Roy Spencer is a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He has a Ph.D in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was previously a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA. He also operates his own blog, where he writes about climate change. He serves on the Cornwall Alliance Advisory Board, and he has testified before Congress on global warming
Though he claims on his website that “He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service”, he is on the board of directors for the George C. Marshall Institute, a corporation that has received funding from Exxon-Mobil.
He has written several books denying that climate change is caused by human actions, including The Great Global Warming Blunder and Climate Confusion.
Position on Climate Change
In his 2013 testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee of the United States Senate, he said that his “overall view of the influence of humans on climate is that we probably have some influence, but it is impossible to know with any level of certainty how much influence. The difficulty in determining the human influence on climate arises from several sources: (1) weather and climate vary naturally, and by amounts that are not currently being exceeded; (2) global warming theory is just that- based upon theory; and (3) there is no unique fingerprint of human caused global warming.”
He also wrote that “the evidence that humans are mostly responsible for either recent warming or severe weather changes (if such changes exist at all) is equivocal, at best.”
Dr. Spencer wrote that “This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.” (Source)
“…the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming over the last 100 years – some natural mechanism must be involved.” (Source)
He has written and published several books, including Global Warming Skepticism for Busy People, Inevitable Disaster: Why Hurrians Can’t Be Blamed on Global Warming, and The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists.
Spencer and Friends
Spencer spoke at a panel at the Heartland Institute, a think tank that has recieved funding from oil giant Exxon-Mobil. He is on the board of directors for the George C. Marshall Institute, an organization that has received funding from Exxon-Mobil. Additionally, he received the “Outstanding Evangelical Climate Scientist Award” during the Heartland Institute’s 9th annual International Conference on Climate Change, along with Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. He has also worked closely with Dr. John Christy while at NASA.
See also
David Legates, another member of the George C. Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute.
Lee Raymond, the former CEO of what is now Exxon-Mobil.
Suggested tags: Roy W. Spencer, climate denier, NASA, University of Alabama, Exxon-Mobil, Heartland Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Cornwall Alliance,
Climate of Denial