Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–186
ASPATURIAN: No, not at all.
TOMBRELLO: But they’re like all e-mails—they say things in a tone of voice that you do not
intend to put in a publication. There’s also a tendency in that community—because they are
harassed from outside—to circle the wagons and become more insular than they probably should
be. There’s also a tendency in academic professions to not understand that particular fields may
have implications that go far beyond publishing papers in journals. It involves money. It
involves people. It involves professions. It involves—
ASPATURIAN: Public support.
TOMBRELLO: Public support. All kinds of things. I believe some of the climate-change people
were extremely naïve. But I don’t think anybody has shown any sign that there was anything
underhanded going on. It’s been an interesting experience. I’ve thought a lot more about
climate science and may even have poked around at the edges of it with one of my undergrads
this past year. I have also tried to advise JPL about their stuff in climate science. JPL could be a
huge piece of the approach to dealing with the quantification of climate change. The design of
the satellites. The operation of the satellites.
ASPATURIAN: They certainly have the technology and the data.
TOMBRELLO: I worry a little bit about separation. Livermore, for example, does climate science
but doesn’t have a climate model. They critique climate models. Therefore, it would be a bad
thing if Livermore had its own climate model. I would like to see JPL get into the observation
area. Their designs of the satellites and the observations would be influenced by what the
climate models say, so they could check them, validate them, shoot them down. I think that
would be made much more difficult if JPL got into their own climate modeling, and I hope they
will stay out of it. I hope Livermore will stay out of it. It is hard to prevent them from wanting
to put forward their own climate models, but I think it’s become self-defeating to critique other
models either experimentally or theoretically and have it accepted as objective if you also have
your own competing models. I hope both groups will be wise enough to form strategic alliances
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