Nuclear Society

Michael H. Frese Designer/Developer of Multiphysics

Simulation Codes and Applications Founder and Managing Member of NumerEx, LLC Member SIAM, IEEE Ian J. Fritz Research Physicist, Sandia National Laboratories (retired) R&D 100 Award 1991 Basic Energy Sciences Sustained Outstanding Achievement Award (DOE) 1993 Lockheed Martin NOVA Award 2001

Rodger L. Gamblin Managing Director Corona Color, LLC

John C. Garth Research Physicist Air Force Research Laboratory (retired) Member ANS, ASTM, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, Computational Medical Physics Working Group

G. Roger Gathers Senior Scientist, M. H. Chew and Associates Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1967-1993) Author, Selected Topics in Shock Wave Physics and

Equation of State Modeling (World Scientific Publishing)

Gary J. Gerardi Professor, Department of Chemistry and Physics William Paterson University

Ivar Giaever Institute Professor, School of Engineering and School of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 Member National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering; Fellow APS

George T. Gillies Research Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Science; and Research Professor, Department of Physics University of Virginia Clinical Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, Virginia Commonwealth University Fellow APS

Damon Giovanielli President, Sumner Associates scientific consultants Former Division Leader, Physics Division Los Alamos National Laboratory LANL staff member, program and line manager (1972-1993) Fellow AAAS

Albert Gold Associate Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University (retired)

Ronald B. Goldfarb National Institute of Standards and Technology Life Member APS

Laurence I. Gould Professor of Physics University of Hartford Member Executive Board of the New England Section of the APS Chairman (2004), New England Section APS

Paul M. Grant EPRI Science Fellow (retired) IBM Research Staff Member Emeritus Senior Life Fellow APS

Howard D. Greyber University of Pennsylvania (retired) Formerly Princeton University, LLNL Theory Group, Northeastern University Member American Astronomical Society, Fellow Royal Astronomical Society

Ronald J. Gripshover Senior Research Physicist Naval Surface Weapons Center (retired)

Mike Gruntman Professor of Astronautics University of Southern California Author, Blazing the Trail. The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry (AIAA) Luigi G. Napolitano Book Award (International Academy of Astronautics) 2006 Member American Geophysical Union, Associate Fellow AIAA

George Hacken Senior Director, Safety-Critical Systems New York City Transit Authority Formerly Senior Member of the Technical Staff, GEC-Marconi Aerospace Chair, New York Chapter, IEEE Computer Society Member AMS, SIAM, ANS, AIAA, New York Academy of Sciences

David S. Hacker Senior Staff Research Engineer Amoco Corporation (retired) Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle (1965-1981) Fellow AIChE

Sultan Hameed Professor of Atmospheric Science School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Stony Brook University, New York

William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University Fellow APS, AAAS Member National Academy of Sciences

Howard C. Hayden Emeritus Professor of Physics University of Connecticut Editor, The Energy Advocate Author, A Primer on CO2 and Climate (Vales Lake)

Dennis B. Hayes Research Physicist Los Alamos, Sandia, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories President, Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies, Inc. (retired) Fellow APS

Jack M. Hollander Professor Emeritus of Energy and Resources, University of California, Berkeley Vice-President Emeritus, The Ohio State University First Head, Energy and Environment Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Fellow APS, AAAS

David B. Holtkamp Scientific Staff Member, Physics Division Los Alamos National Laboratory

John C. Ingraham Scientific Staff Member, retired Los Alamos National Laboratory Member American Geophysical Union

Helen Jackson Research Physicist, Air Force Research Laboratory Wright Laboratory Member Materials Research Society, IEEE

H. Richard Johnson Co-Founder and Former CEO Watkins-Johnson Company (retired) Member National Academy of Engineering, Life Fellow IEEE

James R. Johnson 3M Company (retired) Member Carlton Society (3M Hall of Fame) Member National Academy of Engineering

