Thomas R. Karl (born 22 November 1951, in Evergreen Park,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

) is the former director of the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...

’s

National Centers for Environmental Information The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is a U.S. government agency that manages one of the world's largest archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic data. The current director is Deke Arndt. NCEI is operate ...

(NCEI). He joined the National Climate Centre in 1980, and when that became the

National Climatic Data Center The United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), previously known as the National Weather Records Center (NWRC), in Asheville, North Carolina, was the world's largest active archive of weather data. In 2015, the NCDC merged with two other ...

, he continued as a researcher, becoming a Lab Chief, Senior Scientist and ultimately Director of the Center. When it merged with other centers to become NCEI in 2015, he became its first director. He retired on 4 August 2016.

Global warming hiatus debate

Karl was the lead on a study on the question of the possible existence of a hiatus in global warming, as discussed in the

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the fifth in IPCC#Assessment reports, a series of such reports and was completed in 2014.IPCC (2014The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (A ...

. In the study, published in the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

(AAAS) ''Science'' journal in June 2015 and based on previously published datasets, they found no indication of a slowdown, even in the period from 1998 to 2012 which had been highlighted by the IPCC.

(AAAS) This analysis incorporated the latest

homogenization Homogeneity is a sameness of constituent structure. Homogeneity, homogeneous, or homogenization may also refer to: In mathematics * Asymptotic homogenization, a method to study partial differential equations with highly oscillatory coefficients ...

corrections for known biases in ocean temperature measurements as published by others in NOAA's Extended Reconstructed

Sea Surface Temperature Sea surface temperature (or ocean surface temperature) is the ocean temperature, temperature of ocean water close to the surface. The exact meaning of ''surface'' varies in the literature and in practice. It is usually between and below the sea ...

dataset version 4, and land temperatures from the new International Surface Temperature Initiative dataset, integrated with NOAA’s

Global Historical Climatology Network The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is a data set of temperature, precipitation and pressure records managed by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Arizona State University and the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. Sin ...

. Scientists working on other datasets welcomed this study, though the view was expressed at the time that the short term warming trend had been slower than in previous periods of the same length. After he published these results, Karl was attacked by

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 ...

ists, including

Lamar Smith Lamar Seeligson Smith (born November 19, 1947) is an American politician and lobbyist who served in the United States House of Representatives for for 16 terms, a district including most of the wealthier sections of San Antonio and Austin, as w ...

, chair of the House Science Committee. In 2017 the findings of the Karl et al. study were confirmed by another group of scientists using different methodologies.

Awards

* Verner E. Suomi Award by the American Meteorological Society * Amer. Assoc. of State Climatologists, Landsberg Award(1993) * Amer. Meteor. Soc. Editors Award, J. Climate (1988) *

Department of Commerce Gold Medal Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

(1991) *

NOAA Administrator's Award The NOAA Administrator's Award is an award of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The award is granted by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, who serves concurrently as the Administrator of the Natio ...

(1989) *

Department of Commerce Bronze Medal The awards and decorations of the United States Department of Commerce are Awards and decorations of the United States government, civil awards and decorations which are presented to civilian and uniformed personnel of the U.S. Department of Commer ...

(1988)

Service

* Editor Journal of Climate * Associate Editor Climatic Change * National Research Council * Climate Research Committee (1991–present) * Panel on EOSDIS (1992–94) * Panel on Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming (1990–1992) *

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 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 Met ...

: Lead Author 1995, 1992, 1990 * Public Affairs: Numerous news media interviews, testimony to U.S. Congress and briefings to cabinet-level officials and Vice President of the US.

Papers

* Karl, T.R., R.W. Knight, and B. Baker. 2000. The record breaking global temperatures of 1997 and 1998: Evidence for an increase in the rate of global warming.

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 ...

27(March 1):719-722.
press release

References

External links

NCDC report prepared by Karl and David Easterling based on

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 ...

TAR Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black b ...

and other sources.
Testimony before the Committee on governmental affairs of the United States senate
July 18, 2001

* ttp://www.jhu.edu/~climate/thomaska.htm The Climate Change and Human Health Integrated Assessment Web bio
Report of workshop
on uncertainties in the satellite temperature record (ppt; 4M) {{DEFAULTSORT:Karl, Thomas R. 1951 births Living people National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration personnel