Roy Warren Spencer (born December 20, 1955) is an American
meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
and
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...
scientist. He is a principal research scientist at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville
The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is a public research university in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and comprises eight colleges: arts, humanities ...
, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's
Aqua satellite.
He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...
.
He is known for his
satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the
American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...
's Special Award.
[ Regarding ]climate change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
, Spencer is a "lukewarmer", with the view that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused some warming, but that influence is small compared to natural variations in global average cloud cover. He wrote several political books slamming what he calls "hysteria" about climate change, he says hurt both science and the people.
Education and career
Spencer received a BS in atmospheric sciences
Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study ...
from the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
in 1978 and his MS and PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in meteorology
Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
in 1980 and 1982. His doctoral thesis was titled, ''A case study of African wave structure and energetics during Atlantic transit''.
After receiving his PhD in 1982, Spencer worked for two years as a research scientist in the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He then joined NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center as a visiting scientist in 1984, where he later became senior scientist for climate studies. After leaving NASA in 2001, Spencer has been a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). As well as his position at UAH, Spencer is currently the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite, a position he has held since 1994.
In 2001, he designed an algorithm to detect tropical cyclones and estimate their maximum sustained wind speed using the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU).
Spencer has been a member of several science teams: the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Space Station Accommodations Analysis Study Team, Science Steering Group for TRMM, TOVS Pathfinder Working Group, NASA Headquarters Earth Science and Applications Advisory Subcommittee, and two National Research Council (NRC) study panels. He is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute, and on the board of advisors of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.
Spencer's research work is funded by NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
, NOAA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...
, DOE, and the DOT. He also received money from Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy is a coal mining company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody also marke ...
.
Peer-reviewed articles on climate change
Negative cloud feedback
In 2007, Spencer and others published a paper in ''Geophysical Research Letters
''Geophysical Research Letters'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal of geoscience published by the American Geophysical Union that was established in 1974. The editor-in-chief iKristopher Karnauskas
Aims and scope
The journal aims for ...
'' regarding negative cloud feedback in the tropics that potentially supports Richard Lindzen's Iris hypothesis, which proposes that as the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease, allowing infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space. Spencer stated, "To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent. ..Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming. I'm betting that if the climate models' 'clouds' were made to behave the way we see these clouds behave in nature, it would substantially reduce the amount of climate change the models predict for the coming decades."[
]
Cloud formation and temperature change
In 2008, Spencer and William Braswell published a paper in the '' Journal of Climate'' which suggests that natural variations in how clouds form could actually be causing temperature changes, rather than the other way around, and could also lead to overestimates of how sensitive the Earth's climate is to greenhouse gas emissions. Spencer stated, "Our paper is an important step toward validating a gut instinct that many meteorologists like myself have had over the years, ..that the climate system is dominated by stabilizing processes, rather than destabilizing processes – that is, negative feedback rather than positive feedback."
Energy lost to space as compared to climate models
In 2011, Spencer and Braswell published a paper in ''Remote Sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...
'' concluding that more energy is radiated back to space and released earlier than previously thought. Spencer stated, "The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show. There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."[
The paper was criticized by climate scientists.] Kerry Emanuel of MIT, said this work was cautious and limited mostly to pointing out problems with forecasting heat feedback, and that the interpretations of the study by non-scientists have "no basis in reality."
The editor-in-chief of ''Remote Sensing'', Wolfgang Wagner, later resigned over publication of Spencer and Braswell (2011), stating, "From a purely formal point of view, there were no errors with the review process. ..the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view ...but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal." Wagner added he, "would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements".
Andrew Dessler later published a paper opposing the claims of Spencer and Braswell (2011) in ''Geophysical Research Letters''. He stated, among other things:
Views
Climate change
Spencer has published two books on climate change: In 2008, ''Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor'', and in 2010, ''The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climate Scientists''.
He believes that most climate change is natural in origin, the result of long-term changes in the Earth's albedo
Albedo ( ; ) is the fraction of sunlight that is Diffuse reflection, diffusely reflected by a body. It is measured on a scale from 0 (corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation) to 1 (corresponding to a body that reflects ...
and that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused some warming, but that its warming influence is small compared to natural, internal, chaotic fluctuations in global average cloud cover. At that time the IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...
hold the view that .
In February 2014 Spencer posted on his blog that he was going to start referring to those who referred to those questioning the mainstream view of global warming (such as Spencer himself) as " climate change deniers" as "global warming Nazis", contending that "...these people are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did." The Anti-Defamation League responded with a statement condemning Spencer's comparison. Shelley Rose, the ADL's Southeast Interim Regional Director, argued that the comparison of global warming advocates to Nazis was "outrageous and deeply offensive," and "This analogy is just the latest example of a troubling epidemic of comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust."
Intelligent design
Spencer believes in the pseudoscience of intelligent design
Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".#Numbers 2006, Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for it ...
which was criticized by Phil Plait, in ''Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
'' as advocating "warmed-over creationism". Spencer's views on the matter were used as an example in an exploration by the ''Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper b ...
'' as a possible connection between climate change denial
Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetor ...
and creationism.
Awards
* 1989 – Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...
Center Director's Commendation
* 1990 – Alabama House of Representatives Resolution #624
* 1991 – NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (with John Christy)
* 1996 – American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...
Special Award "for developing a global, precise record of earth's temperature from operational polar-orbiting satellites, fundamentally advancing our ability to monitor climate." (with John Christy)
See also
* John Christy (satellite temperature record)
* UAH satellite temperature dataset
Selected publications
Articles
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Books
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Peer-reviewed papers
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References
External links
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Roy Spencer – NASA Profile US AMSR-E Science Team Leader
Roy Spencer – Select Works
George C. Marshall Institute
*
Roy Spencer – Satellite Evidence for Global Warming Being Driven by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
presentation at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change
The International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) is a climate change denial conference series organized and sponsored by The Heartland Institute which aims to bring together those who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, con ...
Critique of Roy Spencer's book The Great Global Warming Blunder by Barry Bickmore, professor of geochemistry at Brigham Young University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, Roy
1955 births
Living people
American meteorologists
People from Huntsville, Alabama
University of Alabama in Huntsville faculty
University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
NASA people