Dr. Roy Spencer is disputing Judah Cohen's claim made in his New York Times op-ed, "Bundle Up, It's Global Warming," that global warming is responsible for the winters of recent years and for this year's extreme winter weather experienced by parts of the U.S, Europe, and Asia.
"The consensus of opinion, even amongst those who believe that man-made global warming is going to be a serious problem, is that winters will be warmer with less snow," Dr. Spencer notes. "In reference to this New York Times op-ed that was written by this fellow, while he said it was consistent with climate change, he then talked only about natural climate cycles, which is curious."
In other words, he decides the article is "a non-sequitur."
"While [Cohen] said this is consistent with climate change, the rest of his article talked about natural climate variability -- not man-made global warming," the climatologist points out.
While Spencer believes the globe has warmed, he also believes the question of how much and why remains up for debate. And he says that even if warming has continued over the last 50 to 100 years, "we have evidence from temperature data that suggests that almost every century in the last 2,000 years has experienced significant global warming or global cooling."
As for the recent cold weather, Spencer says the U.K.'s cold December has been caused by the persistent influx of eastern air, which he acknowledges as a "very unusual" weather pattern.
"When there is unusually cold air moving from Siberia to the U.K., for instance, that means there is unusually warm air someplace else that is replacing that cold air in portions of Siberia," he explains. "It's just air masses moving around."
The climatologist recently appeared at a U.N. Climate Conference to challenge so-called "climate orthodoxy" on behalf of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), where he says his group was successful in swaying the opinions of delegates from African nations, who seemed "interested in what we were promoting, which is free market economics and smart use of natural resources."
Despite the positive impact, the former NASA scientist does not see a complete change in opinion on global warming in the near future.
"There seems to be a very interesting dynamic forming in this whole global warming belief system. The public is getting more and more skeptical, but the ruling class, I'll call them the 'elites' -- the politicians [and] the scientists who do all this research as part of their careers -- they're continuing on with their belief that warming is man-made, that it's going to be even worse in the future, and they are totally impervious to what's going on in public opinion."
So he concludes "the elites" will continue working to gain support for that opinion as long as they continue getting funding.
A climatologist and former NASA scientist says a recent op-ed claiming global warming is responsible for cold weather isn't true.
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