My Biographical Summary
Click here for the March 23 article about me in the Daily Interlake
Caltech
I received my BS degree in Engineering from Caltech in 1957, where I studied under teachers like Dr. Linus Pauling. Pauling stressed problem solving. Exams at Caltech were open book because that is how the real world works. The challenge given the students is to find a solution to a problem in a limited time using as many resources as you can.
After graduating from
Caltech, I moved back to my home town of Sacramento and enrolled in
Dartmouth
In 1959, I began my teaching fellowship for my masters degree in physics at Dartmouth College. While taking graduate physics courses, I was fortunate to study under Dr. John Kemeny who was the Chairman of two departments: math and philosophy. He received his PhD when he was only 18 years old and then got chosen to be "the special assistant" under Albert Einstein.
I studied Philosophy of Science under Kemeny where I learned the details of the scientific method. He was a fantastic teacher. I was one the few students who hung out with Kemeny in the evenings when he was inventing the Basic computer language.
I received my MA degree in Physics from
Nevada
In 1961, I became a
research assistant for the Desert Research Institute at the
I received my PhD in Physics in 1965, with a focus on atmospheric
physics.
I am a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (#180) of the
American Meteorological Society. I have published over 42
professional scientific papers.
Climate physics
My theoretical PhD thesis is recognized as a
breakthrough in the atmospheric science and in the use of
computer-based numerical models. My thesis is summarized in cloud physics textbooks and taught
in university courses.
Clouds are the most complicated part of global warming physics. Only a few percent change in global low-cloud cover affects energy flow more than any hypothesized change in carbon dioxide. Climate models cannot calculate cloud changes from basic physics. Since clouds are the most critical factor in the earth's energy balance, this fact among others invalidates climate model global warming predictions.
Airborne research laboratory
Following receiving my PhD in 1965, I became chief scientist and manager of the Desert Research Institute's airborne research facility. My research team included 16 people. One of our most memorable adventures is measuring the cloud characteristics of geysers.
Flight through Old Faithful
On January 28 to 30, 1966, I took a 4-person crew to Idaho Falls in our research Beechcraft C-45. Below, you can see the instrument pod sticking out in from of the nose and the runway conditions at Idaho Falls airport.
In the next photo, you can see the same instrument pod at the lower left of the photo.
We spent three days flying into Yellowstone park. We took photos from a time-lapse 16 mm movie camera in the nose. On one very low pass through Old Faithful Geyser, the photos show the roof line of Old Faithful Lodge. The roof line gives away our altitude. On this pass we went below the roof line. It was also a very wet pass. It shut down our electrical system. Fortunately, it came back on after about 10 minutes because we needed it to make an instrument approach back into Idaho Falls.
Later, we upgraded to the modified B-26 shown here.
My team built the first low cost, airborne, earth-referenced radar display. First used in our B-26, we adapted this method to hurricane research by mounting a radar antenna behind the cargo door of a C-130. Rather than turning an antenna on the aircraft, the C-130 flew in a circle to rotate the antenna. This allowed a much larger antenna which greatly increased the detail of a radar picture of a hurricane.
I led pioneering
research flights inside
I participated in
meteorological research experiments in
Project Popeye
In
1969, I was invited by Dr. Pierre St. Amand of the
Operating out of Clark AFB, we trained B-52 pilots using C-130's to seed the types of clouds in the area and make big storms. After we left, they went on to wash out the Ho Chi Min trail making it impossible for the enemy to move to their destinations.
The war haters in the USA argued that it was unfair to use environmental means in warfare. The Navy denied everything until the project was declassified years later. The Navy argument was that it was more humane to stop a war by turning a needed corridor into mud than to win a war by killing people. I agree with the Navy.
National Science Foundation
In 1973, National Science Foundation in
Washington, DC invited me to be the Program Manager
for Weather Modification. I managed NSF’s leading-edge
national weather research projects, including the Metropolitan
Meteorological Experiment (METROMEX) and the National Hail Research
Experiment (NHRE).
METROMEX was the first research project to show how a metropolitan city like St. Louis inadvertently changed its temperature, humidity and precipitation. This has become known as the heat island effect.
