Speaking of NOAA’s exaggerations…

Now that Greenwire confirms that NOAA has temporarily put the brakes on its execrable effort at further politicizing the global warming issue – citing, if not naming or quoting, greens as being furious about it I’m pleased to add – I have sent the following request for clarification on one more relevant point, specifically about the man charged with leading the effort (I CC’d him as a courtesy):

Dear NOAA Public Affairs, Please inform us of the source for NOAA’s claims that Thomas R. Karl holds a PhD. Mr. Karl’s bio in NOAA’s/CCSP’s Unified Synthesis Product lists him as Dr. Karl both in the full version (http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/usp/usp-prd-all.pdf) and separately in the back. “Dr. Thomas R. Karl is the Director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and is NOAA’s Program Manager for Climate Observations and Analysis. Dr. Karl is author of many climatic atlases and technical reports, and has published over 150 articles in various scientific journals. He was identified as one of the most frequently cited Earth Scientists of the 1990s. Dr. Karl has been a Lead Author on several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessments … Dr. Karl is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union…” http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/usp/usp-prd-back-materials.pdf. Further, NOAA lists him as Dr. Karl in its staff directory, (“Karl, Thomas R DR 828-271-4476 [email protected] NESDIS National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS Director, National Climatic Data Center”, from NOAA staff directory, search return at https://nsd.rdc.noaa.gov/extstaff/pubresult). However, the National Academy of Sciences report of 2001 lists him as Mr. Karl with a highest honor of MS (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10139&page=29). The same is true elsewhere on NOAA’s website. “Thomas R. Karl was born and raised in Evergreen Park, Illinois. He received his B.S. degree in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois in 1973, his Masters Degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1974, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from North Carolina State University in 2002”. However this page, too, then proceeds to serially also call him “Dr. Karl” (http://www.osd.noaa.gov/datausers/Bios.doc). While we understand Mr. Karl received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from North Carolina State University in 2002, it is highly unusual to claim such degrees as qualifying recipients to claim the PhD. One factor in our confusion which NOAA may clear up is that another bio of Mr. Karl cites actual academic work as the source of the PhD claim, e.g., http://www.jhu.edu/~climate/thomaska.htm. The PhD is indeed there cited as being from NC State, under education and not under awards and specifically for work performed from 1977-1978. We understand that on occasion a recipient will refer to himself in jest as doctor, such as comedian Stephen Colbert (awarded an honorary doctorate of fine arts in 2006 from Knox College, prompting the credits of The Colbert Report to refer to him as “Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.”). But is not usual practice for such recipients to use or sanction application of the formal title. Particularly, we see that various relevant sources on the matter note that honorary doctorates are not used in circumstances where they might be taken to imply an academic qualification. This potential for confusion or misuse is why, e.g., University of Virginia, Cornell University and MIT among others reject the practice of awarding the honorary doctorate. While noting the (so far as we can tell) isolated claim of a 1978 academic PhD from NC State listed on Mr. Karl’s Johns Hopkins bio, it does appear that such is the case with NOAA’s use of “Dr. Karl”. Therefore, before we seek any correction under applicable statute please inform us if there is indeed an academic qualification supporting NOAA’s many claims to Mr. Karl holding a PhD. We look forward to your response.

So, has NOAA been reduced to the equivalent of a claim that An Inconvenient Truth stars Dr. Albert Gore, by whose side Mr. Karl stood during regular alarmist pressers in the 1990s? It is worth noting that NC State’s alumni office tells me that there is no record of any academic degree being awarded a Thomas R. Karl, PhD or otherwise, though an honorary doctorate of letters was given in 2002 to a Thomas H. Karl (no doubt a typo). Either way, NOAA and Hopkins have got to get their claims about Mr. Karl in order.