They were there at the start, when the study of climate was in its infancy, but today the names of meterologists such as Hubert Lamb are seldom mentioned by those colleagues and their heirs who very quickly grasped that sound science doesn't pay half as well as a good scare story
Hubert Lamb (left), the father of modern historical climatology and founder of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, issued this warning to his fellow meteorologists in 1994:
‘A precarious and threatening situation has developed for climatology: a tremendous effort was made to land research funds in all countries, mostly the USA, on the basis of frightening people about the possible drastic effect of Man’s activities, and so much has been said about climate warming that there will be an awkward situation if the warming doesn’t happen or not to the extent predicted.’ (emphasis added)
Two decades later it is widely acknowledged that the slight warming trend of the 1980s slowed and then stalled not many years after Lamb published his warning. Indeed, the frightening predictions of those times have not been realised. But whether this places climatology in ‘an awkward situation’ remains moot across the sceptical divide.
Back in the 1970s Lamb was undoubtedly Britain’s most prominent climatologist. Whenever a climate-related topic required comment, journalists would call him. With radio appearances and the occasional invitation to publish his own plain-language account, this softly spoken scientist had quite the public profile.
more
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/02/original-climate-sceptics/
‘A precarious and threatening situation has developed for climatology: a tremendous effort was made to land research funds in all countries, mostly the USA, on the basis of frightening people about the possible drastic effect of Man’s activities, and so much has been said about climate warming that there will be an awkward situation if the warming doesn’t happen or not to the extent predicted.’ (emphasis added)
Two decades later it is widely acknowledged that the slight warming trend of the 1980s slowed and then stalled not many years after Lamb published his warning. Indeed, the frightening predictions of those times have not been realised. But whether this places climatology in ‘an awkward situation’ remains moot across the sceptical divide.
Back in the 1970s Lamb was undoubtedly Britain’s most prominent climatologist. Whenever a climate-related topic required comment, journalists would call him. With radio appearances and the occasional invitation to publish his own plain-language account, this softly spoken scientist had quite the public profile.
more
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/02/original-climate-sceptics/