Private business
In 1976, I started my private company in
Responding to several aircraft accidents due to wind shear, I developed numerical models to calculate the effect of wind shear on departing and landing aircraft and worked with pilots in Boeing simulators to determine what downdraft speeds were dangerous.
Then I proposed a method to detect the presence of dangerous downdrafts that is in use today at major airports. It uses a field of anemometers covering an airport to detect the presence of a strong downdraft.
Wind energy studies
My company performed the Southern
We developed easy to install 50-ft masts like this and installed them all over the southern California desert. Wind instruments are at the top. Recording instrumentation is on the ground. We collected and processed the data monthly.
The above shows how wind flows over a smooth ridge. The wind is stronger on the leeward slope than at the front of the hill. You can see this effect by watching water flow over rocks in a stream.
Yet there were some students in environmental or ecology classes who also offered their wind evaluation services to wind energy companies. They felt because they were "environmentalists" this meant they knew all about the wind. They cost the companies they consulted for many millions of dollars. They thought the wind was strongest on the windward side of the hill and, in one case, in a valley.
Eventually, wind companies caught on to the fact that my PhD in atmospheric physics combined with skills in soaring and sailing meant that I knew a whole lot more about how the wind blows than an environmental amateur.
The same thing is occurring in global warming today. The physicists pretty much know what is going on. The environmentalists and ecologists mostly get it all wrong. They seem to put "feeling" before science and unfortunately they are costing the public a lot of money, just like they cost wind companies a lot of money.
Here is how to evaluate a real scientist or engineer. Try to imagine the person trying to put a man on the moon. Does this person have the necessary quantitative skills to do the job? If the answer is no then this person is not an expert in climate physics.
My company performed wind energy evaluations
for many wind-energy companies. We were the first to identify
We installed the
Meteorological forecasting
From 1989 through 1992, I managed my company's
meteorological team to provide 24-hour weather forecasting for the
US Customs Aerostat project along the southern
Windows World Open 'People's Choice Award'
In 1992, I made courtroom history by developing and defending the first computer model to generate new evidence in a criminal trial. My custom software application, written in the first version of Microsoft Visual Basic, modeled human body physiological responses to changing weather and environmental conditions. My model and my testimony was a key element in the successful defense in a high-profile murder trial.
Computerworld and Microsoft selected my
model as one of 24 finalists out of 1300 entries for the 1993
Windows World Open where it won the overall “People's Choice Award.”
Microsoft nominated me for a Smithsonian Award.
Drought forecasting
In 1993, my company developed our “CalWater” software which used historical, annual streamflow and tree-ring data to estimate future annual steamflow for the Sacramento River Index. It accurately predicted the recovery from the drought in California in 1993. It also predicted a longer-term water future for California that I plan to release in the next year.
The model shows that drought prediction can be based upon natural cycles without any assumptions about global warming. These natural cycles are driven by the sun and ocean currents. Yet, the global warming alarmists will be sure to blame any future drought on global warming. I assure you that future droughts will have nothing to do with human emissions of carbon dioxide. Nature is the 800 pound gorilla, and carbon dioxide is the mouse.
Global warming and statistical inference
This brings up a point about global warming today. Back in the 1970's when I was at NSF, I convened a panel of the best statisticians in America to review the statistical problems involved in determining whether cloud seeding was effective or not.
These eminent statisticians concluded that the problem of determining the effect of cloud seeding involved the most difficult statistical problems in science.
This was a case where the experimenters can repeat their experiments, have control clouds and do double-blind studies. It is still the most difficult statistical problem in the world, mainly because no one cloud is the same as another cloud.
Yet, today we have global warming alarmists claiming everything that happens -- and even some things that don't happen but which they think should happen -- is caused by global warming. This is preposterous. In global warming, we cannot repeat our experiments, we have no control earth with which to compare our experiments, and we cannot do double-blind studies. It is a statistical inference problem that is impossible to solve.
Therefore, many alarmist claims about cause and effect are total junk. Yet they teach this nonsense in our universities and make students pay for their junk classes and they give academic credit for something that should remain in the world of illusion.
Professional Achievement Award
In 1996, the
Artificial intelligence applications
From 1996 through 2000, my company applied mathematical
artificial intelligence methods developed for weather forecasting to
the valuation of single-family homes. In side-by-side testing
against other home valuation methods, our method proved significantly
superior.
Focus on Global Warming