Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Is Richard Siegmund Lindzen retired?
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940) is an American atmospheric physicist known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides, and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books. From 1983[1] until his retirement in 2013, he was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2] He was a lead author of Chapter 7, "Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks," of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has criticized the scientific consensus about climate change[3] and what he has called "climate alarmism."[4]
According to an April 30, 2012 New York Times article,[67] "Dr. Lindzen accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point "nutty." He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate." He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming.[67] Lindzen first published this "iris" theory in 2001,[9] and offered more support in a 2009 paper.[51]
An April 30, 2012 article in The New York Times included the comments of several other experts. Christopher S. Bretherton, an atmospheric researcher at the University of Washington, said Lindzen is "feeding upon an audience that wants to hear a certain message, and wants to hear it put forth by people with enough scientific reputation that it can be sustained for a while, even if it's wrong science. I don't think it's intellectually honest at all." Kerry A. Emanuel, another M.I.T. scientist, said of Lindzen's views "Even if there were no political implications, it just seems deeply unprofessional and irresponsible to look at this and say, 'We're sure it's not a problem.' It's a special kind of risk, because it's a risk to the collective civilization."[67]
In a 2009 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Lindzen said that the earth was just emerging from the "Little Ice Age" in the 19th century and says that it is "not surprising" to see warming after that. He goes on to state that the IPCC claims were[66]
Lindzen's work on atmospheric tides led him to the study of planetary waves and the general circulation of atmospheres. By 1967, he had contributed a number of papers on the theory of waves in the middle atmosphere. In Planetary waves on beta planes, he developed a beta plane approximation for simplifying the equations of classical tidal theory, whilst at the same time developing planetary wave relations. He noticed from his equations that eastward-traveling waves (known as Rossby waves since their discovery in 1939 by Carl-Gustav Rossby) and westward-traveling waves (which Lindzen himself helped in establishing as "atmospheric Kelvin waves") with periods less than five days were "vertically trapped." At the same time, an important paper by Booker and Bretherton appeared, which Lindzen read with great interest. Booker and Bretherton showed that vertically propagating gravity waves were completely absorbed at a critical level.[34]
In an announcement on December 27, 2013, the Cato Institute said that at Cato, Lindzen's focus would be on "the interaction between science and policymakers" and that he would study "whether the move from largely private funding to public support has introduced biases into science and the public policies informed by science."[12]
IPCC author Richard Lindzen has made a number of criticisms of the IPCC. Among his criticisms, Lindzen has stated that the WGI Summary for Policymakers (SPM) does not faithfully summarize the full WGI report.
The report is prefaced by a policymakers' summary written by the editor, Sir John Houghton, director of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. His summary largely ignores the uncertainty in the report and attempts to present the expectation of substantial warming as firmly based science.
Lindzen has stated that the SPM understates the uncertainty associated with climate models. John Houghton has responded to Lindzen's criticisms of the SPM. Houghton has stressed that the SPM is agreed upon by delegates from many of the world's governments, and that any changes to the SPM must be supported by scientific evidence (see above)." references:"
During this time, Lindzen published some research on gravity waves,[43] as well as Hadley circulations.[44] He is named as one of 16 Scientific Members of the team authoring the National Academy of Sciences 1975 publication Understanding Climatic Change: A Program for Action.[45]
On their original web page, dated 2002, the Friends recommended several key documents explaining their standpoint, including testimonies by George C. Marshall Institute former board members, Richard S. Lindzen and Sallie Baliunas. Richard S. Lindzen's testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 2 May 2001. Lindzen, a former member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became one of the most well-known climate skeptic scientists. A prolific writer, he has been criticizing the IPCC since the early 1990s. Noted skeptics Sallie Baliunas was also a paid consultant of the George C. Marshall Institute.
In his 1968 paper with James R. Holton, A theory of the quasi-biennial oscillation,[35] Lindzen presented his theory of the QBO after testing it in a two-dimensional (2-D) numerical model that had been developed by Holton and John M. Wallace.[36] They showed that the QBO could be driven by vertically propagating gravity waves with phase speeds in both westward and eastward directions and that the oscillation arose through a mechanism involving a two-way feedback between the waves and the mean flow. It was a bold conjecture, given that there was very little observational evidence available to either confirm or confute the hypothesis. In particular, there was still no observational evidence of the westward-traveling "Kelvin" waves; Lindzen postulated their existence theoretically.[lower-alpha 2]
A 1996 article in The New York Times included the comments of several other experts. Jerry D. Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, did not accept Lindzen's assessment of the science, and said that Lindzen had "sacrificed his luminosity by taking a stand that most of us feel is scientifically unsound." Mahlman did, however, admit that Lindzen was a "formidable opponent". William Gray of Colorado State University basically agreed with Lindzen, describing him as "courageous". He said, "A lot of my older colleagues are very skeptical on the global warming thing". He added that while he regarded some of Lindzen's views as flawed, he said that, "across the board he's generally very good". John Wallace of the University of Washington agreed with Lindzen that progress in climate change science had been exaggerated, but said there are "relatively few scientists who are as skeptical of the whole thing as Dick [Lindzen] is".[3]