O’Dean Judd LANL Fellow Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired) Technical Advisor and Consultant Fellow APS, IEEE, AAAS

Andrew Kaldor Distinguished Scientific Advisor Manager of Breakthrough Research ExxonMobil Corporation (retired) Fellow AAAS, Member ACS

Alexander E. Kaplan Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering The Johns Hopkins University Max Born Award (Optical Society of America) 2005 Alexander von Humboldt Award (von Humboldt Foundation) 1996 Fellow OSA

Thomas J. Karr Director in the Advanced Concepts & Technology Division Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1984-1996) Editor, Applied Optics (1991-1994) Member OSA, AAAS; Senior Member IEEE

Jonathan Katz Professor of Physics Washington University

William E. Keller Leader, Low Temperature Physics Group 1971-1985 Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired) Fellow APS

John M. Kennel Autonetics Division, Boeing North American (retired) Formerly Electronics Division, Northrop Grumman Corporation Member AAAS, AIAA

Paul I. Kingsbury Manager, Physical Properties Research Department Corning Inc. (retired)

Robert S. Knox Professor of Physics Emeritus University of Rochester Member APS Council (1985-1988) Fellow APS

M. Kristiansen C.B.Thornton/P.W.Horn Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Texas Tech University Fellow APS, IEEE

Moyses Kuchnir Applied Scientist Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (retired) Life Member APS, Member IEEE, AAAS

Joseph A. Kunc Professor, Physics and Astronomy University of Southern California Fellow APS

Robert E. LeLevier Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1951-1957) Physics Department, RAND Corp (1957-1971) R&D Associates (1971-1983) Eos Technologies, Inc. (1983-1993)

Paul L. La Celle Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering Former Chair, Department of Biophysics University of Rochester Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, Frankfort

Robert E. Levine Industrial and Defense Physics and Engineering (retired) Member ACM, IEEE

Harold W. Lewis Professor of Physics Emeritus University of California at Santa Barbara Chairman, Defense Science Board Panel on Nuclear Winter Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study Fellow APS, AAAS

John D. Lindl James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (APS) 2007 Fellow APS, AAAS

Xavier Llobet Research Associate Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Gabriel G. Lombardi Senior Scientist, Phase Coherence, Inc. National Research Council Associate (NIST, 1980-82) Life Member APS, Member OSA

Michael D. Lubin Colonel, United States Air Force (retired)

Alfred U. MacRae President, MacRae Technologies Member National Academy of Engineering, Fellow APS, IEEE

Phillip W. Mange Associate Superintendent, Space Science Division Scientific Consultant to the Director of Research, Naval Research Laboratory (retired)

John E. Mansfield Vice Chairman Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

Kristanka Marinova Department of Chemical Engineering Faculty of Chemistry Sofia University

Joseph Maserjian Senior Research Scientist, California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory (retired)

John H. McAdoo Aerospace Physicist Member IEEE, AAAS

Thomas A. McClelland Vice President, Commercial Products Frequency Electronics, Inc.

Harold Mirels Principal Scientist, The Aerospace Corporation (retired) Fellow APS, AIAA Member National Academy of Engineering

Jim Mitroy Lecturer in Physics, School of Engineering and Information Technology Charles Darwin University, Australia

Michael Monce Professor of Physics, Astronomy, and Geophysics Connecticut College Member AAPT, American Geophysical Union

Nasif Nahle Scientific Research Director Biology Cabinet, Mexico Member AAAS, New York Academy of Sciences

Rodney W. Nichols President and CEO, New York Academy of Sciences (1992-2001) Vice President and Executive Vice President, The Rockefeller University (1970-1990) Secretary of Defense Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Civilian Service (1970) Fellow AAAS, New York Academy of Sciences

Gordon C. Oehler Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Working Group Chairman, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Corporate Vice President for Corporate Development, SAIC (1998-2004) National Intelligence Officer for Science, Technology and Proliferation (1989-1992)

