On Climate Change
Pielke has been accused of being a climate denier, but this is not accurate. He claims that carbon dioxide, while important, is not the predominant forcing of global warming. He has said:
- As I have summarized on the Climate Science weblog, humans activities do significantly alter the heat content of the climate system, although, based on the latest understanding, the radiative effect of CO2 has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up to the present. The other 72% is still a result of human activities!
Pielke has criticized the IPCC for its conclusions regarding CO2 and global warming and accused it of selectively choosing data to support a selective view of the science..
In 2010 Pielke revisited a question provided by Andrew Revkin "Is most of the observed warming over the last 50 years likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations", Pielke stated that the answer "remains No", and that "The added greenhouse gases from human activity clearly have a role in increasing the heat content of the climate system from what it otherwise would be", but "there are other equally or even more important significant human climate forcings" and furthermore "We now know, however, that the natural variations of atmospheric and ocean circulation features within the climate system produces global average heat changes that are substantially larger than what was known in 2005. The IPCC models have failed to adequately simulate this effect."
Read more about this topic: Roger A. Pielke
Famous quotes containing the words climate and/or change:
“Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt’s and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)