Space and Science Research Center

Overview

The Space and Science Research Center (SSRC) is (apparently) a for-profit company located in Orlando, FL. They appear to have an anti-global warming agenda, though their arguments have yet to be examined in detail. They present an appearance of scientific grounding, but they do not seem to have any peer-reviewed papers on their theories.

The SSRC appears to have been created sometime in late 2007 or early 2008; their domain, spaceandscience.net, was registered on 2007-11-10, and a press release dated 2008-01-14 mentions says that it is "In just its first days of activation".

first take

It seems likely that this group is essentially in the business of getting paid to come up with scientific-sounding justifications for any anti-global-warming message the customer wants to get across.

Their "RC Theory" report, which has some of the trappings of science (in its acknowledgements, it thanks Dr. Boris Komitov, now on the SSRC staff, for his "peer review" of the report), seems to be arguing that global temperatures will cool as the sun enters an expected cooling phase. The explanation of how this works, however, appears extremely fuzzy – which might be forgiven in a truly scientific paper (e.g. if the writing was highly technical and specialized, and hence difficult for a layperson to read), but the introduction implies that laypeople are among the target audience: "An important aspect of the theory is that it results in a set of tools for the predicting of global climate change decades in advance. As such, it offers the scientific community as well as the general public, a plausible means for understanding the natural and predictable shifts from global cooling to global warming and back to global cooling that have occurred for thousands of years in the past and will likely do so in the future." (emphasis added)

The report is marked as "Released for world wide web (www) distribution" and many (or all) of the images appear to be from freely-copyable sources as well, so a wiki reposting and analysis (fisking) seems called for.

Also, these guys really don't have good copy-editing help; there are misplaced commas all over the place. -W..

self-description

SSRC says:

Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC) is the leading science and engineering research company internationally, that specializes in the analysis of and planning for climate changes based upon the "Relational Cycle Theory." SSRC has on its staff of consulting scientists, some of the world's best known experts in the field of solar physics pertaining to the research into the matter of the coming major solar minimum. This major minimum called a "solar hibernation" is forecast to have the potential to cause major world wide agricultural and economic effects. The SSRC also possesses the capability to conduct planning and research into such effects and how best to prepare individuals and governments at all levels for the next climate change to a period of colder weather.

• Director: John L. Casey
• Staff:
  • Dr. Boris Komitov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Astronomy
  • Dr. Ernest Njau, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Links

Official

• official web site

Reference

• Wikipedia no equivalent article (as of 2008-02-17)
• Conservapedia no equivalent article (as of 2008-02-17)
• dKosopedia no equivalent article (as of 2008-02-17)
• SourceWatch no equivalent article (as of 2008-02-17)

Data

• 2006-05-10 Long Range Solar Forecast (NASA): much of the SSRC's "Relational Cycle Theory" appears to use this page as a source

Discussion

• 2008-01-26 Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change: blog author reports the SSRC announcement uncritically and claims he has no agenda (how in the world can a blog cost $40,000 to run??), but a comment says:

The Space Science Research Center located in Orlando, FL is the name given to the effort of one person, John Casey. Mr. Casey has created the SSRC by renting 'virtual' office space (that is, he pays for a receptionist, call-taking and message-forwarding services, etc.) from Intelligent Office of Orlando (which provides the same service for 200+ other 'companies' at his Orlando location. [1]) In this recent press release, John takes a NASA press release from May 2006, and 'confirms' the findings within it. There is no evidence that he gives of any science (or analysis) that he has performed on the science that NASA has done. John then takes NASA's year-and-a-half old report of the slowing of the Sun's Great Conveyor Belt which is expected to lead to reduced sunspot activity in the year 2020 (or thereabouts), and uses it to (unsupportably) undergird his belief: We will experience a deep wave of global cold temperature which will cause riots, famine, and disease. NASA's scientists make no such claim. They say that reduced sunspot activity will result in fewer (and less intense) solar flares and radiation storms. That is all.

Note: The phone number does not match any of IntelligentOffice's numbers, but rather the number of Juan Carlos Perez, apparently an attorney in Orlando.

Another poster adds:

The changes on the sun's surface indicate nothing more than the beginning of a new solar cycle which occurs about once every decade. Global scientists have confirmed that the new cycle 24 was ushered in January 4th with a magnetic reverse-polarity sunspot high in the northern hemipshere of our star. This has been expected for sometime. The sun has been at the low end of it's cyclical activity and with the beginning of this new cycle solar activity will increase probably peaking in 2011 or 2012. So the sunspot activity will increase over the next 5 years, and from what I can read scientists are saying this could be an extremely active cycle. Also there is a background rise in luminosity which has been going on for sometime and thus an increase of temperatures on all stellar bodies is being observed. This cooling talk has absolutely no credibility.

The blog author replies with a bunch of "we need to frighten people" quotes from supposed GW advocates, amounting to a straw man attack on GW; end of discussion as of 2008-02-17.