Global warming skeptic now says: It's true

In this Oct. 28, 2011 photo, Richard Muller, left, and his daughter, Elizabeth Muller, pose with a map from their study on climate at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Their new study of Earth's temperatures going back more than 200 years backs generally-accepted science that the planet has gotten hotter in the last 60 years. / AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

WASHINGTON - A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature

He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to cable TV's satirical "The Daily Show" is paying attention, is who is behind the study.

One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the conservative Tea Party movement. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions.

Muller's research team carefully examined two chief criticisms by skeptics. One is that weather stations are unreliable; the other is that cities, which create heat islands, were skewing the temperature analysis.

"The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago," Muller said in a telephone interview. "And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

Muller said that he came into the study "with a proper skepticism," something scientists "should always have. I was somewhat bothered by the fact that there was not enough skepticism" before.

There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to climate change skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.

Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.

"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said. Still, he contends that threat is not as proven as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is.

Muller: The case against global warming skepticism (WSJ)

On Monday, Muller was taking his results — four separate papers that are not yet published or peer-reviewed, but will be, he says — to a conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, expected to include many prominent skeptics as well as mainstream scientists.

"Of course he'll be welcome," said Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Lab, a noted skeptic and the conference organizer. "The purpose of our conference is to bring people with different views on climate together, so they can talk and clarify things."

Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of the book "Fool Me Twice" that criticizes science skeptics, said Muller should expect to be harshly treated by global warming deniers. "Now he's considered a traitor. For the skeptic community, this isn't about data or fact. It's about team sports. He's been traded to the Indians. He's playing for the wrong team now."

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[offthefence]

Now they're just going to say that it is Obama's fault.

[amerilatino]

Global warming occurs when there is a change in the atmosphere that causes it to retain more solar energy and to express it in the form of heat. This in turn may reconvert into kinetic energy in the form of evaporation and convection, which translates into increased severe weather as well, the reverse is also true. Anything that changes the opacity of the atmosphere or the parts of the light spectrum that it reflects or absorbs, will therefore affect the weather. Folks that are either too young or too historically uninformed to deny this obviously have never heard of the changes in global weather after the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, the spectacular change in the Pittsburgh weather after enforcement of the anti-pollution laws there during the 1940s, the die-off in 1950s London caused by smog or a similar event that occurred in California around the same time in which the pollution combined with a trapped summertime warm air cell, sickening hundreds with heat exposure and respiratory problems. Anti-pollution legislation has done a lot over the years to largely eliminate particulates from the air we breath, but industrial gas emission is still there, and it DOES have a cumulative effect when allowed to concentrate (acid rain, cloud seeding, ozone depletion). We already know these things to be fact from practical experience (well, not everybody), so why keep denying it?

[VictorAshesLoveChild]

Remember, the idea that seven billion people, one billion cars and trucks, and several million factories actually emit enough BTUs to alter the climate is RIDICULOUS, and a liberal lie.

Actually, they're COOLING the atmosphere, by some process known only to Rush Limbaugh's proctologist.

[1988JAck]

You mean the Koch Brothers can't buy this guy like they have bought everything else? Most notably Gov. Walker of Wisconsin? What a shame!

[VictorAshesLoveChild]

AmericansConscious believes that seven billion people, hundreds of millions of cars, and hundreds of thousands of factories are cooling the planet.

AmericansConscious is funded by the Koch brothers.

[P0ST1ING_AWAY]

by AmericansConscious October 31, 2011 9:01 AM EDT
Shut up stupid rude B-i-ach Ms_anema!
LOL!
==================================================
You boyfriend might think your prose is cute ....
but the educated amongst us think you are just a drooling moron.

[P0ST1ING_AWAY]

by chevyhotrod October 31, 2011 6:54 AM EDT
.............................................
The earth has alway warmed and cooled, since the day it was created.
=============================================
Thanks for keeping the retard point of view on the front
burner.
The issue at hand is HOW MUCH WARMER and WHY IS IT HAPPENING.
You are just another problem we have.
I know you will deny this too ... but
Global Stupidity is a problem.

[dantom39]

More BS.

[P0ST1ING_AWAY]

by AmericansConscious October 31, 2011 7:33 AM EDT
The story headline made it sound like more tha just two sceptics started to pretend to believe in this hoax.
I wonder how mush they sold out for.
==================================================
How much is the National Stupidity Foundation (Sarah Palin President,
Michelle Bachmann Treasurer) paying YOU to say this ????
Or ... are you just a freelance moron parroting nonsense
from Faux Noise ????

[ricktrick]

It's about Effing time these morons join the human race. Took him long enough.

Now what can be done to drag the Republician party into the 21st century?