Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Perhaps it is the extreme weather conditions and the heat that make me take a closer look at a phenomena that I had previously not paid much attention to.  I am not one to jump on every environmental issue that comes along.  Apparently skeptic Richard Muller  doesn’t either.  Skeptic Richard Muller has not only done a 180 degree turn and said that climate change is very real. He also says that it is nearly all man-made. In a study funded by the Koch Foundation, Muller tells us that it isn’t too late to do something about it.

Muller tells us  volcanic eruptions do cause climate change but that their influence is short lived, usually 3 years or less.  He concludes similar opinions about the el Nino phenomena.

The cure, he says, will be switching away from the use of coal to natural gas.  He says we will need clean fraking techniques because natural gas causes 1/3rd the global warming.  Coal must be replaced because of CO2 levels.

According to Professor Richard Muller in the  New York Times:

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.

Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.

Professor Muller stresses that his funding involved no coersion by the Koch Foundation.  It seems that the more research , the more climate change becomes a reality.

To read more in the New York Times, click HERE.

 

16 Thoughts to “Skeptic Richard Muller does about face about climate change”

  1. SlowpokeRodriguez

    While I could not possibly care less about giving money to Al Gore, or scientists who change their minds back and forth and back and forth, I AM terribly interested in Natural Gas. And the simple fact that we have so much of it, and it burns cleaner than oil or coal, should be reason enough to be interested in it. We need more people to become educated about it enough to see past the influence of big oil’s money. People can and should move in this direction on their own…without the help of the federal government and in spite of the attempts by big oil to maintain their stranglehold.

    1. I am feeling the extreme nausea I get when I agree with Pokie. I agree about natural gas. Recent technology has made it even more desirable. For instance, I had to do furnace replacement a few years ago. The old one was being held together with duct tape. I have natural gas for heating below 40 degrees and I use a heat pump for above 40 and ac.

      How to make it work for cars…not as easy. But it could certainly replace coal.

      Clean fraking? no more earthquakes and burning tap water?

  2. kelly_3406

    These guys of done good work to analyze temperature over the past 250 years, but there was never really any question that the Earth has warmed significantly over the last 50 years. There also was no serious question that whether CO2 causes the climate to warm. The real issue is how much of the warming in the BEST dataset can be attributed to CO2? Their analysis does nothing to answer that question.

    If analysis of temperature variations were enough to answer the scientific questions regarding climate change, then the science would have been settled years ago. Muller’s latest statement indicates that he does not really understand the science.

    1. Kelly, Muller has a reputation that is fairly impeccable. Why should I believe you and not him? Credentials please.

  3. Elena

    Oh and look, our resident climatologist is here to set Muller straight!

    Darnit, why why have the the world scientists not reached out to the know it alls on our blog. Clearly, they have more knowledge than silly Richard Muller.

    http://calspace.ucsd.edu/casgc/JArnoldLecture/2003_Muller_Biography.htm

    Richard A. Muller is a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, a Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and a Jason consultant on U.S. national security.

    He is particularly well known for the diversity of his scientific work, which spans particle physics, astrophysics, and geophysics. He received his Ph.D. in elementary particles under the direction of Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez.

    He created a program at Berkeley to measure the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave radiation, and is credited with the discovery of the great “cosine in the sky” that yields the velocity the Milky Way with respect to the rest of the Universe. He was the first to suggest and use “Accelerator Mass Spectrometry,” a technique that improves the sensitivity of radiocarbon dating by a more than a thousand.

    He initiated a supernova discovery program at Berkeley, eventually taken over by his student Saul Perlmutter, who went on to discover the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion and the “cosmological constant.” His most notorious work is as coauthor of the “Nemesis theory,” proposing that the sun is part of a widely-spaced double star system. His measurements of Ar-Ar ages of lunar spherules yielded the ages of over 135 lunar craters. He has done experimental and theoretical work on the origins of the ice ages, and on geomagnetic reversals.

  4. Kelly you just seem so hell bent on proving there is no such thing that it comes across as an agenda of sorts. I believe if the Almighty came down and told you there was such a thing, you would still deny.

    My personal, non-scientific opinion is that something is sure going on, judging from what I have witnessed in my lifetime. i am not spring chicken. It makes sense that crap we dump into the atmosphere just might be the guilty party. I expect, like all science, we will find out more and details will be refined and perhaps altered a little, but for the most part, all these folks can’t be that far off base.

    I don’t speak from a political point of view…just one of observation.

  5. marinm

    So – while he was a skeptic he was a crank but the second he changes his mind he’s suddenly enlightened with impeachable credentials?

