Patrick Michaels
Encyclopedia
Patrick J. Michaels (born February 15, 1950) is an American climatologist
. Michaels is a senior research fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University
, and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute
. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.
A self-described skeptic on the issue of global warming
, he is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists
. He has written a number of books and papers on climate change, including Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), The Satanic Gases (2000), and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004) and is the co-author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009).
, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison
.
, and may even be beneficial.
He has written extensive editorials on this topic for the mass media, and for think tank
s and their publications such as Regulation.
Michaels asks:
director, John Holdren
, told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science." Michaels responded in a Washington Examiner
Op-Ed, saying that the IPCC had subverted the peer review process, and adding the IPCC had "left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable."
Climate scientist Tom Wigley
, a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
, has stated that "Michaels' statements on the subject of computer models
are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation … Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading."
Michaels received praise for his book, "Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know" from University of Alabama-Huntsville
Principal Research Scientist Roy Spencer, who wrote, "Michaels and [Co-Author Robert] Balling
have provided a treasure trove of the latest global warming science." Will Happer, Professor of Physics
and Former Chairman of the University Research Board at Princeton University
, also praised the book and wrote it "...provides important and honest information about climate change that is hard to find elsewhere."
sent a letter to Rep. Fred Upton
seeking to call in Michaels for questioning about his science and funding. In the letter, Waxman wrote that Pat Michaels testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009 "that widely accepted scientific data had 'overestimated' global warming and that regulation enacted in response to that data could have 'a very counterproductive effect.' Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Pat Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change ... Dr. Michaels may have provided misleading information about the sources of his funding and his ties to industries opposed to regulation of emissions responsible for climate change."
On July 27, 2006 ABC News
reported that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000. An Associated Press
report said that the donations had been made after Michaels had "told Western business leaders ... that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research" and noted that the cooperative had a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps, a situation that raised conflict of interest concerns.
According to Fred Pearce
, fossil fuel companies have helped fund Michaels' projects, including his World Climate Report, published every year since 1994, and his "advocacy science consulting firm", New Hope Environmental Services.
, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (2005; as editor and coauthor).
His writing has been published in major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change
, Geophysical Research Letters
, Journal of Climate
, Nature
, and Science
, as well as in popular serials such as the Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times
, USA Today
, Houston Chronicle
, and Journal of Commerce. He was an author of the climate "paper of the year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers
in 2004.
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
. Michaels is a senior research fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.
A self-described skeptic on the issue of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, he is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists
American Association of State Climatologists
The American Association of State Climatologists is a professional scientific organisation for climatologists in the United States, which was founded in 1976.There are currently 47 state climatologists in the AASC, one from each represented state...
. He has written a number of books and papers on climate change, including Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), The Satanic Gases (2000), and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004) and is the co-author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009).
Background
Michaels has an A.B. and S.M. in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
.
Views on climate change
Michaels has said that he does not contest the basic scientific principles behind greenhouse warming and acknowledges that the global mean temperature has increased in recent decades. He is one of the most widely quoted global warming skeptics and has described himself as a skeptic. He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophicRisks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Various existential risks could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth.-Types of risks:...
, and may even be beneficial.
He has written extensive editorials on this topic for the mass media, and for think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
s and their publications such as Regulation.
[S]cientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) [in 50 years]
All this has to do with basic physics, which isn't real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming, and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn't constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate.
Michaels asks:
Why is the news on global warming always bad? Perhaps because there's little incentive to look at things the other way. If you do, you're liable to be pilloried by your colleagues. If global warming isn't such a threat, who needs all that funding?
Criticism and support
Office of Science and Technology PolicyOffice of Science and Technology Policy
The Office of Science and Technology Policy is an office in the Executive Office of the President , established by Congress on May 11, 1976, with a broad mandate to advise the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.The director of this office is...
director, John Holdren
John Holdren
John Paul Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...
, told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science." Michaels responded in a Washington Examiner
Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz....