William P. Oliver Professor of Physics Tufts University Life Member APS

Frank R. Paolini Adjunct Professor of Physics University of Connecticut at Stamford (retired) Senior Member APS, Member IEEE

Daniel N. Payton III Senior Scientist, SAIC (1992-present) Eos Technologies (1984-1992) Technical Director of Nuclear Technology Air Force Weapons Laboratory (1976-1984)

Erik M. Pell Xerox Corporation (retired) Author: From Dreams to Riches – The Story of Xerography (Carlson) Edward Goodrich Acheson Medal (Electrochemical Society) 1986 President, Electrochemical Society (1980-1981) Fellow APS, Honorary Member ECS, Senior Member IEEE

Thomas E. Phipps, Jr. Physicist (retired) Operations Evaluation Group, MIT US Naval Ordnance Laboratory Senior Member APS

Donald Rapp Chief Technologist, Mechanical and Chemical Systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (retired) Professor of Physics and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas (1973-1979) Author, “Assessing Climate Change” and “Ice Ages and Interglacials” (Springer-Verlag) Fellow APS

Ned S. Rasor Consulting Physicist Formerly President and CEO, Rasor Associates, Inc. Member IEEE, AIAA

Richard T. Rauch NASA Stennis Space Center Life Member APS, Associate Fellow AIAA

John E. Rhoads Professor of Physics Midwestern State University (retired) Member SPE

Harry I. Ringermacher Sr. Research Physicist General Electric Global Research Center AIP “History of Physics in Industry” Participant at GE Sir William Herschel Medal (American Academy of Thermology) Copper Black Award (American Mensa) 2003 and 2007

Stanley Robertson Emeritus Professor of Physics Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Berol Robinson Principal Scientific Officer UNESCO (retired) Member AAPT, AAAS, Association des Écologistes Pour le Nucléaire

Daniel J. Rogers Staff Scientist Applied Information Sciences Department Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Member OSA

Robert C. Rohr Reactor Physicist Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (retired) Former Adjunct Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Kelly R. Roos Professor of Physics Bradley University

Isaac C. Sanchez William J. Murray, Jr. Chair in Engineering and Associate Chair Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin

U.S. Department of Commerce Medals 1980, 1983 Edward U. Condon Award (NIST) 1983; SPE International Research Award 1996 Member National Academy of Engineering, Fellow APS

Raymond E. Sarwinski President, Cryogenic Designs, Inc. Life Member APS

Nicola Scafetta Research Scientist, Physics Department, Duke University Member American Geophysical Union

Mark D. Semon Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy Bates College Member American Academy of Forensic Scientists, American College of Forensic Examiners

Thomas P. Sheahen President/ CEO, Western Technology, Inc. (energy sciences consulting) Member AAAS; APS Congressional Science Fellowship (1977-78) Author, Introduction to High Temperature Superconductivity (Springer)

Arnold J. Sierk Technical Staff Member Theoretical Division Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow APS

Joseph Silverman Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering University of Maryland Fellow APS, ANS

S. Fred Singer Professor of Environmental Sciences Emeritus University of Virginia First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service Fellow APS, AAAS, American Geophysical Union

Frans W. Sluijter Professor, Department of Applied Physics Eindhoven University of Technology Former Chair, Plasma Physics Division, European Physics Society Former Vice President, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Member Dutch Physical Society, Institute of Physics UK

John R. Smith Project Physicist, Experimental High Energy Physics Department of Physics University of California, Davis Life Member APS

Hermann Statz Raytheon Corporation (retired) Microwave Pioneer Award (IEEE) 2004 Fellow APS

Nick Steph Chair, Department of Physics Franklin College Member AAPT, ACS

Peter Stilbs Professor of Physical Chemistry Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden Life Member APS

Norman D. Stockwell Senior Project Engineer, TRW (retired) Former Member of the Technical Staff, The Aerospace Corporation Life Member APS, Member AAAS

