John Christy

Infobox_Scientist
name = John R. Christy


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birth_date =
birth_place = California, USA
death_date =
death_place =
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nationality = American
field = Atmospheric Scientist
erdos_number =
work_institution = University of Alabama in Huntsville
alma_mater = University of Illinois
doctoral_advisor = Kevin Trenberth
doctoral_students =
known_for = UAH satellite data
societies = Fellow of the American Meteorological Society
prizes = 1991 Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, NASA
1996 Special Award, American Meteorological Society
spouse = Babs (Joslin) Christy
children = Alison Fields, Brian Christy
religion = Baptist
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website = http://www.atmos.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html
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John R. Christy is a climate scientist whose chief interests are global climate change, satellite sensing of global climate, and paleoclimate. He is best known, jointly with Roy Spencer, for his version of the satellite temperature record.

Early life and education

A native of Fresno, CA (where he learned to pan for gold), Christy was a missionary in Kenya for two years. After earning his divinity degree he founded a Southern Baptist church in South Dakota before pursuing a career in science and teaching. He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric sciences from the University of Illinois. He also has a master's degree in divinity from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

He is the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He was appointed Alabama's State Climatologist in 2000. For his development of a global temperature data set from satellites he was awarded NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the American Meteorological Society's "Special Award." In 2002, Christy was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. [cite web| title=List of AMS Fellows | publisher=American Meteorological Society | url=http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/fellowslist/get_listoffellows.cfm | year=2008 | accessdate=2008-10-08 ]

tatus and views

Christy was a lead author for the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [cite web| title=Appendix III - Contributors to the IPCC WGI Third Assessment Report | publisher=IPCC | url=http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/001.htm | year=2001 | accessdate=2007-04-04 ] and the US CCSP report "Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Understanding and Reconciling Differences". [cite web|title=Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences | url=http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf | publisher=Climate Change Science Program | accessdate=2007-04-04| last=Wigley | first=Tom M.L.| coauthors=V. Ramaswamy, J.R. Christy, J.R. Lanzante, C.A. Mears, B.D. Santer, C.K. Folland |month=April | year=2006|format=PDF] Christy is generally considered a contrarian on some issues related to global warming, although he helped draft and signed the American Geophysical Union statement on climate change.cite news | url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/18/MNGNV3PH9D1.DTL&type=printable | title=Earth warming at faster pace, say top science group's leaders | first=David | last=Perlman | date=December 18, 2003 | accessdate=2007-04-04 | pages=A-6 | publisher=San Francisco Chronicle]

In October 2007, Christy gave a 1 hour lecture at the Auburn University, Huntsville, entitled "Global Warming: What Do The Numbers Show" in which he reviewed areas of the Global Warming debate that he deems most significant and offered his evaluation of them. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WWpH0lmcxA]

In an interview with National Public Radio about the new American Geophysical Union (AGU) statement, he said: It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into irrigated farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the air, and putting extra greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate has not changed in some way."fact

Christy has also said that while he supports the AGU declaration, and is convinced that human activities are a cause of the global warming that has been measured, he is "still a strong critic of scientists who make catastrophic predictions of huge increases in global temperatures and tremendous rises in sea levels."

More recently, in a publication in the series Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy he said, "I showed some evidence that humans are causing warming in the surface measurements that we have but it is not the greenhouse relation." [cite web | publisher=George C. Marshall Institute | date=April 17, 2006 | accessdate=2007-04-04 | title=Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy: Satellite Temperatures by John Christy & Roy Spencer | url=http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/415.pdf | format=PDF]

The climate trend shown by the UAH satellite data has changed through time, due to corrections in the processing and as the climate has varied. During the first several years of data collection the global trend was downward. That has since changed and the most recent long-term average global climate trend seen in the satellite data is +0.134 C (about 0.241° Fahrenheit) per decade.

