Jump to content

Roy Spencer (meteorologist): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Removed original research in violation of WP:NOR
→‎Climate change research: Removed original research in violation of WP:NOR
Line 52: Line 52:


==Climate change research==
==Climate change research==
For many years Spencer, along with [[John R. Christy]], has maintained an atmospheric temperature record derived from satellite microwave sounding unit measurements, commonly called the [[UAH satellite temperature dataset|"UAH" record]] record (see also [[satellite temperature record]]). This was once controversial as until the late 1990s the satellite record erroneously showed a net global cooling trend, at odds with the [[radiosonde]] and [[surface temperature record|surface record]]. A number of corrections (mostly minor) have been made since been made bringing the UAH "lower troposphere temperature" data closer to agreement with other temperature records. The most significant correction, demonstrated in a 1998 paper by [[Frank Wentz]] and Matthias Schabel of [[RSS]], was to correct for orbital decay of the MSU satellites.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wentz|first=Frank J.|coauthors=Matthias Schabel|journal=Letters to Nature|date=13 August 1998|volume=394|pages=661–661|title=Effects of orbital decay on satellite-derived lower-tropospheric temperature trends|doi=10.1038/29267|issue=6694}}</ref><ref>http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf</ref>

=== 2007 cloud feedback article ===
=== 2007 cloud feedback article ===
In August 2007, Spencer and others published an article in ''[[Geophysical Research Letters]]'' regarding [[cloud feedback]] in the tropics.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Spencer|first=Roy W.|coauthors=Braswell, William D., Christy, John R., Hnilo, Justin|title=Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations|journal=[[Geophysical Research Letters]]|date=9 August 2007|volume=34|issue=15|doi=10.1029/2007GL029698}}</ref> Current understanding of the climate system predicts that an increase in high-level, heat trapping clouds will accelerate global warming. Spencer's observations in the tropics found a negative [[Feedback#Climate science|feedback]] and a lower [[climate sensitivity]] than the current consensus. Spencer and colleagues state that the negative feedback possibly supports [[Richard Lindzen]]'s Infrared [[Iris hypothesis]] of compensating meteorological processes that tend to stabilize climate change.<ref>{{Cite journal| author = Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, and Arthur Y. Hou |journal = [[Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society]]|volume=82|issue=3|month=March|year=2001|pages=417–432| url=http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/adinfriris.pdf | doi = 10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082<0417:DTEHAA>2.3.CO;2 | title = Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris? }}</ref>
In August 2007, Spencer and others published an article in ''[[Geophysical Research Letters]]'' regarding [[cloud feedback]] in the tropics.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Spencer|first=Roy W.|coauthors=Braswell, William D., Christy, John R., Hnilo, Justin|title=Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations|journal=[[Geophysical Research Letters]]|date=9 August 2007|volume=34|issue=15|doi=10.1029/2007GL029698}}</ref> Current understanding of the climate system predicts that an increase in high-level, heat trapping clouds will accelerate global warming. Spencer's observations in the tropics found a negative [[Feedback#Climate science|feedback]] and a lower [[climate sensitivity]] than the current consensus. Spencer and colleagues state that the negative feedback possibly supports [[Richard Lindzen]]'s Infrared [[Iris hypothesis]] of compensating meteorological processes that tend to stabilize climate change.<ref>{{Cite journal| author = Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, and Arthur Y. Hou |journal = [[Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society]]|volume=82|issue=3|month=March|year=2001|pages=417–432| url=http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/adinfriris.pdf | doi = 10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082<0417:DTEHAA>2.3.CO;2 | title = Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris? }}</ref>

Revision as of 15:35, 27 August 2012

Roy W. Spencer
Born
United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison
AwardsNASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1991),
AMS Special Award (1996)
Scientific career
FieldsClimatology, Meteorology
InstitutionsNASA,
University of Alabama in Huntsville
ThesisA case study of African wave structure and energetics during Atlantic transit (1981)
Doctoral advisorVerner E. Suomi
Websitewww.drroyspencer.com

Roy Warren Spencer is a climatologist, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite.[1][2] He has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.[1][2]

He is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society's Special Award.[2]

Early life and education

Spencer received a B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Michigan in 1978 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1980 and 1982.[1] His doctoral thesis was titled, A case study of African wave structure and energetics during Atlantic transit.[3]

