Richard A. Muller Perspective on Global Warming



Richard A. Muller Perspective on Global Warming

Introduction

In years past, University of California physicist Richard Muller criticized aspects of the statistical bases of certain global warming findings. He launched a project called Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature to produce an open, independent temperature analysis. The researchers released preliminary results to the public in October (Goldhaber 2008, p. 53). Their analysis confirmed the existence of global warming; their results were more or less in line with those of previous studies. The Berkeley group found, among other things, that earth's land had warmed by about 1.6°F (0.9°C) since the 1950s. Muller commented: When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that.

Discussion

Muller said that in his study went back further back, to the extent of analyzing data collected by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Its final conclusions to be presented Monday at a conference are similar to those expressed for decades by climate scientists. The figures of Muller, who works at the University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, coincide with those of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. But what catches the attention of everyone from columnists to political satire program The Daily Show is the source of the money behind the study (Goldhaber 2008, p. 53). Muller did not mention in his studies on the causes of global warming. The vast majority of scientists say it is due to human activity, the use of fossil fuels like oil and coal.

The research, in the words of Prof. Muller, proof that skeptics should no longer exist in the future was hailed by the world press as the scientific study that puts an end once and for all, the debate on Global Warming. The prof. Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues at Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project (BEST) have claimed to have demonstrated that the planet has warmed about one degree since 1950 and that the temperature continues to increase. Published last week ahead of the UN Climate Summit next month in Durban, South Africa, their work has been quoted all over the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide can save civilization as we know it. This resolution was accepted and disseminated uncritically by commentators and reporters of the BBC and other media, both English and American. The Washington Post said, in particular, that the study of the BEST project has ended the debate on climate change and showed how everyone remains skeptical'm making a cynical fraud. Today, however, The Mail on Sunday reveals that a prominent member of the team of prof. Muller, accused him of deceiving the public groped ...