Op-Ed, saying that the IPCC had subverted the peer review process, and adding the IPCC had "left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable."
Climate scientist Tom Wigley
Tom Wigley
Tom Wigley is a climate scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research . He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his major contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis, and because he is "one of the...
, a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
, has stated that "Michaels' statements on the subject of computer models
Global climate model
A General Circulation Model is a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean and based on the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources . These equations are the basis for complex computer programs commonly...
are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation … Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading."
Michaels received praise for his book, "Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know" from University of Alabama-Huntsville
University of Alabama in Huntsville
The University of Alabama in Huntsville is a state-supported, public, coeducational research university, located in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees, and is organized in five...
Principal Research Scientist Roy Spencer, who wrote, "Michaels and [Co-Author Robert] Balling
Robert Balling
Robert C. Balling, Jr. is a professor of geography at Arizona State University, and the former director of its Office of Climatology. His research interests include climatology, global climate change, and geographic information systems...
have provided a treasure trove of the latest global warming science." Will Happer, Professor of Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and Former Chairman of the University Research Board at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, also praised the book and wrote it "...provides important and honest information about climate change that is hard to find elsewhere."
Funding from energy or fossil fuel companies
On January 25, 2011, Rep. Henry WaxmanHenry Waxman
Henry Arnold Waxman is the U.S. Representative for , serving in Congress since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress...
sent a letter to Rep. Fred Upton
Fred Upton
Frederick Stephen Upton is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He is a member of the Republican Party and Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The district, based in Kalamazoo, stretches along the Michigan-Indiana border in the southwestern part of the state.-Early life,...
seeking to call in Michaels for questioning about his science and funding. In the letter, Waxman wrote that Pat Michaels testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009 "that widely accepted scientific data had 'overestimated' global warming and that regulation enacted in response to that data could have 'a very counterproductive effect.' Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Pat Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change ... Dr. Michaels may have provided misleading information about the sources of his funding and his ties to industries opposed to regulation of emissions responsible for climate change."
On July 27, 2006 ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
reported that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000. An Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
report said that the donations had been made after Michaels had "told Western business leaders ... that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research" and noted that the cooperative had a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps, a situation that raised conflict of interest concerns.
According to Fred Pearce
Fred Pearce
Fred Pearce is an English author and journalist based in London. He has been described as one of Britain's finest science writers and has reported on environment, popular science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years. He specializes in global environmental issues,...
, fossil fuel companies have helped fund Michaels' projects, including his World Climate Report, published every year since 1994, and his "advocacy science consulting firm", New Hope Environmental Services.
Selected publications
Michaels is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), Satanic Gases (2002; as coauthor), Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media (2004), published by the Cato InstituteCato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (2005; as editor and coauthor).
His writing has been published in major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change
Climatic Change
Climatic Change is a scientific journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. It deals with the problems of climatic variability and change...
, Geophysical Research Letters
Geophysical Research Letters
Geophysical Research Letters is a semi-monthly peer reviewed scientific journal published by the American Geophysical Union that was established in 1974...
, Journal of Climate
Journal of Climate
The Journal of Climate is a scientific journal published by the American Meteorological Society.The journal publishes articles on climate research, in particular those concerned with large-scale atmospheric and oceanic variability, changes in the climate system , and climate simulation and...
, Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, and Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, as well as in popular serials such as the Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, and Journal of Commerce. He was an author of the climate "paper of the year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers
Association of American Geographers
The Association of American Geographers is a non-profit scientific and educational society founded in 1904 and aimed at advancing the understanding, study, and importance of geography and related fields...
in 2004.
External links
- Chief Editor profile, World Climate ReportWorld Climate ReportWorld Climate Report, a newsletter edited by Patrick Michaels, was produced by the Greening Earth Society, a non-profit organization created by the Western Fuels Association....
- Biography, University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
- Biography, Cato InstituteCato InstituteThe Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
- "How to Manufacture a Climate Consensus", op-edOp-edAn op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
by Michaels at the Wall Street Journal, published 12/17/2009