Unlike some other major climate data sets, the satellite data are constantly being refined and adjusted as new discoveries are made in the relatively new science of remote sensing. Notable adjustments were made to compensate for the effects of orbital drift and orbital decay, and most recently to correct an arithmetic error. Christy and Spencer use intercalibration between instruments on different satellites to adjust for instrument bias, then try to validate their data by comparing it to data gathered by weather balloons and surface stations.

Awards

*1991: NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (with Roy Spencer)cite web | url=http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/PAD/sppb/NSSTC-CSPAR_Colloquia/FAL-01/christy_bio.html | title=John R. Christy: Short Biography | accessdate=2007-04-04 | publisher=NASA]
*1996: AMS Special Award "for developing a global, precise record of earth's temperature from operational polar-orbiting satellites, fundamentally advancing our ability to monitor climate." (with Roy Spencer)

elected Publications

* Citation
first1=J. | last1=Hansen | author1-link=James Hansen
first2=M. | last2=Sato
first3=L. | last3=Nazarenko
first4=R. | last4=Ruedy
first5=A. | last5=Lacis
first6=D. | last6=Koch
first7=I. | last7=Tegen
first8=T. | last8=Hall
first9=D. | last9=Shindell
first10=B. | last10=Santer
first11=P. | last11=Stone
first12=T. | last12=Novakov
first13=L. | last13=Thomason
first14=R. | last14=Wang
first15=D. | last15=Jacob
first16=S. | last16=Hollandsworth
first17=L. | last17=Bishop
first18=J. | last18=Logan
first19=A. | last19=Thompson
first20=R. | last20=Stolarski
first21=J. | last21=Lean
first22=R. | last22=Willson
first23=S. | last23=Levitus
first24=J. | last24=Antonov
first25=N. | last25=Rayner
first26=D. | last26=Parker
first27=J. | last27=Christy | author27-link=John Christy
title=Climate forcings in Goddard Institute for Space Studies SI2000 simulations
url=http://apollo.eas.gatech.edu/yhw/publications/hansen_etal_2002.pdf
journal=Journal of Geophysical Research
year=2002 | volume=107 | issue=D18 | pages=2-1;2-37
doi=10.1029/2001JD001143
* Citation
first1=Roy W. | last1=Spencer | author1-list=Roy Spencer
first2=John R. | last2=Christy | author2-link=John Christy
title=Precise Monitoring of Global Temperature Trends from Satellites
url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990Sci...247.1558S
journal=Science
year=1990 | volume=247 | issue=4950 | pages=1558-1562
* Citation
first1=John R. | last1=Christy | author1-link=John Christy
first2=Roy W. | last2=Spencer | author2-list=Roy Spencer
first3=William D.| last3=Braswell
title=MSU Tropospheric Temperatures: Dataset Construction and Radiosonde Comparisons
url=http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0426/17/9/pdf/i1520-0426-17-9-1153.pdf
journal=Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
year=1999 | volume=17 | issue=9 | pages=1153–1170
* Citation
first1=E.G. | last1=Dutton
first2=J.R. | last2=Christy | author2-link=John Christy
title=Solar radiative forcing at selected locations and evidence for global lower tropospheric cooling following the eruptions of El Chichon and Pinatubo
url=http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6999439
journal=Geophysical Research Letters
year=1992 | volume=19 | issue=23 | pages=2313-2316
* Citation
first1=John R. | last1=Christy | author1-link=John Christy
first2=Roy W. | last2=Spencer | author2-list=Roy Spencer
first3=William B. | last3=Norrisa
first4=William D. | last4=Braswella
first5=David E. | last5=Parker
title=Error Estimates of Version 5.0 of MSU–AMSU Bulk Atmospheric Temperatures
url=http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0426(2003)20%3C613%3AEEOVOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2
journal=Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
year=2003 | volume=20 | issue=5 | pages=613–629

References

External links

* [http://www.atmos.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html Homepage]
*
* [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=46585.wais&directory=/diskc/wais/data/105_senate_hearings 1997 hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works]
* [http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/ Christy's Satellite Data]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance] , BBC News 13 November 2007
* [http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=903 John Christy connections on exxonsecrets.org]

Persondata
NAME= Christy, John R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Climatologist
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