    Gotcha.

    1. Who said he was a crank? I sure didn’t.

  6. kelly_3406

    @Moon-howler
    Elena and you seem to have already made up your minds, so I am not sure that getting you to believe me is even possible. As for my credentials, that is none of your business unless you want to discuss this privately.

    Having said that, if you take a closer look, you can see that people on both sides of the issue are rolling their eyes over this conversion. Muller has introduced a certain circus-like atmosphere to what was otherwise very good work.

    As for your Comment #6, I am not hell-bent on proving there is no such thing. I am hell-bent on showing that the scientific case has not been made. For example, there was a new, very accurate water vapor dataset released recently (similar to the Berkeley dataset for temperature) that showed no evidence of increasing water vapor, which is predicted by global models and required to get strong warming due to CO2. So this new water vapor dataset suggests that increasing temperature observed in recent years may be due mostly to natural variability.

    In future decades, it is not impossible that CO2 could produce a very large warming, but the case has not yet been made. Before the government takes action that would remove trillions of dollars from the economy and change the way we live, it is necessary to make damn sure that anthropogenic global warming really is a BIG problem.

  7. Kelly, you are right, it isn’t any of my business unless of course, you come on MY blog and discredit reputable scientists. Then I have a responsibility to question your credentials.

    I haven’t made up my mind about climate change. I certainly think that the likelihood that it exists is pretty probable. You seem to think that there is only one way to address change in our behavior.

    Do you have a problem with exploring ways to use natural gas to replace coal? I sure don’t. It is much more abundant than previously thought. We have done much more, as a nation, than many other countries. Just cutting down on air pollution is a good thing.

    I don’t agree with the Cargo theory that co2 isn’t pollution. Sure it is. Sit in a room too long with no air exchange. arrgggghhhh.

    I mainly don’t want science to be political. I think then it becomes dangerous. Any time we humans might have to take any action, the issue becomes political whether we save polar bears, clean up oils spills or try to have intelligent discussions about climate control.

    As for the data you are discussing. I have no idea about that and I don’t think it matters in the long run, to the general question.

    It isn’t personal by the way. I would feel that way about anyone who argued with people with credentials. Otherwise, why not just believe Elena or me if we started spouting science.

  8. kelly_3406

    I did not discredit a reputable scientist. He did that all by himself by trying to draw conclusions about climate based only on surface temperature. My IB high school student knows more than that.

    I have to come down on the side of CO2 not being a pollutant, although there are arguments on both sides. The argument that I accept is that CO2 concentrations have been higher in the ancient past due to natural processes, plus it is not at all clear that U.S. cuts in emissions would not be swamped by natural fluctuations or emissions by other countries.

    CO2 is colorless and odorless, so the bad smells associated with bad air exchange are due to other gases emitted by humans.

    I do not have a problem with research to replace coal with natural gas as long as it is voluntary or subsidized with tax breaks.

    1. kelly, you have discredited every reputable scientist we have discussed here.

      You have made it more than clear you do not have an open mind and that you are taking the “conservative point of view.”

      You are unwilling to serve up your credentials so that just makes you a blogger with an opinion.

  9. kelly_3406

    Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Mann and Muller seem to play somewhat fast and loose with the facts by glossing over the considerable uncertainty in the interactions among clouds, water vapor, and climate. Until these interactions are better understood, the science will continue to be unsettled.

    Other than Mann and Muller, I do not recall commenting on anyone. There are some very good scientists that fully support the theory of global warming. I may disagree with them on specific issues, but I respect their willingness to acknowledge current shortcomings and uncertainties of climate science. Most of the time, these very good scientists are not the publicity hounds that tend to get quoted on blogs.

    I am willing to introduce myself to you privately.

  10. @kelly_3406
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/05/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-57/

    Here’s a post about the methodology. Note…they don’t contradict him, just talk about possible problems.

  11. Of course, the environmentalists want to ban fracking too. Regardless of the fact that it has been safely used for decades. So…gas is right out. Coal, gas, oil, …..hmmm…oh, yes…nuclear power too.

    Guess I better get started on that wood burning generator.

    1. There are a lot of problems with some methods of fracking. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that natural gas is out or that anything is out. I think what is suggested is that we need to clean up the industry and make it safer.

      Comments like that shut down conversation and polarize discussion. Who does that help? No one.

      Ask my brother about propane. Is it safe? You saw the pictures. Do we throw out all propane and make it politically unspeakable or do we find safer ways to dispense the gas?

Comments are closed.