2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #52

In Memoriam

Piers Sellers

Piers J. Sellers on a mission to the International Space Station in May 2010. Credit NASA, via Reuters

Piers Sellers, a British-born climate scientist for NASA who remained optimistic about the fate of the Earth despite the grim climate change models he oversaw and who gained American citizenship to fulfill a childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, died Dec. 23 in Houston. He was 61.

The death was confirmed in a statement by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Dr. Sellers, who had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in October 2015, went public with his diagnosis in a New York Times column in January 2016. He wrote that while he had hoped he would see solutions to the problem of climate change in his lifetime, he was devoted to continuing his climate research until he died.

“There is no convincing, demonstrated reason to believe that our evolving future will be worse than our present, assuming careful management of the challenges and risks,” he wrote, sounding a note of optimism in spite of increasingly drastic changes in the global temperature and precipitation patterns that he studied. “History is replete with examples of us humans getting out of tight spots.”

Piers Sellers, climate scientist turned astronaut, dies at 61 by Harrison Smith, Health & Sciences, Washington Post, Dec 23, 2016

A chronological listing of the news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week.

Sun Dec 18, 2016

Mon Dec 19, 2016

Tue Dec 20, 2016

Wed Dec 21, 2016

Thu Dec 22, 2016

Fri Dec 23, 2016

Sat Dec 24, 2016

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 24 December, 2016

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