Richard S. Lindzen

Richard Lindzen, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has researched the climate and related fields for over thirty years, holding professorships at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. He frequently speaks out against the global warming theory.

Lindzen criticized the IPCC for alterations to the Policymakers Summary[?] of its global warming report.

The draft of the Policymakers Summary was significantly modified at Shanghai. The IPCC, in response to the fact that the Policymakers Summary was not prepared by participating scientists, claimed that the draft of the Summary was prepared by a (selected) subset of the 14 coordinating lead authors. However, the final version of the summary differed significantly from the draft. For example the draft concluded the following concerning attribution:

From the body of evidence since IPCC (1996), we conclude that there has been a discernible human influence on global climate. Studies are beginning to separate the contributions to observed climate change attributable to individual external influences, both anthropogenic and natural. This work suggests that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the past 30 years. However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing.

The version that emerged from Shanghai concludes instead:

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. [1] (http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php/397.htm)

Links

• Testimony of Richard S. Lindzen Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php/397.htm)
• Testimony of Richard S. Lindzen before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee (http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/TAR2000/lindzen.htm)