John Theon Deleted

In late January, John S. Theon began his swift ascent into the pantheon of Climate Change Deniers with the claim that he had once been James Hansen's "supervisor" and thought the guy was a crazy loose cannon even way back then.

I am proud to say that I helped put paid to such claims in this and in several other posts.

Well, you know your 15 minutes are over when they take away your Wiki entry, and Mr. Theon has lost his. The discussion can be found here, but in brief Mr. Theon was found to be "Non-notable".

Ah well, better to have had a wiki entry and have lost it, then to never have had a wiki entry at all. Some of us yearn for a wiki entry, but are never granted the honor. I, for example, yearn for a wiki entry, but have no wiki entry to show for my yearning.

h/t Stoat (the grumpy climate scientist)

Theon Strikes Back

From comments here, a missive from John S. Theon to Marc Morano, regarding his position re James Hansen in the NASA hierarchy (which I wrote about originally here). I will post it without comment, other than to note that:


1) Hansen does not deny having met Theon, he simply claims to not recall meeting Theon. What this says about Mr. Hansen's memory is unclear. It sounds as though the two men would only have come into direct contact a couple of times a year on average, and it is quite possible that Theon played so little a role in Mr. Hansen's professional life that he was simply not memorable.

2) The concept of being "in effect" a person's supervisor comes into play again. I will just note that two men worked out of different cities and, again, Theon played no part in determining whether Mr. Hansen remained a NASA employee. Those people who have argued that you can "supervise" another under such circumstances tend to invoke the concept of "dotted line bosses" and reference the comic strip Dilbert. Not terribly convincing, as far as I am concerned.

3) Finally, Roy Spencer has been bitching how, way back when, Mr. Theon seemed a proper warmist while he (Spencer) was the guy getting oppressed by NASA for his skeptical views. Perhaps Mr. Theon can explain the evolution of his thinking from the 90s until today. Furthermore--since presumably if he was Hansen's supervisor he was Spencer's supervisor as well--perhaps he can explain who it was in the NASA hierarchy that was behind the "muzzling" of Dr. Spencer.

Marc,

It is absurd that Hansen denies ever meeting me. We have met on numerous occasions. This just demonstrates that Hansen has a poor memory.

I worked with Hansen from about 1983 to 1994 during which time he was at GISS in NYC and I was at NASA HQ in Washington DC. I retired from NASA in 1995. I had completed 37 and 1/2 years of federal service (civilian Navy, USAF, and including 33 years with NASA.)

The money came through me. We were in the Earth Observations Program which later became the Mission to Planet Earth Program. I visited GISS at least once a year to review and evaluate the GISS work. When I visited NYC, to review the research that GISS was funded to do out of the program for which I was responsible, Hansen was most cordial. When I asked him to give a lecture in Japan, he complied.

It was what it was, and no amount of denial will change that.

I repeat what I wrote to you in January: “I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation.”

Regarding some of the other attacks that have been aimed at me: I am truly appalled at the backbiting, vitriol that is sent by people who have nothing better to do than try to smear other people's reputations because they do not agree with their own thinking. To them, I recommend that they get a life.

John

Hansen Strikes Back: More On John S. Theon

I emailed James Hansen re his position in the NASA Hierarchy with respect to John S. Theon circa 1990. He was kind enough to respond as follows:

M.J.,

John Theon never had any supervisory authority over me.

I remember that he was in the bureaucracy at NASA Headquarters, but I cannot recall having any interactions with him. His claim of association is misleading, to say the least.

What he can legitimately say is that he had a reasonably high position in the Headquarters bureaucracy. A job in that bureaucracy is not considered to be a plum, so we should probably be grateful that somebody is willing to do it, and I don't particularly want to kick the fellow around.

You should investigate his scientific contributions to evaluate the degree to which his opinions might be listened to.

Of course you are free to quote me.

Jim Hansen

Meanwhile, a bit of digging (and about $3.00 Cdn, so someone owes me a beer) brings up this Washington Times story from 1990. In it, John Theon is referred to as a "NASA climate program chief" and, once again, does NOT come across as an AGW sceptic:

March 30, 1990 Section: A Edition: 2 Page: A1 Byline: By Ronald A. Taylor THE WASHINGTON TIMES TWT Illustration: Chart, NO PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING, By Henry Christopher/The Washington Times

Satellites taking the most precise global temperature measurements ever have found no evidence of global warming from the "greenhouse effect" during the last decade, according to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration analysis. The data, collected from 1979 through 1988 by the TIROS-N series of weather satellites, proved that the Earth's temperature can be measured accurately by instruments probing the atmosphere from space, two scientists say in a paper to be published today in Science.

The study also provides a glimpse from space of global temperatures during the period 1979-88 - one of the hottest decades, with six of the warmest years on record.

"We found that the Earth's atmosphere goes through fairly large year-to-year changes in temperature and over that 10-year period we saw no long-term warming or cooling trend," said Roy W. Spencer of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala, study co-author.

But co-author John Christy, a climate research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, cautioned against misuse of the findings. "About the long-term global warming it does not say anything," he said. "It says for this particular snapshot you are not able to find it, but that does not mean that it is not occurring or that within a few more years we might be able to actually see it."