Thomas F. Stratton Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired) Fellow APS

William R. Stratton Scientific Staff Member Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired) Member AEC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety Chair ANS Nuclear Reactor Accident Study Fellow ANS

Szymon Suckewer Professor of School of Engineering & Applied Sciences Director of Plasma Science & Technology Program Princeton University Fellow APS, OSA

Ronald M. Sundelin Associate Director, DOE Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (retired) Commonwealth Professor Emeritus of Physics, Virginia Tech Fellow APS

Andrei Szilagyi Formerly Chief Scientist, Aura Systems, Inc. Chief Technologist, Radiant Technology Corporation Chief Scientist, NanoMuscle Inc. Member MRS, Electrochemical Society, TMS – The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society

Willard L. Talbert Scientific Consultant (1993-present) Scientific Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1976-1993 (retired) Professor of Physics, Iowa State University (1961-1976) Fellow APS

Lu Ting Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University Lead Author, Vortex Dominated Flows (Applied Mathematical Sciences, Springer) Member SIAM, AIAA, AAM

Frank J. Tipler Professor of Mathematical Physics Tulane University Coauthor, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford University Press)

Salvatore Torquato Professor of Chemistry and the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, Materials Institute and Applied & Computational Mathematics Princeton University 2009 APS David Alder Lectureship Award in the Field of Material Physics Fellow APS

Rusty S. Towell Professor of Physics Abilene Christian University Member IEEE

Edward S. Troy Principal Engineer Aerospace Consulting Wireless, RF, microwave, analog/DSP, and GPS circuits and systems Member IEEE

William B. Walters Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1986) ACS Award in Nuclear Chemistry (2001) Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow, University of Mainz (2002) Life Member APS, Member ACS

Samuel A. Werner Curators’ Professor Emeritus The University of Missouri Guest Researcher, NIST Fellow APS, AAAS

Bruce J. West Adjunct Professor of Physics Duke University Fellow APS

Peter J. Wojtowicz Group Head, Senior Member Technical Staff (retired) RCA Labs, GE, Sarnoff Corporation Fellow APS

Ya-Hong Xie Professor of Materials Science and Engineering University of California at Los Angeles Senior Member IEEE, Member Materials Research Society

M. John Yoder Principal Physicist The MITRE Corporation Life Member APS

Claude Zeller Principal Fellow Pitney Bowles Inc. Member IEEE

Martin V. Zombeck Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (retired) Author, Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics (Cambridge University Press) Coauthor, High Resolution X-Ray Spectroscopy of Cosmic Plasmas (Cambridge University Press)

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MartinGAtkins
November 2, 2009 1:25 pm

paullm (12:20:41) :
I can’t imagine NOAA leaving it up very much longer:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/atmos/ll_gas.htm
I think it’s a hack. (spoof)

Ron de Haan
November 2, 2009 1:28 pm

Kerry send reply to letter from Josph D’Aleo
Nov 02, 2009
Response Letter from John Kerry to My Letter on the Kerry-Boxer Bill
Dear Mr. and Mrs D’Aleo
Thank you for writing to me about climate change. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.
Read the entire bogus at http://www.icecap.us second column.
D’Aleo calls all of you to write to Kerry to shake him out of his Green Dream that clouds his brain.

Zeke the Sneak
November 2, 2009 1:34 pm

The statement of the APS Council:
“The evidence is incontrovertible:
If…mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in
the Earth’s physical and ecological systems[like water scarcity created by gov’t rationing],
social systems,
security and
human health are likely to occur.”

