David H. Douglass (born 1932) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

Background

Climate change

A 2005 study by Douglass and fellow University of Rochester physicist Robert S. Knox argued that

global climate model A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms ...

s underestimated the climate response to the

1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines' Luzon Volcanic Arc was the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, behind only the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Alaska. Eruptive activity began on April 2 as a series of ...

. The study also contended that global temperature returned to normal much faster after the eruption than the models had predicted. A 2007 paper by Douglass and coworkers questioned the reliability of 22 of the most commonly used global climate models analyzed by Benjamin D. Santer and used by the

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) ...

to predict accelerated warming in the

troposphere The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From ...

. The study had originally been submitted to ''

Geophysical Research Letters ''Geophysical Research Letters'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal of geoscience published by the American Geophysical Union that was established in 1974. The editor-in-chief is Harihar Rajaram. Aims and scope The journal aims for rap ...

'' the previous year, but was rejected in September 2006 on Santer's recommendation. Santer and 17 co-authors later rebutted Douglass' paper. Douglass was named a fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1963 and elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1969. He is a Fellow of the

New York Academy of Sciences The New York Academy of Sciences (originally the Lyceum of Natural History) was founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is the fourth oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization wi ...

References

External links

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University of Rochester, Department of Physics & Astronomy 21st-century American physicists University of Maine alumni MIT Department of Physics alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff University of Chicago faculty University of Rochester faculty Living people 1932 births Fellows of the American Physical Society MIT Lincoln Laboratory people {{US-physicist-stub