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Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change (see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) and serves on the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program. In addition, he serves on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme, and has made significant contributions to research into El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

He was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, in 2000 and awarded the Jule G. Charney award from the American Meteorological Society and in 2003 NCAR Distinguished Achievement Award.

Trenberth has long attributed global warming to fossil fuels:

The latest 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report reaffirms in much stronger language that the climate is changing in ways that cannot be accounted for by natural variability and that "global warming" is happening. Global mean temperatures have risen and the last decade is the warmest on record. The major cause of warming in the last three decades is from human effects changing the composition of the atmosphere primarily through use of fossil fuels. While changes in particulate pollution mostly causes cooling, increases in long-lived greenhouse gases dominate and cause warming. The long lifetime of several greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide lasts for over a century) suggests that we can not stop the changes, although we can slow them down. Moreover, the slow response of the oceans to warming, means that we have not yet seen all of the climate change we are already committed to. Major climate changes are projected under all likely scenarios of the future and the rates of change are much greater than occur naturally, and so are likely to be disruptive.^[1]

Trenbeth has been accused of misrepresenting the effect of global warming on hurricane activity by Dr Christopher Landsea. ^[2] However, the IPCC stated in the Fourth Assessment Report that increases in average hurricane strength have been observed and are consistent with global warming but that no clear trend has been observed in the numbers of hurricanes [1].

• Effects of global warming
• Loop Current

1. ^ IPCC 2001, UCAR.
2. ^ An Open Letter to the Community from Chris Landsea.

• Official webpage

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