Patrick Michaels

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Patrick J. Michaels (born c. 1942?) is a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. He has been the State Climatologist for Virginia since 1980 ^[1] although lately there has been some confusion over the status of this role [2]. His professional specialty was the influence of climate on agriculture. Although Michaels agrees with the basics of greenhouse theory and acknowledges a warming earth, he is perhaps the world's best known "global warming skeptic" by contending that the changes will be minor not catastrophic and even beneficial in many cases. Much of his time is now spent counter-arguing doomsday scenarios presented by other scientists and the media.

He is a fellow of the Cato Institute and edits the World Climate Report, published by the Western Fuels Association through WFA's Greening Earth Society. He has received substantial financial support from the energy industry. His work has been published in Climate Research, Climatic Change and Geophysical Research Letters. He is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming, 1992, Satanic Gases, as coauthor 2002, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media, published by the Cato Institute, 2004, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming as editor and coauthor, 2005.

1 View on Climate Change
2 Attempted betting on global warming
3 CFCs and ozone
4 Intermountain Rural Electric Association Controversy
5 State Climatologist
6 References
7 External links

[edit] View on Climate Change

Michaels continues to maintain that current and future warming will occur at the low end of the range IPCC assessments:

scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) [in 50 years]

All this has to do with basic physics, which isn't real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming, and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn't constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate. [3]

This "linear" view is not accepted by most climate scientists.

[edit] Attempted betting on global warming

Like global warming skeptics Richard Lindzen and William M. Gray, Michaels' World Climate Report offered in late 1998 "to wager that the 10-year period beginning in January 1998 and extending through December 2007 will show a statistically significant downward trend in the monthly satellite record of global temperatures."[4] Climatologist James Annan,[5] who has offered multiple bets that global temperatures will increase,[6] learned of the offer in 2005 and contacted the Report to arrange a bet.[7] An editor from World Climate Report responded, reneging on the original bet offer and declining to make a new bet starting from the present.

December 2007 has yet to arrive but average global temperatures have risen since January 1998. [8]. While 1998 was an exceptionally hot year (a fact known when the bet was offered), the stated terms mean that the relevant comparison is between the end of 1997 and the end of 2007.

[edit] CFCs and ozone

Michaels has also engaged in controversy regarding the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer. In particular, he has criticised predictions of thinning of the ozone layer over the Arctic, and of increasing ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the earth, in the absence of a phaseout CFC emissions. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 required such a phaseout.

The scientific controversy over the relationship between CFCs and the ozone layer was resolved by 1995, when the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Paul Crutzen , Mario Molina, and Sherwood Rowland for their work on the formation and decomposition of ozone. However, Michaels continued to criticise the CFC phaseout as late as 2001 [9].

Reference: Michaels, P.J., S.F. Singer, and P.C. Knappenberger, "Analyzing ultraviolet-B radiation--is there a trend?", Science, 264, 1341-1342, May 27 1994.

[edit] Intermountain Rural Electric Association Controversy

In a July 27, 2006 ABC News report, it was revealed that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000. The report noted that the cooperative has a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps. The wider context of the report concerned entities within the fossil fuel industry giving money to scientists in an effort to create a false perception that there is a lack of consensus in the scientific community regarding global warming. [10]

[edit] State Climatologist

In 2006, doubts were expressed as to exactly who had appointed Michaels as state climatologist [11]. In a letter sent to the University of Virginia by Secretary of the Commonwealth Katherine Hanley, the administration of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine made it clear that Patrick J. Michaels works for the university, not the state government. Michaels has been asked to " "avoid any conflict of interest or appearance thereof by scrupulously avoiding the use of the title of state climatologist in connection with any outside activities or private consulting endeavors" although no evidence was presented that Dr. Michaels had failed to execute his state climatologist duties or used his title in connection with his outside activities. Clearly, Dr. Michael's views on global warming have made him an uncomfortable presence for the democratic governor and the politically left-leaning majority at the University of Virginia [12].

[edit] References

^ "Michaels, who has been the state climatologist since 1980, has come under fire after news reports last month said a Colorado utility raised at least $150,000 in donations and pledges to help him analyze other scientists' global-warming research." [1]