When
The Cooler Heads Coalition<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />
and the
George C. Marshall Institute
invite you to a Congressional Staff and Media Briefing
Was the 20th- Century Climate Unusual?
Exploring the Lessons and Limits of Climate History
with
Dr. Willie Soon
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Friday, May 16, 2003
Noon-1:30 PM
Room G-50, Dirksen Senate Office Building
Lunch provided.
Reservations required.
Please RSVP by calling 202-296-9655
or e-mail [email protected]
Dr. Willie Soon will discuss the findings of a new Marshall Institute report, Lessons and Limits of Climate History: Was the 20th Century Climate Unusual?, which shows that the temperature record of the late 20th century was not remarkable relative to that of the past 1,000 years.
The report, authored by the Marshall Institute's Senior Scientists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, challenges frequently made claims that the 20th century was warmer than any other in the millennium, that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium, and that 1998 was the warmest year in the past 1,000 years.
After reviewing more than 200 climate studies, the report concludes that the temperature record for the past 1,000 years is far too incomplete and uncertain to support such definitive conclusions about the 20th century, any decade in it, and especially any given year — the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1,000 years.
Dr. Soon, a research physicist, is also the lead author of a related scientific article, “Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Re-Appraisal,” which was published this spring in the journal Energy and Environment.