Last year, Berkley physicist Richard Muller excited the climate world with this WSJ op-ed:
The Case Against Global Warming Skepticism
He touted his Berkley team's preliminary re-analysis of temperature trends that, as Brad Plumer drily noted,
appears to have confirmed the basic tenets of climate science.
At the time, many climate scientists rolled their eyes at Muller's grandstanding announcement, but because he was a darling of climate skeptics and his work was partially funded by the Koch brothers, it was all great fodder for the long-running soap opera, "As the Climate World Turns." Today, Muller is back in the news with what seems like a slightly tweaked re-run of the original episode. Roger Pielke Jr. yawns and Joe Romm calls it a bombshell. As this latest over-hyped drama plays out, I wonder if anyone will notice that Muller, in his current NYT piece, has foreshadowed his next op-ed (in the Washington Post?) sometime in the next year or two. In case you missed it:
I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I've analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn't changed.
How clever is that?! In one swoop, he throws a bone to the Koch Brothers while setting the stage for his next conversion.