The truth was buried in there, but I found it!
“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.” –Ronaldus Maximus

November 2, 2009 1:36 pm

Leif,
That letter depressed me.

rbateman
November 2, 2009 1:42 pm

paullm (12:20:41) :
Therefore, discovering the validity of global warming is complex as well

It’s complex, all right. It’s so complex it has yet to be discovered.
You have a hypothesis that has failed to replace the null hypothesis to any confidence level. The proof is as thin as the trace gas upon which it was inflated.
If AGW were candy, it would be hypothetical M&M’s. They vaporize into thin air as soon as the bag is opened. After a while, you get tired of spending your time & money examining empty bags of candy. The world can ill afford to invest in such vaporous returns that AGW has produced.

Bernie
November 2, 2009 1:48 pm

But how can that experiment be relevant to the impact of increases in CO2? Would not Boyle’s law ensure that the temperature went up simply by adding the seltzer tablets? (P.S. It is 40 + years since I did such calculations for O and A-levels, so my apologies if I misremembered.)

Charles Higley
November 2, 2009 1:55 pm

To Vincent:
I agree.
Climate science is mostly not that complicated and any good scientist with a solid general background can understand the principles involved, interpret data and graphs, and see that the “climate science” of the alarmists does not have any defendable science to speak of. When you get into the energy flux and balances, the math gets a bit dicey, but most of it concerns fairly basic aspects of the sciences. It is only those who do not want others to look too closely at the science who want to pretend that it is above the heads of all but “their climate scientists.”

Stefan
November 2, 2009 2:00 pm

Joel Shore (11:30:15) :
George E. Smith:
Well if “the science is settled”, the only legislation I am intereted in re climate; is to now defund any future climate research; and start funding the engineering that will be needed (they say) to develop alternatives in the way of energy.

That is a big strawman that you have erected. Nobody in the know claims that there are not still significant uncertainties regarding climate change. However, just because there are many aspects that scientists are trying to understand better does not mean that they don’t understand anything…and, in particular, understand enough to be able to say with quite a bit of confidence that, “Houston, we have a problem!”

Actually if you’re pretty sure CO2 is the problem, then it is more important to find engineering solutions than it is to figure out the particulars of whether hurricanes will increase 50% or 80%. All you really need to know is that you’re heading for rapid changes, so how do you cope with that? How do you harden your infrastructure? How do you cope with population movements? These are enormous questions. There is only one thing anybody needs to know about climate, and that’s that it can suddenly change. That’s really the end of the story as far as anyone concerned with anything practical is concerned.
There is no straw man. Mr Smith is right. The priority is technologies for coping and adapting. Climatology at this point is pretty much just academic.
It is the same with a rock from space. We know it could happen. The question isn’t when, the question is how could we cope.
The fact that there remain uncertainties will always be of interest to scientists and academic, the people who study for the love of knowledge.
But the money needs to go where it is needed most. And right now that’s practical technologies.
I know it sounds like I’m anti-AGW, and I’m just seizing on this as a convenient argument to dismiss the field, but actually I found myself far more in line with Mr Black Swan, who describes himself as an uber-green, simply because he thinks we vastly underestimate our vulnerability to unpredictable events, and therefore we need to build resiliency, backups, technologies for adapting to whatever comes, because chances are, we won’t see it coming anyway.
I mean, I will not be surprised if in 5 years they discover that CO2 was never a problem, but in the meantime something else we did was actually the cause of massive climate change. So how do you prepare for that? You start preparing anyway, in whatever ways you can.
That is the real danger of “settled” science—the overconfidence draws your attention away from the Black Swans.

Pieter F
November 2, 2009 2:18 pm

I have a colleague at Harvard who advises the National Academy of Sciences on certain issues. She tells me that following the transmogrification of the Mann hockey stick into a badminton racquet, skepticism abounds now at the NAS. If the the APS holds an opposite option to the NAS, I’d guess there is no consensus whatsoever.

JAN
November 2, 2009 2:21 pm

Joel Shore (11:24:17) :
“The APS has 46,000 members ( http://aps.org/about/history/index.cfm or maybe more since I am not sure how up-to-date that number is). So, the 162 members who signed this statement represent ~0.35% of the membership.”
—-
“The APS has a standing statement on climate change still in effect that is very clear on the subject.”
Since the APS allegedly didn’t poll the opinion of a single member before issuing the standing statement on climate change still in effect, maybe you can do us the favor Joel of calculating the percentage of membership who signed that statement?

