PHOENIX, AZ - Climate scientist William Sprigg delivered a bold challenge to his fellow climate scientists in a blockbuster address to EUEC 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona on February 2.
Sprigg, an adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990.
In his address to the Thirteenth Annual Energy and Environment Expo, Sprigg took on the ClimateGate scandal and called for "serious reforms" of the global scientific community. He warned of a growing perception that "the IPCC is biased, conflicted, [and] pushing political agendas."
Sprigg called for a new climate research agency supported not entirely by the government, but in conjunction with the private sector.
"We need to stick to our scientific principles," Sprigg said, referring at least in part to the critical importance of sharing data with other scientists so that hypotheses and methodologies can be checked and double-checked. "We need to improve our peer preview process, and expand the stakeholders' role to keep us all honest."
Sprigg's remarks were videotaped by Heartland Institute Research Fellow James G. Lakely, attending the conference not generally friendly to skeptics of predictions of catastrophic, man-made global warming.
Heartland Senior Fellow James M. Taylor, managing editor of Environment & Climate News, also attended the event, and during the Q&A following Sprigg's presentation asked the scientist what he thinks the future holds for the IPCC.
Sprigg nodded as Taylor referred to "mounting scandals" at the IPCC and then responded, "There will be some reform. I think there's going to be big changes in the peer review process for the IPCC. There will be-there are-calls for the head of [IPCC Chairman Raj] Pachauri. Some of my colleagues have written letters saying that he needs to be taken off the job ..."
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