58 Facts About James Hansen

James Edward Hansen was born on March 29,1942 and is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

James Hansen is best known for his research in climatology, his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change.

James Hansen was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa.

James Hansen participated in the NASA graduate traineeship from 1962 to 1966 and, at the same time, between 1965 and 1966, he was a visiting student at the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Kyoto and in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo.

James Hansen then began work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1967.

James Hansen later applied and refined these models to understand the Earth's atmosphere, and in particular, the effects that aerosols and trace gases have on Earth's climate.

James Hansen has stated that one of his research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially the interpretation of remote sensing of the Earth's atmosphere and surface from satellites.

James Hansen proposed that the hot surface was the result of aerosols trapping the internal energy of the planet.

James Hansen continued his study of Venus by looking at the composition of its clouds.

James Hansen looked at the near-infrared reflectivity of ice clouds, compared them to observations of Venus, and found that they qualitatively agreed.

James Hansen was able to use a radiative transfer model to establish an upper limit to the size of the ice particles if the clouds were actually made of ice.

Kiyoshi Kawabata and James Hansen expanded upon this work by looking at the variation of polarization on Venus.

James Hansen collaborated with Larry Travis and other colleagues in a 1979 Science article that reported on the development and variability of clouds in the ultraviolet spectrum.

James Hansen countered by saying that having insider information shifted the odds to those who know the physics of the climate system, and that whether there is a new temperature record depends upon the particular data set used.

James Hansen indicated that he felt that several news organizations had overreacted to this mistake.

In 2010, James Hansen published a paper entitled "Global Surface Temperature Change" describing current global temperature analysis.

James Hansen has contributed toward the understanding of black carbon on regional climate.

James Hansen further stated that a lower limit on "dangerous anthropogenic interference" was set by the stability of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

James Hansen described this as a Faustian bargain because atmospheric aerosols had health risks, and should be reduced, but doing so would effectively increase the warming effects from CO2.

James Hansen and coauthors proposed that the global mean temperature was a good tool to diagnose dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

James Hansen described the situation with species extinction similarly to that of sea level rise.

James Hansen predicted that temperatures would rise out of the climate noise by the 1990s, much earlier than predicted by other researches.

James Hansen predicted that it would be difficult to convince politicians and the public to react.

The first climate prediction computed from a general circulation model that was published by James Hansen was in 1988, the same year as his well-known Senate testimony.

James Hansen concluded that global warming would be evident within the next few decades, and that it would result in temperatures at least as high as during the Eemian.

James Hansen compared the corrected troposphere temperatures with the results of the published GISS model, and concluded that the model is in good agreement with the observations, noting that the satellite temperature data had been the last holdout of global warming denialists, and that the correction of the data would result in a change from discussing whether global warming is occurring to what is the rate of global warming, and what should be done about it.

James Hansen has continued the development and diagnostics of climate models.

In 2000 James Hansen authored a paper called "Global warming in the twenty-first century: an alternative scenario" in which he presented a more optimistic way of dealing with global warming, focusing on non-CO2 gases and black carbon in the short run, giving more time to make reductions in fossil fuel emissions.

James Hansen's paper argues that the slow melting of ice sheets the panel expects doesn't fit the data.

James Hansen noted that in determining responsibility for climate change, the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on climate is determined not by current emissions, but by accumulated emissions over the lifetime of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

On public policy, James Hansen is critical of what he sees as efforts to mislead the public on the issue of climate change.

James Hansen was a critic of both the Clinton and George W Bush Administrations' stances on climate change.

James Hansen was invited by Rafe Pomerance to testify before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 23,1988.

James Hansen has been particularly critical of the coal industry, stating that coal contributes the largest percentage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

James Hansen acknowledges that a molecule of carbon dioxide emitted from burning coal has the same effect as a molecule emitted from burning oil.

James Hansen says that most oil comes from Russia and Saudi Arabia, and that no matter how fuel-efficient automobiles become, the oil will eventually be burned and the CO2 emitted.

James Hansen has called for phasing out coal power completely by the year 2030.

James Hansen has made many appearances and talks supporting the work of CCL.

James Hansen retired from NASA in April 2013 after 46 years of government service, saying he planned to take a more active role in the political and legal efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

James Hansen argued that coal, tar sands, and tar shale should not be used as energy sources because of their carbon emissions and claimed that the completion of the Keystone pipeline would increase the extraction of oil from oil sands.

On February 13,2013, Hansen was again arrested at the White House, along with Daryl Hannah and Robert F Kennedy, Jr.

Recently James Hansen stated his support for a revenue-neutral fee and dividend system to impose a price on carbon that returns the money collected from the fossil fuel industry equally to all legal residents of the United States.

In 2009, James Hansen wrote an open letter to President Obama where he advocated a "Moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2".

Kharecha and James Hansen countered that all the data these scientists use to make their criticism, "lacks credibility".

Together with Michael Shellenberger, James Hansen began touring the world in the late 2010s, providing evidence for the climatic benefits of nuclear energy and to bring attention to the $2 trillion the US has spent on "new renewables" that despite the cost have not even caught up to nuclear in annual electricity generation, an issue reflected in Germany and elsewhere.

In 2007, James Hansen shared the US$1-million Dan David Prize for "achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world".

In December 2012, Hansen received the Commonwealth Club of California's annual Stephen H Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communications at a ceremony in San Francisco.

James Hansen was co-winner with climatologist Syukuro Manabe of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Climate Change category in the ninth edition of the awards.

In June 2018, James Hansen was named joint winner, with Veerabhadran Ramanathan, of Taiwan's Tang Prize.

In 2006, James Hansen alleged that NASA administrators had attempted to influence his public statements about the causes of climate change.

James Hansen said that NASA public relations staff were ordered to review his public statements and interviews after a December 2005 lecture at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

In June 2006, Hansen appeared on 60 Minutes stating that the George W Bush White House had edited climate-related press releases reported by federal agencies to make global warming seem less threatening.

James Hansen stated that he was unable to speak freely without the backlash of other government officials, and that he had not experienced that level of restrictions on communicating with the public during his career.

In 2008 interviews with ABC News, The Guardian, and in a separate op-ed, James Hansen has called for putting fossil fuel company executives, including the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, on trial for "high crimes against humanity and nature", on the grounds that these and other fossil-fuel companies had actively spread doubt and misinformation about global warming, in the same way that tobacco companies tried to hide the link between smoking and cancer.

James Hansen urged President Obama to reject the Keystone pipeline extension intended to carry more synthetic crude oil from Canada's Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico.

On February 13,2013, Hansen was again arrested at the White House, along with Daryl Hannah and Robert F Kennedy, Jr.

Around 2009, James Hansen received several criticisms, largely focussing on his climate activism.

James Hansen said that he had to speak out, since few others could explain the links between politics and the climate models.