William M. Gray

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William M. "Bill" Gray, PhD is a pioneer in the science of forecasting hurricanes.

Nicholas Riccardi wrote in the LA Times:

William M. Gray pioneered the concept of "seasonal" hurricane forecasting — predicting months in advance the severity of the coming hurricane season. Gray's prognostications, issued since 1983, are used by insurance companies to calculate premiums. [1]

He is Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU), and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Gray is noted for his forecasts of Atlantic hurricane season activity. Professor Gray served as a weather forecaster for the United States Air Force, and as a research assistant in the University of Chicago Department of Meteorology. He joined Colorado State University in 1961. He has been advisor of over 70 Ph. D. and M. Sc. students. His team has been issuing seasonal hurricane forecasts since 1984.

After the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Professor Gray announced that he was stepping back from the primary authorship of CSU's tropical cyclone probability forecasts, passing the role to Philip J. Klotzbach. Gray cited that he was devoting more time to the issue of global warming.

[edit] Stance on global warming

Gray is a skeptic of the theory of global warming. He wrote:

Despite the global warming of the sea surface of about 0.3 C that has taken place over the last 3 decades, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years [except] for the Atlantic. [2]

He feels subscribers to the theory have "been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."[3] He points to a global cooling article in Newsweek from 1975 as evidence that such a scare has happened in the past. Professor Gray stated, "I'll take on any scientist in this field to talk about this, I predict that in 5 to 8 years the globe will begin to cool" [4]. When contacted, like fellow skeptic Richard Lindzen, he refused to accept any bets as to whether temperatures would drop, even bets that survive the bettors' lifespan by being given to a charitable foundation. (In Gray's case, he stated that as a man in his seventies, he did not want to make bets that exceeded his expected lifespan.)[http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005/11/my-phone-conversation-with-bill-gray.html