Chris de Freitas - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Chris de Freitas is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland

University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...

in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

Education and professional career

De Freitas received both his Bachelors and his Masters at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, after which he earned his Ph.D. as a Commonwealth Scholar from the University of Queensland

University of Queensland

The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. During his time at the University of Auckland, he has served as Deputy Dean of Science, Head of Science and Technology, and for four years as Pro Vice Chancellor. He is Vice President of the Meteorological Society of New Zealand and is a founding member of the Australia-New Zealand Climate Forum as well as serving on the Executive Board of the International Society of Biometeorology from 1999-2001. He has written extensively in popular media on an array of environmental

Environmentalism

Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...

and climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

-related issues. The New Zealand Association of Scientists has made him a four-time recipient of their Science Communicator Award.

Global warming and skepticism about anthropogenic causes

De Freitas has been a frequent critic in discourse surrounding the issue of anthropogenic global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, concerning the way information is received and interpreted. He has written that carbon dioxide emissions themselves may not necessarily be the source of recent increases in global temperature. In the New Zealand Herald (9 May 2006), he wrote:

"There is evidence of global warming. The climate has warmed about 0.6 °C in the past 100 years, but most of that warming occurred prior to 1940, before the post World War II industrialisation

Industrialisation

Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...

that led to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming."

Selected publications

Carter, R.M., de Freitas, C.R., Goklany, I.M., Holland, D. and Lindzen, R.S., 2007. Climate Science and the Stern Review. World Economics, 8 (2), 161-182.

Khan, B.A., C.R. de Freitas and D. Shooter, 2007. Application of synoptic weather typing to an investigation of Nocturnal ozone concentration at a maritime location, New Zealand, Atmospheric Environment, 41, 5636–5646.

Carter, R.M., de Freitas, C.R., Goklany, I.M., Holland, D. and Lindzen, R.S., 2006. The Stern Review: A Dual Critique. Part I: The Science. World Economics, 7 (4), 165-232.

De Freitas, C.R., 2003: Tourism climatology: evaluating environmental information for decision making and business planning in the recreation and tourism sector. International Journal of Biometeorology, 48 (1), 45-54.

De Freitas, C.R. and A.A. Schmekal, 2003: Condensation as a microclimate process: Measurement, numerical simulation and prediction in the Glowworm Tourist Cave, New Zealand. International Journal of Climatology, 23 (5), 557-575.

Education and professional career

Global warming and skepticism about anthropogenic causes

Selected publications

Further reading