Ron de Haan
November 2, 2009 2:25 pm

In the mean time the AGW religion is united with all other religions:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/religions-unite-against-global-warming.html

JamesG
November 2, 2009 2:29 pm

Now if they can just tell us where all the anti-matter went after the big bang….

Kevin Kilty
November 2, 2009 2:30 pm

I quit the APS in the mid 1990s over their trying to patch things up with the post-modern literary folks via the Sokal affair. They have only become more “political” in the meanwhile. I quit the AAAS a year ago. I couldn’t stand the political drift of the organization under John Holdren and Don Kennedy as Editor of Science.
Someone earlier on this post had it right. The “political types” will work tirelessly to gain control of any organization. And there is little point in trying to work from within. The best tactic is to develop alterative scientific organizations.

Gene Nemetz
November 2, 2009 2:32 pm

Lucy Skywalker (11:08:17) :
And I hear that the bad era of Connolley as Wiki admin has finally ended
Do you have a link to this news?

Mr. Kaos
November 2, 2009 2:48 pm

“Joel Shore (11:24:17) :
The APS has 46,000 members ( http://aps.org/about/history/index.cfm or maybe more since I am not sure how up-to-date that number is). So, the 162 members who signed this statement represent ~0.35% of the membership”
Well, that is a very unsceintific representation of the situation.
How many physicist (NOT their representivie bodies) have recently signed a letter saying that catastrophic AGW is real & we must act now?

Jordan
November 2, 2009 3:07 pm

Perhaps members could tell the APS (and others) that you have earmarked your subscriptions as the funds you will use for your cost of carbon credits (or similar scheme). You will therefore alert them to their own sacrifice in “saving the planet”, and will be able to carry out a cost-benefit analaysis of their next political intervention on the subject.
George E. Smith (10:50:57) : “climate “researchers” in academia should redirect your careers into engineering”
Ain’t gonna work George. They’ll spend years and immense amount of money using sophisticated computer models to demonstrate the operation of a machine based on the principle of heat amplification by positive feedback. Only to familiarise themselves with the law of conservation of energy when they turn the ignition.

Richard
November 2, 2009 3:07 pm

Can we have a picture of “Baghdad Bob” or “Comical Ali” with Al Gore? Preferably with his arms around him.
With a caption something like – Yes Anthropogenic Global Warming is real. Vacate your beachside condos and head for the Hills. We’ll buy them from you for a song…

Richard
November 2, 2009 3:14 pm

Joel Shore (11:24:17) : The APS has 46,000 members ..So, the 162 members who signed this statement represent ~0.35% of the membership.
Yes but the letter (you linked somewhere) sent to Obama was sent by only one signatory, so that 162 figure represents a 16,200% majority.

NickB
November 2, 2009 3:14 pm

savethesharks (12:16:35) :
“The younger ones have to keep bread on the table for the family…so many of them dare not speak against the great Oz.”
True, but what all publicly-funded scientists should realise is that while the gravy train is running at full tilt now, should any climate agreement stifle the economic well-being of the developed nations, their funding will be among the first to suffer. Look no further than the 25% cut at the UK Met Office.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/hadley_centre_for_climate_change_budget_cut_mod_funding/
If you have doubts, young scientists, now is the time to express them! You may even secure your future funding! 🙂