Career

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1982, Spencer worked for two years as a research scientist in the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[1] He then joined NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center as a visiting scientist in 1984,[2] where he later became a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies.[1] After leaving NASA in 2001, Spencer has been a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UHA).[1] As well as his position at UHA, Spencer is currently the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite, a position he has held since 1994.[1]

In 2001, he designed an algorithm to detect tropical cyclones and estimate their maximum sustained wind speed using the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU).[4][5]

Spencer has been a member of several science teams: the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Space Station Accommodations Analysis Study Team, Science Steering Group for TRMM, TOVS Pathfinder Working Group, NASA Headquarters Earth Science and Applications Advisory Subcommittee, and two National Research Council (NRC) study panels.[1]

He is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute,[6] and on the board of advisors of the Cornwall Alliance.[7]

Spencer's research work is funded by NASA, NOAA, DOE and the DOT.[2]

Climate change research

2007 cloud feedback article

In August 2007, Spencer and others published an article in Geophysical Research Letters regarding cloud feedback in the tropics.[8] Current understanding of the climate system predicts that an increase in high-level, heat trapping clouds will accelerate global warming. Spencer's observations in the tropics found a negative feedback and a lower climate sensitivity than the current consensus. Spencer and colleagues state that the negative feedback possibly supports Richard Lindzen's Infrared Iris hypothesis of compensating meteorological processes that tend to stabilize climate change.[9]

In a press release that month, Spencer said, "To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent... The big question that no one can answer right now is whether this enhanced cooling mechanism applies to global warming."[10]

Spencer and Braswell 2008

In 2008, Spencer and William Braswell published a paper[11] in the Journal of Climate which stated that conventional diagnoses of positive cloud feedback are artificially biased positive, because they ignore natural cloud variability. Climate model analyses treat decreasing cloud cover as an evidence of positive feedback of atmosphere to initial CO2 induced warming, while it easily could be the other way around: the real cause of warming could be small naturally caused variations in cloud cover with rising temperatures as a result. Spencer postulates strong negative cloud feedback, contrary to what the current IPCC climate models use. He points out that the IPCC concedes that low clouds are the most uncertain element in climate models, and that a 1% change in low cloud cover could have radiative forcing equal to doubling of CO2.[citation needed] Spencer asserts that small cloud variations connected with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation can explain 75% of global warming in the twentieth century.[12]

Spencer and Braswell 2011

On 26 July 2011, Spencer and Braswell published a paper,[13] "On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance", in Remote Sensing, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. The paper questioned the ability of some computer climate models to reproduce the time lagged relationship between average sea surface temperature and net terrestrial radiative flux, and used a simple model to suggest the method used by Andrew Dessler and others to establish the value of cloud feedback was flawed.

The conclusions of the paper were subsequently exaggerated by parts of the media and the authors themselves, with headlines such as "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism" in Forbes magazine.[14][15] The paper was met with swift criticism by mainstream climate scientists.[16]

In September 2011, the editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, resigned his editorship for having published the Spencer and Braswell paper. His statement, in the form of an editorial in the journal, said the reviewers had done their job correctly. Wagner further criticized Spencer, Braswell and parts of the media for misrepresenting the significance of their research.

On 1 October 2011, a rebuttal by Dessler of Spencer and Braswell's 2011 paper appeared in Geophysical Research Letters.[17]

Views on climate change

Spencer believes that most climate change is natural in origin, the result of long-term changes in the Earth’s albedo (sunlight reflectivity) and that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have cause some warming, but that its warming influence is small compared to natural, internal, chaotic fluctuations in global average cloud cover.[18]

In 2006 Spencer criticized Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, saying, "For instance, Mr. Gore claims that the Earth is now warmer than it has been in thousands of years. Yet the latest National Academies of Science (NAS) report on the subject has now admitted that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years, which is mostly made up of the 'Little Ice Age'".[19]

In a New York Post opinion column on February 26, 2007, Spencer wrote:

Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world – possibly none – have a sufficiently thorough, "big picture" understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem.[20]

In an interview with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on February 28, 2007, Spencer stated that he doesn't believe "catastrophic manmade global warming" is occurring. He also criticized climate models, saying "The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models."[21] Roy Spencer is also included in a film that argues against the theory of man-made global warming called The Great Global Warming Swindle.

