Study Paid for in Part by Skeptics Finds Raising Temps

Study paid for in part by skeptics finds raising temps. Physicist to detail report’s findings at climate change conference.

By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press/Record
October 31, 2011

WASHINGTON-A prominent physicist and skeptic of climate change 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 climate change deniers.  He pursued long-help 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 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.

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 today, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

What’s different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to “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 tea party.  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.  “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 skeptics.  Muller did not address in his research the cause of climate change.  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.  But he contends the threat is not as proven as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is.

Today, Muller will take his results- four separate papers that are not yet published or peer-reviewed, but will be, he says- to a conference in Santa Fe, N.M., 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 top be harshly treated by climate change 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.”

On Sunday, a British newspaper said one of Muller’s co-authors, Georgia Tech climate scientist Judith Curry, accused Muller of another Climategate-like scandal by trying to “hide the decline” of recent global temperatures.

The Associated Press contacted Curry on Sunday afternoon and she said in an email that Muller and  colleagues “are not hiding data or otherwise engaging in any scientifically questionable practice.”

The Muller “results unambiguously show an increase in surface temperature since 1960,” Curry wrote Sunday.  She said she disagreed with Muller’s public relations efforts and some public comments from Muller about there no longer being a need for skepticism.

Muller’s study found the skeptics’ concerns about poor weather station quality didn’t skew the results of his analysis because temperature increase  rose similarly in reliable and unreliable weather stations.  He also found that while there is an urban heat island effect making cities warmer, rural areas, which are more abundant, are warming, too.

Among many climate scientists, the reaction was somewhat of a yawn.

“After lots of work, he found exactly what was already known and accepted in the climate community,” said Jerry North, a Texas A&M University atmospheric science review in 2006.  “I am hoping their study will have a positive impact.  But some folks never change”.