Re: OT - Hansen acknowledges solar forcing

On 28 jan, 20:30, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:27:56 +0100, "Bill Sloman"





<bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&Cont....

So Senator Inhofe has found another elderly and retired scientist who is
prepared to sound like a nitwit. Nobody outside the denialist camp has
bothered to pick this up, which should give you some kind of clue to
the true value of this revelation.

John S. Theon may have indirectly supervised Hanssen until 1994, and
does seem to be envious of the publicity that Hanssen now commands,
but there doesn't seem to be much reason to take him seriously.

Here's a recent quote from him, from

http://space.hsv.usra.edu/LWG/Jul08/Minutes.jul08.pdf

"I am a generalist who knows very little, but during the past two
days, I have learned of the significant progress that has been made
in developing the Doppler Winds Lidar (DWL) satellite mission
since I retired from NASA Headquarters in 1995."

In fact, he seems to have been more interested in weather than in
climate, and while he does show up as an author/editor on Google,
the books are all desperately technical reports about radar maps
of tropical rainfall. His scepticism about climate modelling seems
to be no more soundly based than yours.

"My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the
models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there
are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models
either replicate poorly or completely omit,"

In other words he doesn't understand how they work, and doesn't
want to take the trouble to find out.

From my original link:

/quote

John S. Theon Education: B.S. Aero. Engr. (1953-57); Aerodynamicist,
Douglas Aircraft Co. (1957-58); As USAF Reserve Officer (1958-60),B.S.
Meteorology (1959); Served as Weather Officer 1959-60; M.S,
Meteorology (1960-62); NASA Research Scientist, Goddard Space Flight
Ctr. (1962-74); Head Meteorology Branch, GSFC (1974-76); Asst. Chief,
Lab. for Atmos. Sciences, GSFC (1977-78);  Program Scientist, NASA
Global Weather Research Program, NASA Hq. (1978-82); Chief,
Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch NASA Hq., (1982-91); Ph.D.,
Engr. Science & Mech.: course of study and dissertation in atmos.
science (1983-85); Chief, Atmospheric Dynamics, Radiation, & Hydrology
Branch, NASA Hq. (1991-93); Chief, Climate Processes Research Program,
NASA Hq. (1993-94); Senior Scientist, Mission to Planet Earth Office,
NASA Hq. (1994-95); Science Consultant, Institute for Global
Environmental Strategies (1995-99); Science Consultant  Orbital
Sciences Corp. (1996-97) and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab., (1997-99).

As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I
was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire
agency, including the  research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer,
Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field
centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate
research. This required a thorough understanding of the state of the
science.

/end quote

We can all write CV's that make us sound important. Google doesn't
throw up anything that suggests that he was any more than a competent
bureaucrat.

/quote

Yes, one could say that I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because
I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his
results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual
performance evaluation. He was never muzzled even though he violated
NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did
not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it).
He thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global
warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.

My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the
models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there
are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models
either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some
scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model
results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in
the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted
making their work transparent so that it can be replicated
independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how
science should be done.

/end quote

So "responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire
agency".

His version. Granting his lack of impact, it sounds as if he was
kicked upstairs with a fancy title and stuck in an office where he
wrote long reports on how he thought things ought to be done.

And he says "Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated
the observed data to justify their model results."

It does happen, but he isn't silly enough to claim that any of the
people he named did anything of the sort; it would be a career-
destroying claim if he could prove it, and a very expensive libel if
he couldn't.

Nuff said.

Sure, you feel sympathy for vindictive nonentities who happen to share
your delusions.

Bear in mind that having your scientific integrity endorsed by Senator
Inhofe is rather like being endorsed as a reliable source by Jeffrey
Archer.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

.

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