Scientific Perspectives on Global Warming

I am not not an atmospheric scientist. Even though I've read extensively on the subject of global warming sometimes it is best to provide a succinct summary of key global warming topics by one of the leading scientists in the field.

The attached link is the official record of testimony that was provided to the U.K. Parliament’s House of Lords’ Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Richard Lindzen is a scientist with the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Lindzen holds the Alfred P. Sloan Professorship in Atmospheric Physics at MIT. He previously held positions at Harvard and the University of Chicago. This memorandum is not too long, is on point, and I think does a good job of stating where the scientific consensus ends and where the media and politicos have gone overboard.

He interestingly points out that CO2 accumulation as a warming agent is not linear. If we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from current levels it will increase the temperature about 0.5 C. But to raise the temperature another 0.05 C would take a quadrupling of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

There are lots of other scientists that are publishing similar research and perspectives. A few of the better know scientists include:

Roy Spenser, Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama, U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer. Professor Spensor recently co-authored an article published in a peer-reviewed journal showing that the U.N. temperature data from around the world had not been properly adjust for area of high econominc development (the U.N.'s number were supposed to have corrected for the "heat sink" effect of large cities). This solved a conundrum for scientists who could not resolve why the U.N.'s data on surface measurements did not translate into the expected measurements in the upper atmosphere. He is also the author of several other recent peer reviewed publications that contradict what many climate change models show.

Patrick Michaels, the AASC-designated State Climatologist at the University of Virginia, specializing in Ecological and Mesoscale Climatology. Patrick Michaels is a widely published author on the subject of Global Warming including "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media". Professor Michaels is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and an author of the 2003 climate science “Paper of the Year” selected by the Association of American Geographers. His research has been published in major peer reviewed scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science. He received his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1979.

William M. Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, and called by the media a "top meteorologist", has stated that global warming "is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people." Professor Gray is best know for providng the annual hurricane forecasts for the U.S.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/5012506.htm