Selected exerpts of an Open Letter by Atmospheric Physicist Dr. Petr Chylek are published below.
[Bio: Chylek is currently a Remote Sensing Team Leader in the Space and Remote Sensing Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor at the NMSU Physics Department. Chylek published his first climate-related paper in 1974 (Chylek and Coakley, Aerosol and Climate, Science 183, 75-77). "I have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and I am a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory."]
For Full December 5, 2009 Open Letter reacting to Climategate go here.
Key Excerpts of Dr. Petr Chylek's “Open Letter to the Climate Research Community”: [...]
It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. [...] Yes, there have been cases of misbehaviour and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name a few. However, it was misbehaviour of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community. [...] The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. [...]
To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails.
Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity. The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration. [...]
Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide.
Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public's trust and move forward.
Regards,
Petr Chylek
Laboratory Fellow, Remote Sensing Team Leader, ISR-2 MS-B244
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
To Read the full Open Letter go here.
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