Douglas Taylor
November 2, 2009 3:33 pm

Reference: George Smith, and Joel Shore
Early on in my scientific career I was told that when the error bars of 2 independent measurements, or an independent measure, and a prediction of a model overlapped, then then the results were consistent, and the prediction agreed with the measurement. This is not quite true. I’ll illustrate this idea with two examples from the opposite ends of the spectrum. The second law of thermodynamics, and the famous or infamous Drake Equation(First SETI Conference on the scientific search for extraterrestials). The predictions of the 2nd law of therm, has not seen any experimental challenges to it with millions or maybe billions of experiments. The error bars are very narrow, and they overlap. , The second law is cast in concrete. On the other hand,the Drake equation can have any value from “billions, and billions” to zero. The error bars are GIGANTIC, so of course they overlap(or to quote Michael Crichton “An expression that could mean anything, means nothing”). The problem with climate science today is both the models (i.e General Circulaton Models(GCMs+ add ons), and the Experimental data have large error bars, which has not really been addresses adequately by the climate alarmist. The coupling, and the boundary conditons of these models require adjustible parameters( rudely called “fudge factors”, or in polite society as physical data with a lot of “wiggleworm”–Freeman Dyson) . One example is the effect of clouds, on radiative feedback, but there are other fudge factors which can effect the projections of the models.
Watts, and McIntire have shed an enormous spotlight on significant problems with the experimental data of Climate Science, and for that reason they should be elevated to the status of scientific heroes.
As a retired scientist and engineer, I think that the political wing of the alamist community has elevated climate science to the level of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If the science is “settled”, then all research monies should be zeroed out, and the monies should be spent on mitigation. If the Science is not settled, then there should be continued money spent of research, to narrow the error bars.
I can recall that Fred Seitz, past president of the National Academy, head of Rockefellow University, who is considered the Father of the Skeptic wing, ennuciated the statement, about reducing the size of the error bars, and actively pursuing this point of view, triggered a violent reaction(lunch mob) from the alarmist community. The political wing (e.g. Greenpiece[exxonWatch], DeSmog Blog, Bob Park(Voodoo Science Fame), launched a vicious “Ad Hominen” campaign against him

George E. Smith
November 2, 2009 3:36 pm

“”” Joel Shore (11:30:15) :
George E. Smith:
Well if “the science is settled”, the only legislation I am intereted in re climate; is to now defund any future climate research; and start funding the engineering that will be needed (they say) to develop alternatives in the way of energy.
That is a big strawman that you have erected. Nobody in the know claims that there are not still significant uncertainties regarding climate change. “””
‘Twas not I who erected the strawman Joel; maybe AlGore, and his expert science advisor Dr.James Hansen. They are the ones who have been trumpeting that the science is settled and that disagreement with that is “unacceptible” and should lead to bad consequences for any dissenter.
And I’m certainly not the originator of the notion that government funding shoulkd switch from climate research to alternative energy solitions.
I’m not in favor of any government funding of either of those things; there’s no Constitutional authority for that.
Sorry if that Gores your ox Joel; I know that swilling at the taxpayer’s trough must be fun; but this taxpayer would rather fund what the Constitution tells them to fund; not what they think will buy them votes.

Tenuc
November 2, 2009 3:58 pm

If you think Physicists are sceptical, just have a chat to our nearest Geologist… :-))
Good to see some real scientific muscle ‘coming out’.

George E. Smith
November 2, 2009 4:00 pm

Joel,
I am not against funding of climate research; there are lots of people with big money who have vested interests in knowing what either weather or climate changes are going to mean for their future; including their economic future.
So there are plenty who are willing and able to continue to support “climate scientists”.
It is just taxpayer funding that I believe is a misuse of public funds. I have a friend who is a metorologist; who makes relatively long range weather forecasts (longer than a week say; ) and he gets paid good money to be correct in his forecasts; by people who have a huge investment in the outcome.
I once worked in an industry blue sky lab environment; although our particular group had a charter to develop real hardware immediately; but I got to observe research solid state physicists, and materials scientists in action; and as soon as they started to run into the real practical difficulties of the material system they were studying (this happened to be LED materials research); instead of working on the far more difficult practical problems of the technology; they just wanted to move on to a new material; and be the first to publish on that material; even if what they published turned out to be hay that had already been once through the horse.
Subsequently, I was able to join with a small band of practical entrepeneurs; to take one of those sidelined materials technologies, and make a real company around it; that brought products to the market, long before any of those fancy materials showed any promise.
Even today, I still get kudos for doing that, from some clever people who were at Bell Telephone laboratories working on the material that never made it; and also from some very astute academia researchers who pioneered the material that we were able to turn into a technology.
It’s all obsolete today; but I believe we can point to the difference we made in getting to where that technology is today.

