Vibjörn (Wibjörn) Karlén (born 26 August 1937 in Kristine,

Kopparberg County Dalarna County () is a county or ''län'' in central Sweden (Svealand). It borders on the counties of Uppsala, Jämtland, Gävleborg, Västmanland, Örebro and Värmland. It also borders on the Norwegian counties of Hedmark and Trøndelag to t ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

; died 22 October 2021) was a Swedish geologist who was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

physical geography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...

and

quaternary geology Quaternary geology is the branch of geology that study developments from 2.58 million years ago to the present. In particular, Quaternary geology study the process and deposits that developed during the Quaternary, a period characterized by Glacial ...

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

. In an article which describes Karlén as a paleoclimatologist, he is quoted as saying: "One of the big problems with trying to determine long-term temperature changes, is that weather records only go back to about 1860. By relying on statistical reconstruction of the last 1000 years, using only the temperature patterns of the last 140 years instead of actual temperature readings, the

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...

report and Summary missed both a major cooling period as well as a significant warming trend during that millennium." Karlén has also criticized the mainstream media for "spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate." He was also named in a 2007 minority report of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as one of 400 "prominent scientists" who were said to dispute global warming. In 2010, he predicted that natural climate changes, caused to a large degree by the sun's activity, would more likely make the climate colder than warmer in the next decades.Wibjörn Karlén (7 January 2010
Lilla istiden kan redan vara här
Expressen. Retrieved 16 January 2014 He was a contributing author to the

Fraser Institute The Fraser Institute is a Canadian Conservatism in Canada, conservative public policy think tank registered as a Charitable organization, charity. It is headquartered in Vancouver, with additional offices in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. It has ...

2007 Independent Summary for Policymakers. Karlén was a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

and editor-in-chief of the journal

Geografiska Annaler ''Geografiska Annaler'' is a scientific journal published by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in Stockholm, Sweden. The journal is founded in 1919. Since 1965 the journal is published in two series A and B. Series A deals with ar ...

Series A, Physical Geography from 2004 to 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karlen, Wibjorn 1937 births 2021 deaths People from Avesta Municipality Quaternary geologists 20th-century Swedish geologists Swedish geographers Paleoclimatologists Academic staff of Stockholm University Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences