Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming

WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 27, 1992---As independent scientists, researching atmospheric and climate problems, we are concerned by the agenda for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, being developed by environmental activist groups and certain political leaders. This so-called Earth Summit is scheduled to convene in Brazil in June 1992 and aims to impose a system of global environmental regulations, including onerous taxes on energy fuels, on the population of the United States and other industrialized nations.

Such policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action. We do not agree.

A survey of U.S. atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century. A recently published research paper even suggests that sunspot variability, rather than a rise in greenhouse gases, is responsible for the global temperature increases and decreases recorded since about 1880.

Furthermore, the majority of scientific participants in the survey agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record. Yet all predictions are based on such theoretical models.

Finally, agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.

We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science. We fear that the rush to impose global regulations will have catastrophic impacts on the world economy, on jobs, standards of living, and health care, with the most severe consequences falling upon developing countries and the poor.

David G. Aubrey, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Nathaniel B. Guttman, Ph.D., Research Physical Scientist, National Climatic Data Center

Hugh W. Ellsaesser, Ph.D., Meteorologist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., Center for Meteorology and Physical Meteorology, M.l.T.

Robert C. Balling, Ph.D., Director, Laboratory of Climatology, Arizona State University

Patrick Michaels, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia

Roger Pielke, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Michael Garstang, Ph.D., Professor of Meteorology, University of Virginia

Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D., Research Physicist, U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory

Lev S. Gandin, Ph.D., UCAR Scientist, National Meteorological Center

John A. McGinley, Chief, Forecast Research Group, Forecast Systems Laboratory, NOAA

H. Jean Thiebaux, Ph.D., Research Scientist, National Meteorological Center, National Weather Service, NOM

Kenneth V. Beard, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Physics, University of Illinois

Paul W. Mielke, Jr., Ph.D., Professor, Dept. of Statistics, Colorado State University

Thomas Lockhart, Meteorologist, Meteorological Standards Institute

Peter F. Giddings, Meteorologist, Weather Service Director

Hazen A. Bedke, Meteorologist, Former Regional Director, National Weather Service

Gabriel T. Csanady, Ph.D., Eminent Professor, Old Dominion University

Roy Leep, Executive Weather Director, Gillett Weather Data Services

Terrance J. Clark, Meteorologist, U.S. Air Force

Neil L Frank, Ph.D., Meteorologist

Michael S. Uhart, Ph.D., Meteorologist, National Weather Service

Bruce A. Boe, Ph.D., Director, North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board

Andrew Detwiler, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof., Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, S. Dakota School of Mines & Technology

Robert M. Cunningham, Consulting Meteorologist, Fellow, American Meteorological Society

Steven R. Hanna, Ph.D., Sigma Research Corporation

Elliot Abrams, Meteorologist, Senior Vice President, AccuWeather, Inc.

William E. Reifenyder, Ph.D., Consulting Meteorologist, Professor Emeritus, Forest Meteorology, Yale University

David W. Reynolds, Research Meteorologist

Jerry A. Williams, Meteorologist, President, Oceanroutes, Inc.

Lee W. Eddington, Meteorologist, Geophysics Division, Pacific Missile Test Center

Werner A. Baum, Ph.D., former Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, Florida State University

David P. Rogers, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Research Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Brian Fiedler, Ph.D., Asst. Professor of Meteorology, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma

Edward A. Brandes, Meteorologist

Melvyn Shapiro, Chief of Meteorological Research, Wave Propagation Laboratory, NOM

Joseph Zabransky, Jr., Associate Professor of Meteorology, Plymouth State College

James A. Moore, Project Manager, Research Applications Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Daniel J. McNaughton, ENSR Consulting and Engineering

Brian Sussman, Meteorologist

Robert D. Elliott, Meteorologist, Fellow, American Meteorological Society

H. Read McGrath, Ph.D., Meteorologist

Earl G. Droessler, Ph.D., North Carolina State University

Robert E. Zabrecky, Meteorologist

William M. Porch, Ph.D., Atmospheric Physicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Earle R. Williams, Ph.D, Assoc. Prof. of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Atmospheric Physicist, Univ. of Virginia, President, Science & Environmental Policy Project

Please note: Affiliations listed are for identification purposes only.

Original Statement at: http://www.sepp.org//statment.html