Leading Environmental Scientist Available for Commentary on
the Alleged Tsunami/Global Warming Link
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to the environmental
experts busily creating links between the recent tsunami and global warming,
Dr. Pat Michaels (VA state climatologist, author, UVA and Cato scholar) made
the following announcement:
"Anyone who has the moral audacity to blame thousands of deaths caused by
the Indian Ocean tsunamis on global warming is in grave contravention of well-
known facts about changes in sea level in that region. Unfortunately, it is
another 'Predictable Distortion' of global warming, similar to dozens
documented in my recent book.
Topex-Poseidon satellite data published in 2001 in Science Magazine by
Cabanes et al. show that the region where the tsunamis were most devastating
has, in general, experienced a recent decline in sea level. When extended
back 50 years, by matching satellite data with submarine measurements, the
region shows a rise averaging about 0.35 inches per decade, for a fifty-year
total of 1.75 inches. This is typical of global rates of sea-level change
that have been constant for centuries, even millennia, as the planetary
surface has warmed, cooled, and warmed.
The highest estimate for the recent tsunami currently stands at 35 feet,
or 24,000% higher than the secular rise in sea level in the region in the last
half-century. Additionally, the long-term record of sea level changes for
Bombay was published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change in 1995. It shows a net decline in sea level in the last 50 years.
In his new book, State of Fear, Michael Crichton repeatedly demonstrates
that global warming ambulance-chasers often assume things to be true that
simply are not. The book centers around a lawsuit by pacific islanders because
of sea level rise; their case falls apart when the facts disclose that sea
levels were actually falling in the region in question. Life imitates
fiction. Michael Crichton should sue environmentalists who blame the massive
death toll from the Indian Ocean's tragic tsunamis on sea level rise for
plagiarism."
References:
Cabanes, C., et al. Sea level rise during the past 40 years determined
from satellite and in situ observations. Science, Vol 294, 840-42 (2001).
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1995: Climate
Change 1995. Cambridge Press. Data on page 367.
Dr. Michaels is a research professor of environmental sciences at the
University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in
Washington, D.C. He is a past president of the American Association of State
Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology
of the American Meteorological Society. He holds A.B. and S.M. degrees in
biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he
received a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at
Madison in 1979. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His writing has been
published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research,
Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and
Science, as well as in popular serials such as the Washington Post, Washington
Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and Journal of
Commerce. He has appeared on ABC, NPR's "All Things Considered," PBS, Fox News
Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Voice of America. According to Nature
magazine, Pat Michaels may be the most popular lecturer in the nation on the
subject of global warming.
To schedule an interview with Dr. Michaels, please contact Audrey Mullen
at 202-861-5677 or 202-270-2772.
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SOURCE Dr. Pat Michaels
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CONTACT:
Audrey Mullen, +1-202-861-5677, or
+1-202-270-2772, for Dr. Pat Michaels
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