Look, another climate expert the BBC won’t be interviewing
Anastasios Tsonis is emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of more than 130 peer reviewed papers and nine books. He is just retired, and finally able to speak his mind. [Updated] …though he’s been a climate professor and a skeptic for some years, somehow the media didn’t beat a path to his door. He commented below that rather than staying silent til his retirement he has been skeptical for many years and was free to say so at his university (such a rare thing, how many other profs can we say the same about?). His University of Wisconsin site is here, and his statement here.]
The overblown and misleading issue of global warming
Washington Times
Anastasios Tsonis
The fact that scientists who show results not aligned with the mainstream are labeled deniers is the backward mentality. We don’t live in the medieval times, when Galileo had to admit to something that he knew was wrong to save his life.
Lives are not at risk, but careers sure seem to be. Not medieval times but perhaps modi-eval?
So how many of the 97% of climate science believers are actually skeptics? Even after they retire there are lots of reasons for them to stay quiet. [Obviously, not the case for Prof Tsonis].
He’s willing to debate
Science is all about proving, not believing. In that regard, I am a skeptic not just about global warming but also about many other aspects of science.
All scientists should be skeptics. Climate is too complicated to attribute its variability to one cause. We first need to understand the natural climate variability (which we clearly don’t; I can debate anybody on this issue). Only then we can assess the magnitude and reasons of climate change. Science would have never advanced if it were not for the skeptics.
The models were wrong. If they can’t explain the pause, they don’t understand the cause. (h/t HockeySchtick for that phrase.)
All model projections made for the 21st century failed to predict the slowdown of the planet’s warming despite the fact that carbon dioxide emissions kept on increasing. Science is never settled. If science were settled, then we should pack things up and go home.
My research over the years is focused on climate variability and climate dynamics. It is my educated opinion that many forces have shaped global temperature variation. Human activity, the oceans, extraterrestrial forces (solar activity and cosmic rays) and other factors are all in the mix. It may very well be that human activity is the primary reason, but having no strong evidence of the actual percent effect of these three major players, I will attribute 1/3 to each one of them.
Good on him for speaking out. Shame he didn’t feel he could when he was employed.
h/t Climate Depot and Pat.
***Edited headline to remove the incorrect “retires and”. Thanks to Prof Tsonis for commenting:
| Anastasios Tsonis |
Submitted on 2019/01/16 at 1:07 am
For the record, I would like to state that the header “PROFESSOR RETIRES AND BECOMES A CLIMATE SCEPTIC” is wrong and misleading. I did not wait to retire in order to express my opinions. I am expressing my views for many years and while I was employed. In fact, my article in Washington Times is a summary of my “Statement” posted in my website years ago. My university never interfered with my research. This is exactly what I meant in the article by “ignorant people abusing the internet”. I would hope that this mistake is corrected. Anastasios Tsonis |