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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 4, NUMBER 4, APRIL 1991

NEWS...
DISSENTING SCIENTISTS

Item #d91apr73

In a letter to President Bush representing a group of about 30 environmental scientists, Patrick Michaels (Univ. Virginia) and Robert Balling (Ariz. State Univ.) have urged support for climatic change research which takes a different direction from what they call the "popular vision." They believe any impacts of change are likely to be much less detrimental than generally expected, and perhaps neutral or even beneficial. Three lines of evidence support this view: (1) the magnitude of temperature change observed to date suggests warming from doubled CO₂ less than the commonly accepted value of about 4° C; (2) refined climate models project most warming into high latitude winter implying warmer nights, which would lengthen growing seasons; (3) increased CO₂ enhances plant growth and water use efficiency. The group, which includes Richard Lindzen, Sherwood Idso and Reginald Newell, have assembled research proposals based on this view. (See Reports/General, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Apr. 1991.) See also "Greenhouse Skeptics Make Their Move," Global Environ. Change Rep., pp. 1-3, Mar. 1, 1991. In "Global Warming: Look Before We Leap" (New Scientist, p. 10, Mar. 9) another dissenter, William Nierenberg, rebuts statements made by J. Gribbin in a previous article concerning Nierenberg's view of the IPCC assessment.