News Article: Former Global Warming Skeptic Makes a 'Total Turnaround'

[Bamaro]

A prominent scientist who was skeptical of the evidence that climate change was real, let alone that it was caused by humans, now says he has made a "total turnaround." Richard Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, says he has become convinced that "the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct," and that humans are "almost entirely the cause" of that warming.
Muller co-founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) team two years ago in order to independently assess what he viewed as questionable evidence of global warming. In a series of papers published last year, BEST presented their statistical analysis of 1.6 billion temperature reports spanning the last 200 years, controlling for possible biases in the data that are often cited by skeptics as reasons to doubt the reality of global warming.
Their analysis indicated that global warming is real — that the average global land temperature has risen by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) since 1750, including 1.5 degrees F (0.9 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years. The numbers closely agree with the findings of past studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and others; but finally, they were rigorous enough to satisfy Muller.

http://news.yahoo.com/former-global-warming-skeptic-makes-total-turnaround-113037588.html
I report, you decide.

 

[MattinBama]

I would be willing to bet the balance of his grant funding coincides with this turnaround as well.

 

[Bamaro]

I would be willing to bet the balance of his grant funding coincides with this turnaround as well.

So global warming skeptics are available to the highest bidder?

 

[banjeaux]

http://news.yahoo.com/former-global-warming-skeptic-makes-total-turnaround-113037588.html
I report, you decide.

University of California, Berkeley, eh?

I told some friends about your post.

 

[Bamaro]

University of California, Berkeley, eh?

I told some friends about your post.

Hanging around with your peers now I see.

 

[MattinBama]

So global warming skeptics are available to the highest bidder?

Just saying that a lot of opinions can change when you get more money & less hassle for going with the party line. That goes for global warming and other science as well.

May not be the case here, but then again it may.

 

[Bamaro]

Just saying that a lot of opinions can change when you get more money & less hassle for going with the party line. That goes for global warming and other science as well.

May not be the case here, but then again it may.

Research cant be done pro bono.

 

[ValuJet]

Ya lost me at Berkeley.

Remember a few years ago when UT played their first or second game at Cal and all the protesters were living in trees around the stadium to keep the university from cutting them down?

Yeah, that was Berkeley. There's something in the pot out there.

 

[mikes12]

I thought you'd bring us this other study from earlier in the month:

http://news.yahoo.com/does-tree-ring-study-put-chill-global-warming-170718316.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...man-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

 

[banjeaux]

Research cant be done pro bono.

Cher Bono weren't no pro when I hitched a ride from Mobile to Memphis.

 

[Bamaro]

Looks like she could be a pro to me.

 

[Relayer]

Yet, and still and the end of the day...

" These facts don't prove causality and they shouldn't end skepticism..."

per the author of the linked article

 

[seebell]

Just saying that a lot of opinions can change when you get more money & less hassle for going with the party line. That goes for global warming and other science as well.

May not be the case here, but then again it may.

Unfortunately it sometimes works that way.

 

[seebell]

Cher Bono weren't no pro when I hitched a ride from Mobile to Memphis.

In yo dreams hitch hiker:biggrin: Cher was Hawt.

 

[CharminTide]

Lots of global warming skeptic skeptics in here.

 

[gmart74]

in related news, manbearpigs have experienced a population explosion.

 

[JPT4Bama]

So he made a total turnaround? That settles it then. Whew, glad that's over.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Who really cares? Live long enough & there will be yet another something going to wipe us out that needs immediate taxpayer funding.

It will be something that we like that we'll be told will destroy the world or huge chunks of population. Those who point out basic flaws in the presentation will be accused of being "anti-science."

Sound familiar?

 

[Bamaro]

Yet, and still and the end of the day...

" These facts don't prove causality and they shouldn't end skepticism..."

per the author of the linked article

Well, lets look at the entire statement

The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we've tried," he wrote Saturday (July 28) in a New York Times editorial. "Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don't prove causality and they shouldn't end skepticism, but they raise the bar: To be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does."
That's a high bar indeed. In graphs released with the new study, a red line representing the atmoaspheric concentration of CO2 crawls across the decades almost exactly tracing the black line representing the observed warming of the Earth

Sounds very similar to the cigarette debate of the 60s. We all know how that turned out.

 

[Bamaro]

I thought you'd bring us this other study from earlier in the month:

http://news.yahoo.com/does-tree-ring-study-put-chill-global-warming-170718316.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...man-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

I guess you were referring to this from the tree ring study:

"Our study doesn't go against anthropogenic global warming in any way," said Robert Wilson, a paleoclimatologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a co-author of the study, which appeared July 8 in the journal Nature Climate Change. The tree rings do help fill in a piece of Earth's complicated climate puzzle, he said. However, it is climate change deniers who seem to have misconstrued the bigger picture.

But it's old news that Northern Europe experienced a natural warm period 2,000 years ago and during the 11th century. Not much is known about the Roman period, but the medieval warm spell primarily resulted from a decrease in volcanic activity, Wilson said. Volcanic ash in the atmosphere tends to block the sun, decreasing Earth's surface temperature.

The current warming, on the other hand, has nothing to do with volcanoes. "None of this changes the fact that the current warming can't be modeled based on natural forces alone," he said. "Anthropogenic [greenhouse gas] emissions are the predominant forces in the late 20th century and early 21st century period."