Opponent on causes of global warming explains about-face

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/UC-climate-change-skeptic-changes-views-3748148.php

The hot issue of global warming got hotter Monday when a UC Berkeley physicist, once a loud skeptic of human-caused climate change, agreed not only that the Earth is heating up, but also that people are the cause of it all.

Richard Muller converted only a year ago to the idea that the world has been warming for decades. Before then he had argued that global warming data - even figures compiled by U.N. experts - were badly flawed.

Now Muller is going further, blaming the warming almost entirely on human emission of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide - a conclusion that almost all climate scientists reached long ago.

Scientists who entered the fray criticized Muller on two fronts:

-- Of the five papers, only one has been submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and that one hasn't been published yet.

-- His organization has been heavily financed by the Charles Koch Foundation, best known for supporting the most prominent "deniers" of global warming as well as conservative political organizations. That indictment came from climate scientists when Muller was among the deniers, but some bloggers remain suspicious of him even now.

Koch and his brother, David Koch, made their fortune in the oil refining and chemical business. Charles Koch's foundation has given Muller a $150,000 grant to conduct his research, the Berkeley physicist said.

Asked what prompted him to change his mind on global warming, Muller said Rhode's analyses of temperature data covering hundreds of years and from thousands of newfound climate stations - including records by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin - were too powerful to ignore.