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Ärende: Global warming
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/science/earth/23clim.html?ei=5090&en=d
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August 23, 2005
Panelist Who Dissents on Climate Change Quits
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
A scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global 
warming stems mainly from human activity has resigned from a panel that 
is completing a report for the Bush administration on temperature trends 
in the atmosphere. 

The scientist, Roger A. Pielke Sr., a climatologist at Colorado State 
University, said most of the other scientists working on the report were 
too deeply wedded to particular views and were discounting minority 
opinions on the quality of climate records and possible causes of 
warming.

"When you appoint people to a committee who are experts in an area but 
evaluating their own work," he said in an interview, "it's very 
difficult for them to think outside the box of their research."

Administration officials said the resignation would not affect the 
quality or credibility of the report, a draft of which is being finished 
in the next few weeks. 

The report, the first product of President Bush's 10-year climate change 
research program, is likely to be closely scrutinized by climate 
scientists and environmental and industry groups for any sign of bias or 
distortion.

.

Its main focus is to explore why thermometers at the earth's surface, 
especially in the tropics, have measured more warming than has been 
detected by satellites and weather balloons in the troposphere, the 
layer of the atmosphere up to where jetliners cruise.

Dr. Pielke contends that changes in landscapes like the spread of 
agriculture and cities could explain many of the surface climate trends, 
while most climate experts now see a clear link to accumulating 
emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. 

James R. Mahoney, an assistant secretary of commerce and the director of 
the federal climate research program, said the scientists involved in 
generating the report were "representative of the broad views" on the 
questions.

Mr. Mahoney noted that drafts of the climate report would be reviewed by 
the National Academy of Sciences and were subject to public comment. 

"I'm disappointed that Dr. Pielke has chosen to resign over this," Mr. 
Mahoney said.

Dr. Pielke said he decided to resign after three papers on the 
troposphere trends were published online on Aug. 11 by the journal 
Science. The papers said errors in satellite and balloon studies in the 
tropics explained why earlier analyses failed to find warming in the 
troposphere. 

Several authors of those papers, who are also authors of the coming 
government report, said at the time that the new findings would be 
discussed in the report. 

Dr. Pielke said those statements were an effort to influence the shape 
of the final report.

Several authors of those papers denied this, saying the process of 
creating the reports is intended to be public, while the contents remain 
confidential for now. 

John R. Christy, another author of the coming report who like Dr. Pielke 
doubts that human-caused warming poses a serious threat, said that while 
disagreements were normal, the effort to generate the report was 
improving understanding.

"This process is the worst way to generate scientific information," said 
Dr. Christy, who teaches at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. 
"Except for all the others."


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