Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
He is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society's Special Award. Spencer suggests that global warming is mostly natural. He argues that climate is inherently stable to changes in radiative forcing from variations in natural drivers as well as humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution. He suggests that natural, chaotic variations in factors including low cloud cover may account for most observed warming.[1][2]
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Spencer earned 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.[3] Spencer designed an algorithm to detect tropical cyclones and estimate their maximum sustained wind speed using the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.[4] The AMSU is a microwave radiometer that can be used to detect temperature at different levels of the atmosphere. Based on gradients in temperature measurements in a given area, it is possible to estimate maximal sustained radial wind speed.[5]
As well as his position at UHA, he is currently the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. His research work is funded by NASA, NOAA, and DOE.
He speaks publicly often on climate, including four appearances on Coast to Coast AM.[6] He is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute.[7] He is on the board of advisors of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.[8]
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" 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 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.[9][10]
In August, 2007, Spencer and others published an article in Geophysical Research Letters regarding cloud feedback in the tropics.[11] 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.[12]
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."[13]
In 2008, Spencer and William Braswell published a paper[14] 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. Spencer asserts that small cloud variations connected with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation can explain 75% of global warming in the twentieth century.[15]
On 26 July 2011, Spencer and Braswell published a paper[16], "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.[17] [18] The paper was met with swift criticism by mainstream climate scientists.[19]
In September 2011, the editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, resigned his editorship for having published the Spencer and Braswell paper. This is an unusual step in reaction to the publication of a paper. Retraction would be the normal course of action if a paper is technically wrong. His statement, in the form of an editorial in the journal, paradoxically 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. [20]
Spencer has described himself as a "global warming optimist" working to quantify Nature's thermostat.[21] In several articles Spencer has espoused opinions that are skeptical of the dominant scientific opinion on climate change.
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'".[22]
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.[23]
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."[24] 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.[25][26]
Spencer is an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation[27] and a signatory to "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming".[28]
The declaration states:
"We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."
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,[29] and in 2010, The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists.[30]
Spencer is a proponent of intelligent design as the mechanism for the origin of species.[31] 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."[31] 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."[32]
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