Hollywood Ad Hominem

Over at the Huffington Post, enviro activist Laurie David complains today that the media is willing to give some ink to my colleague, Prof. Pat Michaels, on the issue of global warming. One of her main complaints is that Pat is nobody (scientifically speaking) and the fact that he has "(finally) gotten a paper published" does not qualify him as an expert.

And Laurie has published peer reviewed papers ... where? Anyway, Prof. Laurie has nothing substantive to say about the arguments in the Michaels paper that sent her around the bend.

It's truly a wondrous thing when Hollywood celebs with no scientific training feel free to attack the credentials of academics with Ph.Ds in their (momentary) field of interest. She did a similar smear-job on MIT Prof. Richard Lindzen. More such attacks are likely to come.

Regardless, Laurie's ad hominem attack is bogus. Pat is in fact one of the most widely published climate change experts in the peer-reviewed literature. If she had ever bothered to actually read the U.N.'s "state of the science" IPCC reports she claims to have digested, she would have seen multiple references therein to his work.

But for the record, Pat's peer-reviewed papers and presentations since 2000 follow:

Michaels, P. J., P. C. Knappenberger, and R E. Davis, 2006. Sea-surface temperatures and tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin, Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L09708, doi:10.1029/2006GL025757.

Davis, R.E., Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., 2006. Global warming and Atlantic hurricanes. 2006 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, IL, March 7-11.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., and C. Landsea, 2005. Comments on “Impacts of CO2-Induced Warming on Simulated Hurricane Intensity and Precipitation: Sensitivity to the Choice of Climate Model and Convective Scheme”. Journal of Climate, 18, 5179-5182.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., and R.E. Davis, 2005. Sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone intensity: Breaking the paradigm, 15th Conference on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society, Paper No. 2.4, Savannah, GA, June 19-23.

Davis , R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2005. Changing Heat Wave Sensitivity in U.S. Cities, 15th Conference on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society, Paper No. 4.6, Savannah, GA, June 19-23.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2005. Evidence of Adaptation to Increasing Heat Wave Intensity and Duration in U.S. Cities. 17th International Congress on Biometeorology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany, September 5-9.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2004. Changing Heatwave Mortality in U. S. cities. Proc. 14th Appl. Clim. Conf., Seattle, WA, paper no. J8.4.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2004. Seasonality of climate-human mortality relationships in U.S. cities and impacts of climate change. Climate Research, 26, 61-76.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2004. Heat Wave Mortality in Large U. S. cities. Proc. 16th Conf. Biometeorol. Aerobiol. and the 17th ISB Cong. Biometeor., Vancouver, British Columbia, WA, paper no. 6A.3.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2004. Presentation of “Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2003. Decadal changes in summer mortality in the U. S. cities, International Journal of Biometeorology, 47, 166-175,” to the Association of American Geographers in accepting the 2004 “Paper of the Year” award from the Climate Specialty Group.

Douglass, D.H., Pearson, B.D., Singer, S.F., Knappenberger, P.C., and P.J. Michaels, 2004. Disparity of tropospheric and surface temperature trends: New evidence. Geophysical Research Letters, 31, doi:10.1029/2004GL020212.

McKitrick, R., and P. J. Michaels. 2004. A Test of Corrections for Extraneous Signals in Gridded Surface Temperature Data. Climate Research, 26, 159-193.

Michaels, P.J., McKittrick, R., and P.S. Knappenberger, 2004. Economic Signals in Global Temperature Histories. 14th Appl. Clim. Conf., Seattle, WA, paper no. J1.1.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., Frauenfeld, O.W., and R.E. Davis, 2004. Trends in Precipitation on the Wettest Days of the Year across the Contiguous United States. International Journal of Climatology, 24, 1873-1882.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2003. Decadal changes in summer mortality in the U. S. cities, International Journal of Biometeorology, 47, 166-175.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2003. Winter Mortality, Climate, and Climate Change in U.S. Cities. 37th Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Congress, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and W.M. Novicoff, 2003. Changing heat-related mortality in the United States. Environmental Health Perspectives, 111, 1712-1718.

Douglass, D.H., Clader, B.D., Christy, J.R., Michaels, P.J., and D.A. Belsley. 2003. Test for harmful collinearity among predictor variables used in modeling global temperature. Climate Research, 24, 15-18.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2002. On seasonal differences in weather-related mortality trends in the United States. Proc. 13th Appl. Clim. Conf., Portland, OR, 326–330.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., Davis, R.E., and O.W. Frauenfeld, Rational analysis of trends in extreme temperature and precipitation, Proc. 13th Appl. Clim. Conf., Portland, OR, 153–158.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2002. Climate change adaptations: trends in human mortality responses to summer heat in the United States, Proc. 15th Conf. Biometeorol. Aerobiol. and the 16th ISB Cong. Biometeor., Kansas City, MO, Paper 9B.1.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2002. Spatial pattern of human mortality seasonality in U. S. cities since 1964, Proc. 15th Conf. Biometeorol. Aerobiol. and the 16th ISB Cong. Biometeor., Kansas City, MO, Paper 2B.2.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2002. Decadal changes in heat-related human mortality in the Eastern United States. Climate Research, 22, 175-184.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., Frauenfeld, O.W., and R.E. Davis. 2002. Revised 21st century temperature projections. Climate Research, 23, 1-9.

Knappenberger, P.C., Michaels, P.J., and R.E. Davis, 2001. The nature of observed climate changes across the United States during the 20th century. Climate Research, 17, 45–53.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., and R.E. Davis, 2001. Integrated Projections of Future Warming based Upon Observed Climate During the Attenuating Greenhouse Enhancement. Proceedings of the1st International Conference on Global Warming and The Next Ice Age, co-sponsored by the Atmospheric Science Program at Dalhousie University, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the American Meteorological Society and the European Space Agency, 19-24 August, 2001, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, pp.162–167.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., Balling, R.C., and R.E. Davis, 2000. Observed Warming in Cold Anticyclones. Climate Research, 14, 1-6.

Balling R.C., MacCracken, M.C., Michaels, P.J., and A. Robock, 2000. Assessment of uncertainties of predicted global climate change modeling: Panel 1. Technology, 7, 231–256.

Michaels, P.J., and P.C. Knappenberger, 2000. Natural Signals in the MSU Lower Tropospheric Temperature Record. Geophysical Research Letters, 27, 2905–2908.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2000. Decadal Changes in Summer Mortality in the United States. Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Applied Climatology, Asheville, NC, 184–187.

Michaels, P.J., Knappenberger, P.C., Gawtry, S.D., and R.E. Davis, 2000. Anticyclonic Warming. Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Applied Climatology, Asheville, NC, 119–122.

Davis, R.E., Knappenberger, P.C., Novicoff, W.M., and P.J. Michaels, 2000. Decadal Shifts in Summer Weather/Mortality Relationships in the United States by Region, Demography, and Cause of Death. Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Biometeorology and Aerobiology, Davis, CA, 250–251.