Benjamin David Santer (born June 3, 1955) is a

climate researcher Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study ...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

and former researcher at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

Climatic Research Unit The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is a component of the University of East Anglia and is one of the leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. With a staff of some thirty research scientists and s ...

. He also worked at the

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (''Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie''; MPI-M) is an internationally renowned institute for climate research. Its mission is to understand Earth's changing climate. Founded in 1975, it is affiliated w ...

from 1987 to 1992. He specializes mainly in

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...

of climate data sets, and detection/attribution of climate change forcings. Since 2012, Santer has been listed on the board of directors of the

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding t ...

Honors

Santer received a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and a 1987 Ph.D. in Climatology from the Climatic Research Unit of the

. In 1998 Santer was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

for research supporting the finding that

human activity Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. L ...

contributes to global warming. He has also received the

Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award was established in 1959 in honor of a scientist who helped elevate American physics to the status of world leader in the field. E. O. Lawrence was the inventor of the cyclotron, an accelerator of subatomic parti ...

and a Distinguished Scientist Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Norbert Gerbier/MUMM award from the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...

. He ranked twelfth amongst climate scientists in a 2002 assessment of most cited scientists in the field of global warming. In 2011, Santer was elected as a fellow of the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...

and as a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

1995 AR2 Chapter 8

Santer was the convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 of 1995

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

Working Group I Report (AR2 WGI), which addressed the

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

issue. In a June 12, 1996 editorial-page piece in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'',

Frederick Seitz Frederick Seitz (July 4, 1911 – March 2, 2008) was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics and lobbyist. Seitz was the 4th president of Rockefeller University from 1968–1978, and the 17th president of the United States Nat ...

, chair of the

George C. Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 198 ...

and

Science and Environmental Policy Project The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) is an advocacy group financed by private contributions based in Arlington County, Virginia. It was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer. SEPP disputes the prevailing scientific ...

, claimed that alterations made to Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC report were made to "deceive policy makers and the public into believing that the scientific evidence shows human activities are causing global warming." Similar charges were made by the

Global Climate Coalition The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and publicly challenged the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry g ...

(GCC), a consortium of industry interests; specifically, they accused Santer of "scientific cleansing." Santer and 40 other scientists responded to ''The Wall Street Journal'' that all IPCC procedural rules were followed, and that IPCC procedures required changes to the draft in response to comments from governments, individual scientists, and non-governmental organizations. They stated that the pre- and post-Madrid versions of Chapter 8 were equally cautious in their statements; that roughly 20% of Chapter 8 is devoted to the discussion of uncertainties in estimates of natural climate variability and the expected signal due to human activities; and that both versions of the chapter reached the same conclusion: "Taken together, these results point towards a human influence on climate."

Gold Standard Paper

On February 25, 2019 Santer et al. published the paper ''Celebrating the anniversary of three key events in climate change science'' in ''

Nature Climate Change ''Nature Climate Change'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group covering all aspects of research on global warming, the current climate change, especially its effects. It was established in 2011 as the ...

'', claiming to have reached the 5-sigma "gold standard level" of statistical proof of human influence in global climate change using three sets of satellite data.Reuters, "Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'": scientists, Feb. 25, 2019
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References and notes

External links

The Many Travails of Ben Santer
Paul D. Thacker, ''Environmental Science & Technology''

* ttps://www.nersc.gov/assets/Annual-Reports/annrep03.pdf National Energy Research Science Computer Center article on Santer (starts page 38)br>Recent (2011) research by Santer on separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Santer, Benjamin Living people MacArthur Fellows American climatologists Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors 1955 births Alumni of the University of East Anglia Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory staff Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Meteorological Society

Honors

1995 AR2 Chapter 8

Gold Standard Paper

References and notes

Further reading

External links