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Monday, July 30th, 2012

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

Author:     RICHARD A. MULLER, PhD
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     28-Jul-12
 Link: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
Stephan:   This is the difference between a skeptic, even a hard core skeptic like Muller, and a denier. Skeptic is based on the Greek word Skeptikos, which means to doubt and inquire. All good scientists should be skeptics. But that is quite different than the willful ignorance of denierism. I do not agree with Muller about the glaciers, and I don't think he fully appreciates the implications of sea rise. However, in spite of his initial rejection of climate change he moved his position on the basis of data, and I think that needs to be applauded. Richard A. Muller, is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow. He is the author, most recently, of 'Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.

BERKLEY, CA — CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming […]

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