He added: "This does not prove that there is not a global warming. If these data are used in any kind of anti-environment statement, then I will be tremendously disappointed." He said other aspects of the environment are being affected by an excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Instead of measuring surface temperatures, the satellites read temperatures in the troposphere, roughly 20,000 feet above the surface, as they spun around the globe 14 times a day. Looking at chunks of the atmosphere 100 miles wide and six miles deep, the satellites were able to collect usually unavailable data from water surfaces.

Most other studies of temperature trends, some extending over more than a century, have come from the records of ground-based thermometers. These readings did not reflect the global temperature because they did not include the huge area covered by oceans.

The TIROS data also detected a cooling in the tropics from 1984 to 1986 and a "warm event" in the northern hemisphere during 1987 and 1988. On a global basis, the study found, the warmest years, in descending order, were 1987, 1988, 1983 and 1980. The coolest years were 1984, 1985 and 1986.

The findings quickly became part of growing skepticism over the need for an immediate end to the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. "It merely confirms something that people who've examined the records have known for a long time - that it did not warm up in the 1980s," said University of Virginia climatologist Patrick Michaels. "When are we going to come down on the side of reason and logic? That's what I want to know. . . . The policy cart is way ahead of the science horse on this."

Emissions from burning fossil fuels are linked to what scientists describe as the greenhouse effect. If the planet's atmosphere is overloaded by those gases, scientists and environmentalists worry, global warming could disrupt life on Earth.

While opponents of quick action to control the greenhouse effect insisted that the study buttresses their case, climate scientists questioned the length of the study. "Ten years is not long enough," said NASA climate program chief John Theon.

Mr. Christy said he does not expect conclusive statistical evidence of global warming until the turn of the century.

"The climate may never be affected by the greenhouse effect," he said. "However, there are enough other things that are part of our own biological system that we must pay attention to what we are doing to the environment.

"The atmospheric composition is changing. Carbon dioxide is increasing, chlorofluorocarbons are increasing, other pollutants are increasing. We are losing our forests around the world. The environmental concerns are tremendous."

Global temperature is not the sole indicator of global warming, said World Resources Institute climate expert James McKenzie. "It's not that any year is going to be totally different, it's just that more and more often you're going to get hotter summers, more drought on average, more storms," he said. "It's a matter of `You bet your climate.' Which way do you want to bet?"

The climate changes may occur far more quickly, some atmospheric scientists say. Analysis of air trapped inside glaciers shows that past ice ages occurred very quickly, said Walter Broecker, climatology professor at Columbia University.

There is evidence from past glaciation that strongly suggests the climate change came "in large jumps," he said, adding: "We think that these are due to reorganizations of the ocean-atmospheric system. One of the things we have to think about for the future is that this kind of thing might occur."

****CHART
NO PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING
Both ground temperatures and readings from the government's TIROS-N satellite from the 1979-1988 period show no conclusive global warming trend.
The satellite study confirmed wide variations in average temperatures during that period. Adding to the confusion, wide variations in temperature extremes occurred during the decade with record years for heat occuring in 1987, 1988, 1983 and 1980. The coolest years were 1984, 1985 and 1986.

Update: Hansen Rebuked By NASA Underling!

The smaller the number the higher you are. Code 610 is the head of the Earth Sciences Division. Jim Hansen is head of code 611. Theon was head of 613.2. Not only was he not even 'in line' with Hansen he's lower in the hierarchy. Supervisor, not. Theon apparently spent his entire career on TRMM while Hansen became the premier expert on climate change. A Google Scholar search finds no recent papers.

Updated from here.

H/t Daily Kos.

John S. Theon: New Elderly Denier On The Block

The lead:

James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic

Washington DC: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

Read on, however, and you can quickly see which way this one is going to break:

1) I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation...

Read the last bit closely. Being "in effect" Hansen's supervisor is here contrasted with being "in reality" Hansen's supervisor--being the guy who gives Hansen his annual performance appraisal, in other words--which, frankly, does linguistic violence to the term.

So, in short, Theon was never Hansen's "supervisor" in any accepted sense of the word.

2) “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

The "muzzling" of James Hansen occurred during the (2nd) Bush Administration, not during the 1980s. Having retired from NASA in 1994, Theon has no personal knowledge of the time period in question. Furthermore...

3) He's a geezer, and therefore fits the standard profile of a climate change denier.

...and he's a geezer that seems to have had some kind of conversion to AGW skepticism well after his retirement. In 1991 he seemed to be entirely comfortable with the line of Hansen's thinking as well as the use of climate models in general:

Undoubtedly, humankind is affecting the environment. Inadvertent climate system changes
brought about by mass loadings of carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), methane, etc., have thrust global change into the limelight. Radiative budget effects (i.e., greenhouse gases and global warming) and ozone depletion in the stratosphere certainly have heightened public awareness; however, climate change goes far beyond these fashionable concerns. The scientific community has to confront the myriad pieces that make up the climate puzzle. Scientists must discern the difference between natural and human-induced change, and decision makers must place the pieces in a manner that balances scientific recommendation against the demands of a higher population and an improved standard of living, which are heavily taxing the Earth's resources. be quantified and incorporated into climate models.

4) He's being working the climate skeptic "rubber chicken" circuit for about a year now, performing before such audiences as the Republican Women’s Club and the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance.

h/t to Steve from Brisbane, who did much of the legwork in the comments here.

And an update here!