Sallie Baliunas

From ClimateWiki

Labeled a "darling of the anti-climate movement," Sallie Baliunas, in personal and professional work, has discredited the global warming theory.

Sallie Baliunas is currently an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recieved her Master's and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

Baliunas is also Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and is chair of the Institute's Science Advisory Board.

She is Visiting Professor at Brigham Young University, Adjunct Professor at Tennessee State University, former Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, and formerly served as contributing editor to the World Climate Report.

Discover magazine called Baliunas "one of America's outstanding women scientists."

She has written and co-authored more than 200 research articles.

Her awards include the Newton Lacey Pierce Prize by the American Astronomical Society, the Petr Beckman Award for Scientific Freedom and the Bok Prize from Harvard University.

View of Global Warming

Baliunas joined the fight against global warming in 2000.

Along with Willie Soon, Balinuas argues that solar variability is more strongly responsible for variations in air temperature than carbon dioxide levels.

Therefore, Baliunas strongly discourages the belief that CO2 levels are responsible for climate change.

In a 2001 essay co-authored by Willie Soon Baliunas stated:

"But is it possible that the particular temperature increase observed in the last 100 years is the result of carbon dioxide produced by human activities? The scientific evidence clearly indicates that this is not the case... measurements of atmospheric temperatures made by instruments lofted in satellites and balloons show that no warming has occurred in the atmosphere in the last 50 years. This is just the period in which humanmade carbon dioxide has been pouring into the atmosphere and according to the climate studies, the resultant atmospheric warming should be clearly evident."

Controversy with the 2001 Essay

The quote (above) indicating that scientific studies proved that no warming has occurred over the passed 50 years has been disputed.

Opponents claim that the data was incorrect she cited was incorrect - that the study did reveal some warming.

Baliunas eventually acknowledged the some warming was present but still argued that the observed warming was not due to human influence:

"If scientists and researchers were coming out releasing reports that global warming has little to do with man, and most to do with just how the planet works, there wouldn't be as much money to study it."