Top hurricane forecaster calls Al Gore a "gross alarmist"

[MGD]

Source: The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.

"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," William Gray said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.




Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2007-04-09-gray-gore_N.htm?csp=34

[enki23]

1. what a bullshit article title

.

[Demeter]

2. How Much Did This Testimony Cost the US Budget?

Science for sale in America--a few research grants, a couple phone calls, piece of cake!

[Eugene]

3. This happened Friday and Gray is a prominent global warming skeptic.

William Gray has been at this all weekend.

From Friday: Warming not behind hurricane activity: forecaster - Reuters
From Saturday: Forecaster blasts Gore on global warming - AP

[Wickerman]

4. Gray? LOL

In a December 2006 interview with David Harsanyi of the Denver Post, Gray said "They've been brainwashing us for 20 years, starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was." In this interview, Gray cites the global cooling article in Newsweek from 1975 as evidence that such a scare has happened in the past. Gray also stated, "I'll take on any scientist in this field to talk about this, I predict that in 5 to 8 years the globe will begin to cool".<3> When contacted, like fellow skeptic Richard Lindzen, he refused to accept any bets as to whether temperatures would drop, even bets that survive the bettors' lifespan by being given to a charitable foundation.

[Bridget Burke]

23. Well, "nuclear winter" was neither proved nor disproved.

Since we haven't had a nuclear war. Yet. I'd be happy to let that possibility remain a theory.

Although volcanos belching smoke & gases into the atmophere have led to chilly periods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_changes_of_535%E2%80%93536

[JohnWxy]

31. I guess all those climate scientists all over the world who are worried about global warming don't

know as much as this guy.

Frankly, I know Al has put on a little weight but to call the guy 'gross' - that's a little tacky.

[johnaries]

5. This is the guy that completely missed last year's forecast

because he failed to account for El Nino, which is a WARMING of the Pacific Ocean.

What does that tell ya?

[truthisfreedom]

6. #1] This guy's own colleagues are fighting with him for "digging his heels in" over global warming.

#2] He's 77 and just might be going "round the bend."
#3] If he's right and the oceans are going to cool in coming years, that will certainly save a lot of lives and spare us a huge amount of financial damage.

[Red Zelda]

24. Who let Boo Radley out of his room???

[Ganja Ninja]

7. Isn't this the guy that comes out every year and predicts 15 or 20

hurricanes? The one who's always wrong and sometimes badly wrong? He doesn't have much room to talk about alarmists. That seems to be his act in a nutshell.

[youngdem]

8. Read a little on this guy....he is a wing nut charlatan

He was dramatically exposed as an idiot in a Texas A&M symposium (for which I cannot now find the link). The questioner at the symposium exposed his lack of climatology knowledge in a way that even a numbskull like myself could tell was enormously embarrassing. He was forced to backtrack, then backtrack some more, then admit he didn't know what he was talking about (ON POSITIVE FEEDBACK SYSTEMS! AND HE CLAIMS TO UNDERSTAND GLOBAL WARMING!!!)

Anyone else got the link to that, by chance?

William Gray is a charlatan....simple as that.

We here in New Orleans have a running joke about his hurricane season predictions. He predicted numerous storms toward the beginning of the 06 season, then kept revising it downward. Quite a forecast when you get to continuously revise it as the model proceeds. Oh, and he STILL got it crazy wrong. We all joke that you could pay us only $2M to GUESS how many storms might come into the gulf (the usefulness of such forecasts has NEVER been understood to any of us except as a sensational news item)

So, this pencil dick who can't predict the next four months of storm prevalence is gonna argue with confidence against the entirety of the scientific establishment on long range climate change? PLEASE.

Fuck this guy.

[truthisfreedom]

9. He seems to be making most of his mistakes in his later years.

I suppose when you're the oldest active hurricane predictor, you get the title of "widely regarded as the most accurate" even if you've lost your touch.

[youngdem]

11. Or, when you are the ONLY hurricane predictor

;-)

[Journeyman]

10. Ah, the return of Dr Grey -- this time with doom and gloom first. . .

For 2006, he first predicted we'd have less hurricanes than 2005 (http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2005/dec... /), then one month later opined we'd have more and more severe hurricanes than 2005 (http://www.dr1.com/forums/weather-beyond/48713-2006-hur... ).

It's like earthquake prognosticators here in California -- everytime there's a temblor, someone steps forward to say we're going to have "the big one" sometime in the next 30 years. Eventually, of course, they'll be proved right, and from there they hope to enshrine their reputation. Charlatans all.

[dethl]

12. Gray is connected to the Heartland Institute, who receives big $$ from Exxon

His name is under the "Experts"
http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org

I wonder how much he got paid for slamming Gore.

[marmar]

25. "Gray is connected to the Heartland Institute, who receives big $$ from Exxon"

Shocking, I tell you. Shocking! :sarcasm:

[Mojorabbit]

13. Even worse

He was a featured speaker at a govt disaster preparadness conference where he said stronger hurricanes have nothing to do with climate change.

[Eugene]

14. Here is a point-by-point debunking of Gray.

From April 2006:

Gray and Muddy Thinking about Global Warming
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/gray-on-agw

[gulfcoastliberal]

15. He's not comparing Gore to Hitler this time?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

And Gray has no governor on his rhetoric. At one point during our meeting in Colorado he blurts out, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews."

