Muller: Warming Real, “We will be in agreement” with Human Cause June 16, 2012

Unbelievably, …OK, well, not so unbelievably – I still get people posting here telling me to watch Richard Muller’s libelous rants against climate science and the various teams that have examined and re-examined the global temperature record. Those with even a modest awareness of the issue will know that Muller took a boatload of money from the Koch Brothers and others to examine the temp record a couple years ago, (the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project…) and came up with….nothing.

The previous work, it turned out, was, in his words, “..excellent.”

KQED Climate Watch:

CM: Let’s clear the air. What are you convinced of now with respect to climate science that you weren’t, let’s say, two years ago? RM: The estimate for how much global warming has taken place, that was done by the prior groups. We did that independently. We did it checking all the issues, the legitimate issues that had been raised, looking at them quantitatively and estimating how big an effect they were, subtracting them where we needed to. In the end we found that the prior groups had actually done a very good job. CM: In terms of the big picture with the way the climate may be changing and what might be causing it, what have you changed your mind about, if anything? RM: I didn’t really change my mind. Instead I developed a conclusion that I wasn’t sure of before. Global warming is real and over the last 50 years — that’s the period when the IPCC says the human component is evident — over that period it’s gone up about .9 degrees Celsius. That’s very close to what the other groups have said. Worldwide, if you include the oceans, it’s more like .6 degrees Celsius. But I now believe that land measurement has — warming has gone up. CM: Do you agree with the UN’s climate panel that the majority of the warming going on is being caused by human activity, burning fossil fuels? RM: We haven’t yet finished our work on the human component of this. It looks to me like we will be in agreement with that [Muller says he’ll be publishing his conclusions in the next few weeks].

In terms of adding to confusion and delay, Muller’s contribution to the befuddlement among the dim denialist bulbs of the web will continue to reverberate for years. His slanders will ricochet around the net and in the empty heads of the troglodyte tea party set, probably for a lifetime.

So, don’t feel like you failed, Richard. The Koch’s already got their money’s worth, and they know that.

More below on this stunning breakthrough.