He testified before the Waxman committee's examination of political interference with climate science on March 19, 2007.[2]

He is a signatory to the Cornwall Alliance's An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming.[22]

Spencer has published two books on climate change: In 2008, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor,[23] and in 2010, The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists.[24]

Intelligent design

Spencer is a proponent of intelligent design as the mechanism for the origin of species.[25] On the subject, Spencer wrote in 2005, "Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as 'fact,' I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. . . . In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are written by scientists who lost faith in evolution as adults, after they learned how to apply the analytical tools they were taught in college."[25] In The Evolution Crisis, a compilation of five scientists who reject evolution, Spencer states: "I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world... Science has startled us with its many discoveries and advances, but it has hit a brick wall in its attempt to rid itself of the need for a creator and designer."[26]

See also

Awards

Selected publications

Articles

  • Spencer, Roy W. (June 30, 2006). "Star Search". TCS Daily.
  • Spencer, Roy W. (January 16, 2005). "World warms to Kyoto, but research will save the day". USA Today.
  • Spencer, Roy W. (February 26, 2007). "NOT THAT SIMPLE - GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT WE DON'T KNOW". New York Post.
  • Spencer, Roy W. (May 1, 2008). "More Carbon Dioxide, Please". National Review.

Books

Peer-Reviewed Papers

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Aqua Project Science". NASA. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Spencer, Roy W. (March, 19 2007). "STATEMENT TO THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES" (PDF). United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-03-28. Retrieved 2007-03-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Spencer, Roy Warren (1981). "A case study of African wave structure and energetics during Atlantic transit". University of Wisconsin–Madison. Retrieved 2012-08-27. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ "Detecting Tropical Cyclones Using AMSU". NASA. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
  5. ^ "Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Monitoring with AMSU-A: Estimation of Maximum Sustained Wind Speeds". Monthly Weather Review. 129: 1518–1532. 2001. Retrieved 2012-08-27. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
  6. ^ "The Marshall Institute - Staff". George C. Marshall Institute. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
  7. ^ "Cornwall Alliance Board of Advisors". Cornwall Alliance. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |acccessdate= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ Spencer, Roy W. (9 August 2007). "Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations". Geophysical Research Letters. 34 (15). doi:10.1029/2007GL029698. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, and Arthur Y. Hou (2001). "Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 82 (3): 417–432. doi:10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082<0417:DTEHAA>2.3.CO;2. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Cirrus disappearance: Warming might thin heat-trapping clouds, UA Huntsville press release, 8/9/2007
  11. ^ "Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration", by Roy W. Spencer & William D. Braswell, Journal of Climate, 2008
  12. ^ Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) by Roy Spencer
  13. ^ Spencer, Roy (2011). "On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance". Remote Sensing. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Hickman, Leo (2011-09-02). "Journal editor resigns over 'flawed' paper co-authored by climate sceptic". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  15. ^ Wagner, Wolfgang (2011-09). "Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance" by Spencer and Braswell, Remote Sens. 2011, 3(8), 1603-1613". Remote Sensing. 3 (9): 2002–2004. doi:10.3390/rs3092002. ISSN 2072-4292. Retrieved 2011-09-02. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  16. ^ Black, Richard (2011-09-02). "Journal editor resigns over 'problematic' climate paper". BBC News. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  17. ^ Dessler, A E (2011-10-01). "Cloud variations and the Earth's energy budget" (PDF). Geophysical Research Letters. 38 (19). doi:10.1029/2011GL049236. Retrieved 2011-09-07.
  18. ^ Spencer, Roy (May 13, 2010). "Interview With A Global Warming Skeptic: Dr. Roy Spencer" (Interview). Interviewed by Cameron J. English. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
  19. ^ Star Search by Roy Spencer, TCS Daily, 30 Jun 2006
  20. ^ Spencer, Roy W. (2007-02-26). "NOT THAT SIMPLE / GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT WE DON'T KNOW". New York Post. Retrieved 2007-04-07.
  21. ^ Global Warming Update: Facts, Science Smash the Global Warming Myth
  22. ^ "Prominent Signers of An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming". Cornwall Alliance. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
  23. ^ Climate Confusion
  24. ^ The Great Global Warming Blunder
  25. ^ a b Faith-Based Evolution, Roy Spencer, TCS Daily, 08 August 2005
  26. ^ Penfold, Michael (2007). The Evolution Crisis. ISBN 1-900742-24-1.
  27. ^ Earth Systems Science "SSL 1996 Annual Report - Earth Science". NASA. Retrieved 2012-08-27. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Roy Spencer.

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer_(meteorologist)&oldid=509446453"