[Xipe Totec]

16. On Professor Bill Gray and the Debate on Climate Change

Found in: Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog

"For years prior to the publication of evidence that the THC (Thermo-Haline Conveyor) was slowing down, Gray was testifying in Congress and writing widely that hurricane increases were due to Atlantic warming arising from a speed-up of the THC (see our article for some typical quotes). Confronted with evidence that the THC was in fact behaving in the opposite way to what he had been assuming, Gray did a flip-flop and came up with a new story that yields the same conclusions. There’s no shame in a scientist changing his or her mind, or in seeking new theories in the face of new observations. However, if Gray’s old theory was really testable, where were the tests to show that it was wrong in the years he was touting it? How is one to put any confidence in the new theory? The fact is that neither of Gray’s story lines about the THC is sufficiently well formulated to allow any clear-cut test. Nonetheless, insofar as it can be understood at all, some aspects of Gray’s new story line about the THC are demonstrably wrong."

Comment by Steve Bloom — July 1, 2006 @ 3:34 pm

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/06/29/on-professor-bill-gray-and-the-debate-on-climate-changge

[modrepub]

17. Old School

Dr. Gray's methodology is very "old school". He looks at maps, recognizes patterns from the past then makes his predictions. This isn't a bad methodology, it worked quite well in the 1950s and 1960s before computer power enabled meteorologists to solve the highly nonlinear equations used to forecast the weather. That's Dr. Gray's weak point in my opinion; he does not believe or understand the computer models used by modern forecasters. At some point the computer models will yield more accurate predictions of hurricane seasons and Gray's method will become obsolete, like the pattern recognition methods used by early forecasters. I respect Dr. Gray, he knows what he does quite well and he's in a field where computer power does not help much; the current "state of the art" climate models woefully under-predict the weather out much past two weeks. But in time as our understanding increases so will our long-range forecast ability (up to a point). Another woeful attempt by the media to offer "balanced" coverage.

[glitch]

18. So this is their "Top" huh? Very impressive. nt

:rofl:

[0rganism]

19. I wonder if he collected on that 10 grand the oil lobby was offering...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/01/oil-lobby-payments/

All this media coverage has to be worth as much or more than a publishable article to the AEI fucks.

[modrepub]

21. Let's compare

In my day (early 1990s) a science research grant in the field of climate forecasting was $30-100k (spread out over several years). My prof was a leader in climate research, well respected and cautious. Of this grant he'd get a cut, the university would get a cut (most of this went to keep the computer systems up and current) and the rest paid my stipend ($10-12k a year). He was well off but not overly paid in my opinion.

Now let compare that to the Chevron/Texaco or Occidental Chemical CEO; several hundred million dollars per year. Now I ask you, who has more to loose???

[0rganism]

22. IMHO, $10k is a lowball, maybe even an insult

Hell, a high-quality global warming denier article ought to be worth at least $50k, maybe $100k, to the petroleum industry. All those big-money CEOs could pool a million bucks out of their ridiculous salaries, launder it through the AEI, and buy 10-20 cooked articles at that price. They're pretty much asking people to shit on their professional reputations, so $10k is peanuts. Still, if you're out on that limb anyway, you might as well go for the extra buck or two.

[Fovea]

20. Isn't he a member

of the flat earth society?

[seasat]

26. Even Lindzen refused to work with him.

I read an article a while back about the handful of skeptics and Grey was going on about how he wanted to collaborate with other skeptics but Lindzen turned him down. Apparently, Lindzen didn't find that Grey had enough knowledge of modern modeling techniques to be worthy of working with him. In other words, the blowhard that thinks the cloud cover over the Atlantic is going to eventually recede allowing trapped IR to escape (Lindzen's infamous lensing hypothesis) doesn't even think Grey is competent.

[jpak]

27. Lindzen's "Adaptive Iris Hypothesis" has been refuted - using his own data (!!)

and independently by other researchers.

But that doesn't stop him from spewing BS about GW...

[seasat]

29. I hear he's adopted the Sheep Albedo Feedback hypothesis

(LINK)

The hypothesis begins with the simple observation that most sheep are white, and therefore have a higher albedo than the land on which they typically graze (see figure below). This effect is confirmed by the recent Sheep Radiation Budget Experiment. The next step in the chain of logic is to note that the sheep population of New Zealand has plummeted in recent years. The resulting decrease in albedo leads to an increase in absorbed Solar radiation, thus warming the planet.
...
However, Dirk Blitzen, noted researcher from Hogwartz Institute of Technology, has proposed an additional wrinkle on the sheep-albedo idea, which he calls the "sheep-Iris effect" (see Dasher et al. <4> for details). According to Blitzen, a reanalysis of Landsat images shows that as the climate gets warmer, sheep tend to huddle together less. Since wool has a lower emissivity than bare ground, the lack of huddling allows more infrared emission to escape from the ground, cooling the planet and stabilizing its climate. "Frankly, I don't see how the climate can change much at all," stated Blitzen in recent testimony before the House of Lords, "To be honest, at this point I have a little trouble figuring out how there can even be summer and winter. In the end, I think it will turn out to be a problem with the data." Ozark Junior College satellite expert Jhon Chrystal agrees; his new analysis of MSU satellite data in fact casts doubt on the "consensus" that summer and winter have different temperatures.

[jollyreaper2112]

28. who's this scary guy?

I thought we were talking about the guy who would show up on the weather channel, small, glasses, white hair, trim moustache. Isn't he a gray doc? or a grey doc?

[MasonJar]

30. Was he one of the recepients of the government's $10,000 award?

Or he just an idiot like all the Bushistas?