November 2, 2009 4:14 pm

Joel Shore (11:24:17) says:
“…the 162 members who signed this statement represent ~0.35% of the membership.”
OK. Then using Joel Shore’s own ‘logic’, at least eleven posters here out of 67 disagreed with Joel. Not one agrees. That represents around 16% of the comments.
But wait, it gets better. Out of the 26 comments following Shore’s, 11 disagreed. Now we’re over 40% who disagree with Joel Shore.
But I can make it even better. The three posts immediately following Shore’s comment don’t agree with Joel Shore. That means that Joel is only at 25%. The other 75% is the consensus [at that point in time, of course; I’m just using alarmist tactics here].
But as Einstein replied to the one hundred scientists who signed a letter disputing relativity, ”To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.” All it takes is one fact to deconstruct the CO2=AGW conjecture. The number of scientists doesn’t matter.
To dispute CO2=AGW, here’s a fact: despite a [97% natural] increase in CO2, the current climate is well within its natural, long-term parameters. Nothing unusual is occurring. Not a thing. The climate is actually quite benign, despite the red faced, spittle flecked arm-waving of the AGW crowd.
I might add that it is not the duty of scientific skeptics to prove anything. We’re skeptical, see? We question — and we’re not getting honest answers.
The climate alarmists are the ones who have the burden of convincing us that CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, as they have repeatedly predicted. But they are not even capable of falsifying the theory of natural climate variability. And they deviously hide their raw data and methodologies, asking everyone to — get this — trust them.
What happened in the APS is simple: the organization has been hijacked by activists with an agenda. All it takes are one or two who know what they’re doing, as Prof Lindzen has explained.
If the APS wanted the honest opinion of its membership, they would simply invite some members known to be skeptical of AGW to help design a secret ballot poll, and ask the rank-and-file membership what it thinks. But they don’t.
The fact that they deliberately ignore their membership’s opinion means that they know damned well that the members won’t agree with their position; the number of signers who disputed the APS position is far greater than the APS executive board that approved its propaganda letter in the name of the organization.
When organizations have to resort to shenanigans like this, it shows that the truth is not in them.

Murray
November 2, 2009 4:21 pm

I am always amazed that scientists who demand sound theory and verifiable data to support their positions (correctly) while rejecting unverifiable model results will accept on faith the unsupported word of economists (or politicians) based on no more than dubious modelling results, without even checking the assumptions underlying the models. There is no more reason to believe that global warming mitigation efforts will “destroy our economy”, than to believe in the potential for catastrophic AGW. Most of the readers of this blog make the same leap of economic faith that they refuse to make for scientific faith, but for many of them it is less surprising as there is some probability that, atv least for the less scientific among them, their disbelief in AGW is also, at least in part, faith based. I am an AGW denier also, although an east coast liberal intellectual denier (y’all didn’t know that such a creature could exist, did you?), but I also have a great deal of experience in energy efficiency, rather less in renewable energy, and more than a little in CO2 mitigation. We can only reduce our CO2 footprint by reducing the use of fossil fuel energy, and almost everything we can do toward that goal will have economic benefit. Economic models that say otherwise are developed without knowledge of the real world of energy on the part of the modellers, and the ones that I have reviewed are based on 2 totally invalid assumptions. Addressing CO2 to the benefit of our energy future is doing the right thing for the wrong reason, but is much better than doing nothing.