Climate debate grows heated during House hearing

Boulder scientist confronted over cause of warming

Kayla Webley, Scripps Howard News Service

Published February 9, 2007 at midnight

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WASHINGTON - Boulder researcher Susan Solomon defended her stance on human-caused climate change amid challenges - including a question about her scientific credibility - from House Republicans at a hearing Thursday.

Solomon is co-chair of an international scientific team that released a landmark climate- change study last week in Paris.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said there is a greater than 90 percent likelihood that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases are to blame for most of the planet's warming over the past 50 years.

But Republicans on the House Committee on Science and Technology have a different idea.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., submitted a list he said contains the names of "hundreds of scientists who disagree with this concept that climate change is caused by human activity."

The IPCC report said that levels of carbon dioxide, the most important human-produced greenhouse gas, are higher today than at any time in the past 650,000 years, and that "the primary source . . . since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use."

Committee members acknowledged that the planet has warmed by slightly more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century. Still, some questioned the cause.

Rohrabacher asked about the origin of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and whether the majority came from nature or humans.

Solomon, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory, said the increase is almost entirely due to human activity.

Rohrabacher responded: "That wasn't the question. This is very dishonest. You're supposed to be a scientist."

Solomon, 51, was awarded the nation's highest scientific honor, the U.S. National Medal of Science, in 1999 for helping to identify the mechanism that produces the Antarctic ozone hole.

In 2004 she received the Blue Planet Prize, a prestigious international award for contributions to solving global environmental problems.

Two other Boulder scientists also testified. Gerald A. Meehl and Kevin E. Trenberth, both of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, helped write the climate report.

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