[ExI] I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss

[Stefano Vaj]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/28/nasa_climate_theon/

<<*I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss*

*Hansen supervisor takes aim at thermageddon*

By Andrew Orlowski <andrew.orlowski at theregister.co.uk> • Get more from this
author <http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Andrew%20Orlowski>

The retired scientist formerly in charge of key NASA climate programs has
come out as a sceptic.

Dr John Theon, who supervised James Hansen - the activist-scientist who
helped give the manmade global warming hypothesis centre prominent media
attention - repents at length in a published letter. Theon wrote to the
Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15,
2009, and excerpts were published by skeptic Senator Inhofe's office
here<http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320>last
night.

"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. "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who
disagree that global warming is man made."

Theon takes aim at the models, and implicitly criticises Hansen for revising
to the data set:

"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. 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."

Hansen is in charge of the GISS data set, derived from readings published by
NOAA. The GISS adjustment have received criticism (a potted summary
here<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/nasa_giss_cockup_catalog/print.html>)
for revising the historic record in an upward direction - and making
undocumented and unexplained revisions.

Theon also takes issue with Hansen's claim that he was suppressed by NASA
officialdom, and states that the science didn't support Hansen's
increasingly apocalyptic warnings of an imminent thermageddon.

"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."

Hansen has called for energy industry executives to be jailed for dissenting
from the man-made warming hypothesis. (R)>>

-- 
Stefano Vaj
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20090128/984c64c5/attachment.html>