I was very saddened to learn of the sudden death of Bob Carter ( here here). He was one of the few people in this field that I regarded as a friend. He was only a few years older than me and we got along well personally.
I will not attempt to comment on his work as that is covered elsewhere, but do wish to mention something personal. In 2003, when I was unknown to anyone other than my friends and family, I had been posting comments on climate reconstructions at a chatline. Bob emailed me out of the blue with encouragement, saying that I was looking at the data differently than anyone else and that I should definitely follow it through. Without his specific encouragement, it is not for sure that I ever would have bothered trying to write up what became McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) or anything else.
We’ve met personally on a number of occasions over the years – at AGU in 2004 or 2005, and on several occasions at Erice, most recently last summer. He was always full of good cheer, despite continuing provocations, and unfailingly encouraging.
R.I.P.
Climate Audit 
20 Comments
Bob Carter was a great geologist – and I deeply miss everyone of those who have gone
Bob Carter was a great man, and a shining example to scientists. Everything he said made sense and it was one of his lectures which first alerted me to the CAGW Scam and ‘settled’ science distortion. Bob will be remembered as one of the greats in the struggle for the truth and he deserves to have an award for excellence in science with his name on it. Bob will not fade from our memories.
Everything that he wrote, presented or spoke of, was of the calibre of your own corpus, Mr. McIntyre. Birds of a feather yet never light-weight in any way.
He and his contributions will be greatly missed by all on either side of the issue.
Steve: What a gracious, insightful and heartfelt remembrance. For and against, scholars who are gentlemen are needed desperately.
That alone would make him great.
Just reading Steve’s comment here and other comments elsewhere it seems that Bob helped and encouraged many people over the last ten years.
I received help from Bob via email and I’ve since read his books, articles and watched his videos etc. He will be missed by many people all around the world. Bob Carter RIP.
Mark Steyn here http://www.steynonline.com/7430/a-principled-man-in-a-corrupted-field.
Just read your link to Steyn’s post, and then his link to his testimony. Wow!
I am sad to hear Bob Carter has passed. I exchanged some emails with him many years ago. Being new at the time to the climate debate and having many questions.
I wanted to find out if there had been studies on global atmospheric sulfate levels over time, and how the efforts to reduce them could be quantified as a factor in recent RF measures, and if it was a “cooling” factor prior to mitigation. I had this idea that the 40s to 70s AGT dip might have been driven by sulfates, and if the rising slope of AGT to the 2000s was “enhanced” by subsequent sulfate mitigation. But I hadn’t found any studies on sulfate levels never mind serious discussion about topic.
I had (nor now have) any credentials in this field, and was just a curious individual seeking knowledge, who out of the blue sent him an email asking if he could point me in the right direction. He being a world class scientist, I didn’t expect he would even read my email no less respond. But he certainly did within a day.
He very much encouraged me to pursue my topic, opined some on it, and gave me some pointers to who may have the answers I sought over the course of several emails. I was left with the strong impression he was ever the teacher at heart. He is a loss to science and the pursuit of truth in knowledge.
Thanks you for this nice remembrance.
He shall be missed.
His University was James Cook in Queensland.
I joined the first class to move through that University, in its second year, on the early 1960s.
There are now fewer people to keep it honest especially with its infatuation with the Great Barrier Reef.
Geoff.
Yes, agree Bob was a true scientist and very honest. I asked him about methane (see my post Oct 11 (https://cementafriend.wordpress.com/2011/10/) and with honesty he replied it was not his field. In a later email Bob pointed to his website (http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/index.htm ) from which one can download most of his published peer reviewed papers and many of his interviews and presentations (including a chapter from the book published last year by the IPA).
Bob was softly spoken and very knowledgeable. It was great that he encouraged Steve in his good work. Bob know from his geological work that there was a problem with CAGW and could point to real facts from the far past and the near past to contradict hypotheses and guesses. However, it should be remembered that he was a scientist and not an engineer that has had experience with what is known as “Transport Phenomena” ie momentum, heat & mass transfer (or thermodynamics, heat & mass transfer and fluid dynamics) but then all so-called climate scientists have no understanding of these either.
We seem to be losing the best. Crichton, Brietbart, now Carter.
They don’t come any better. Not suggesting anything, but I
would encourage you, Lindzin et al, to watch your back.
Good post Steve. The job is not done. The rest of us with principles must carry on.
Time and tide wait for no man but this man will be sorely missed.
Another tribute to Bob Carter from Andrew Bolt———-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/bob_carter/
And Michael Smith’s tribute—————- http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/01/how-bob-carter-cost-me-a-career-and-made-me-a-better-person.html
I corresponded with Bob on many occasions. He freely shared excellent, careful advice on the many complex areas of climate science, and in my own way, I gave him feedback on the arts of argument and communication, which he freely acknowledged was a little bit outside his range as, first and foremost, a practical scientist, a geologist. I reviewed his book ‘The Counter-Consensus’ for The Philosopher:
http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/reviews/counter-consensus.htm
and I regretted that the powerful arguments that it contains did not get a better launch pad. Surely, amongst the rather shallow arguments of many ‘skeptics’, he was a very solid, reliable figure.
I note there is no mention on this page of his recent poor treatment by his university – who treated him so shabbily. In order, I rather think, to pursue funding and political gain, James Cook withdrew Bob’s academic privileges, even to the extent of hampering his ability to help supervise research students. I know this treatment was hurtful to him, as is the continued hateful slander of people such as Wikipedia’s sometime ‘adminstrator-censor’ on global warming matters, William Connolly.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that time will look kindly on Bob and his ideas.
Thank you Steve for the incite into your connection with Bob Carter. He clearly encouraged and inspired many people from all around the world.
Yours and tributes from many others make William Connelly’s comments about Bob’s passing even more obnoxious.( I won’t denigrate your site by putting up a link)
A great loss.
One of the good things about the times we live in is that Bob Carter can still be appreciated by more people yet, simply by searching for his many presentations on youtube.
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