In 2001, Lindzen along with 11 scientists prepared a report urging the Bush Administration not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.[69] In the report, they stated that there are still considerable uncertainties regarding the understanding of the climate system as well as unresolved difficulties in predicting the future climate, and the Kyoto Protocol "would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming". Lindzen has also said that he believed the Kyoto Protocol would increase the cost of electricity for no gain and put signatory states at a competitive disadvantage in a letter to Mayor David B. Cohen of Newton, Massachusetts.[70]
Richard Lindzen and his wife, Nadine, have two sons. Lindzen's interests include amateur radio (call letters: WO1I), photography, and oriental rugs.[90]
In 2017, Lindzen has sent a petition to President Trump, asking the President to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.[71] The petition contains the names of "around 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals" and calls on the United States and other nations to “change course on an outdated international agreement that targets minor greenhouse gases,” starting with carbon dioxide.[72] It receives considerable media coverage and 22 then current or retired MIT professors promptly issued an open letter addressed to Trump informing him that Lindzen’s petition doesn’t represent their views or those of the vast majority of other climate scientists.[73][74] Lindzen and his supporting signers then published another rebuttal letter in response.[75]
Lindzen hypothesized that the Earth may act like an infrared iris. A sea surface temperature increase in the tropics would result in reduced cirrus clouds and thus more infrared radiation leakage from Earth's atmosphere.[9] Additionally, rising temperatures would cause more extensive drying due to increased areas of atmospheric subsidence. This hypothesis suggests a negative feedback which would counter the effects of CO 2 warming by lowering the climate sensitivity. Satellite data from CERES has led researchers investigating Lindzen's theory to conclude that the Iris effect would instead warm the atmosphere.[46][47] Lindzen disputed this, claiming that the negative feedback from high-level clouds was still larger than the weak positive feedback estimated by Lin et al.[48]
Lindzen worked on Chapter 7 of 2001 IPCC Working Group 1, which considers the physical processes that are active in real world climate. He had previously been a contributor to Chapter 4 of the 1995 "IPCC Second Assessment". He described the full 2001 IPCC report as "an admirable description of research activities in climate science"[60] although he criticized the Summary for Policymakers. Lindzen stated in May 2001 that it did not truly summarize the IPCC report[61] but had been amended to state more definite conclusions.[62] He also emphasized the fact that the summary had not been written by scientists alone. The NAS panel on which Lindzen served says that the summary was the result of dialogue between scientists and policymakers.[lower-alpha 3]
IPCC authors Kevin E. Trenberth and Richard Lindzen have criticized past editions of the SPM, alleging that the summary does not completely represent the full report. However, their criticisms were diametrically opposite: Trenberth arguing that the summary diluted the main report, Lindzen arguing that it was too alarmist.
In 2001, Lindzen served on an 11-member panel organized by the National Academy of Sciences.[57] The panel's report, titled Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,[58] has been widely cited. Lindzen subsequently publicly criticized the report summary for not referring to the statement in the full report that twenty years of temperature measurements was "too short a period for estimating long term trends".[59]
In the years following the publication of Lindzen and Holton (1968), more observational evidence became available, and Lindzen's fundamental insight into the mechanism driving the QBO was confirmed. However, the theory of interaction via critical level absorption was found to be incomplete and was modified to include the importance of attenuation due to radiative cooling. The revised theory was published in the Holton and Lindzen (1972) paper, An updated theory for the quasibiennial cycle of the tropical stratosphere.[38]
IPCC author Richard Lindzen has made a number of criticisms of the TAR. Among his criticisms, Lindzen has stated that the WGI Summary for Policymakers (SPM) does not faithfully summarize the full WGI report. For example, Lindzen states that the SPM understates the uncertainty associated with climate models. John Houghton, who was a co-chair of TAR WGI, has responded to Lindzen's criticisms of the SPM. Houghton has stressed that the SPM is agreed upon by delegates from many of the world's governments, and that any changes to the SPM must be supported by scientific evidence.
Lindzen has been called a contrarian, in relation to climate change and other issues.[79][80][81] Lindzen's graduate students describe him as "fiercely intelligent, with a deep contrarian streak."[82]
Lindzen recalls his discovery of the mechanism underlying the QBO in the semi-autobiographical review article, On the development of the theory of the QBO.[32] His interest in the phenomenon began in 1961 when his PhD advisor, Richard M. Goody, speculated that the 26-month relaxation time for stratospheric ozone at 25km (15.53mi) in the tropics might somehow be related to the 26-month period of the QBO, and suggested investigation of this idea as a thesis topic. In fact, Lindzen's, Radiative and photochemical processes in mesospheric dynamics, Part II: Vertical propagation of long period disturbances at the equator, documented the failure of this attempt to explain the QBO.[33]
The Guardian reported in June 2016 that Lindzen has been a beneficiary of Peabody Energy, a coal company that has funded multiple groups contesting the climate consensus.[78]
From 1972 to 1982 Lindzen was a professor of dynamic meteorology at Harvard University. From February to June 1975 he was a visiting professor of dynamic meteorology at MIT, and during part of 1979 Lindzen was a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, before switching affiliations to MIT as the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in 1983.
Lindzen was born on February 8, 1940 in Webster, Massachusetts.[1] His father, a shoemaker, had fled Hitler's Germany with his mother. He moved to the Bronx soon after his birth and grew up in a Jewish household in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood there.[3][5] Lindzen attended the Bronx High School of Science (winning Regents' and National Merit Scholarships), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,and Harvard University.[6] From Harvard, he received an A.B. in physics in 1960, followed by an S.M. in applied mathematics in 1961 and a PhD in applied mathematics in 1964. His doctoral thesis, Radiative and photochemical processes in strato- and mesospheric dynamics,[7] concerned the interactions of ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer, and dynamics in the middle atmosphere.