Sebastian Lüning

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Sebastian Lüning (* 1970 ) is a German geologist . He was an Africa expert at the oil and gas company RWE Dea and currently works for Galp Energia . He experienced media reception through the publication of the book Die kalte Sonne , in which, together with Fritz Vahrenholt, he denies a number of fundamental findings in climate research and a. claims that a change in solar activity, and not human influences, may be the main cause of global warming .

Live and act

Lüning completed his studies at the University of Göttingen , which he graduated with a diploma in 1994. For his doctoral thesis at the University of Bremen , he examined the Upper Cretaceous and the Old Tertiary of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. From 1997 to 2000 he was a postdoc in London and worked on the paleozoic sedimentary basins of the Sahara with a focus on black shale and petroleum geology .

After he returned to Bremen , where he is a project to Cenomanian - Turonian edited -Schwarzschiefern North Africa and habilitated it. In the 2005/2006 winter semester, Lüning was visiting professor at the Institute for Geological Sciences at the University of Vienna .

In 2007, Lüning was awarded the Hanns Bruno Geinitz Prize by the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden . The prize is awarded for the areas of dissertation / habilitation and diploma. From 2007 to 2012 he worked as an Africa expert at the oil and gas company RWE Dea. Since 2012 he has been the chief geologist for the New Ventures division at the oil and gas company Galp Energia, the largest company in Portugal .

NASA global temperature data (moving average over 12 months) compared to the forecast for global temperature up to 2030 by Vahrenholt and Lüning (based on Die kalte Sonne , Fig. 73.), as of July 2020.

Lüning gained public fame when he published the book Die kalte Sonne with climate-skeptical theses together with Shell and RWE manager Fritz Vahrenholt at the beginning of 2012 . The Bild-Zeitung published excerpts from the book in advance under the title The CO 2 Lie . The core thesis of the book is that it was not CO 2 but, above all, changes in ocean currents and solar activity that would have led to global warming and that, due to decreasing solar activity, future warming would be much lower than e.g. B. forecast by the IPCC ("Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change") . In addition, the book takes the position that global warming is a means to create jobs, prestige and research funds for climate researchers and to restrict the freedom of citizens through laws. Numerous journalists as well as energy and climate experts contradicted the theses of the book and its political demand to take "more time" in restructuring the energy system.

In the professional world , the theses presented in the book were unanimously rejected. In addition, several scientists quoted in the book said they had been misrepresented. Among other things, the quoted statistician Manfred Mudelsee criticized the fact that Vahrenholt and Lüning continued to claim this on their blog even after he pointed out that his work did not prove any solar cycles . He therefore feels that Vahrenholt and Lüning have consciously exploited him. The climate researcher Hans von Storch , himself a critic of an overly "alarmistic" interpretation of climate science, judged: "It seems that Fritz Vahrenholt and his co-author Sebastian Lüning were simply cherry-picking - that is what they accuse their opponents."

According to NZZ am Sonntag , Lüning can be found “everywhere”: “At Heartland conferences, at Eike conferences, with the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, in the fossil industry.” He is also a private researcher at the Institute for Hydrography, Geoecology and Climate Sciences , an association made up of Lüning and one other person, whose goal is to find evidence that carbon dioxide is not necessarily the main driver of current global warming. The NZZ authors certify that he is eloquent and critical, but also point to contradictions in his argumentation. On the one hand he calls himself independent, on the other hand he is professionally looking for oil and gas deposits for the fossil energy industry. He also calls himself a “moderate skeptic”, but also publishes together with EIKE press spokesman and climate change denier Horst-Joachim Lüdecke . They also criticize the harsh tone on the cold sun blog run jointly by Lüning and Vahrenholt , "which reminds us of the men from the climate manifesto". There, among other things, climate researcher and IPCC lead author Reto Knutti was referred to as a “climate activist” and accused of having a tendency to “anti-scientific” hubris and “inability to criticize”.

In 2013 Lüning was one of the authors of a report published by the Heartland Institute by the NIPCC , a group founded by Fred Singer that contests man-made climate change and was conceived as a counter-organization to the IPCC.

Publications (excerpt)

  • Lüning, S., M. Gałka, FP Bamonte, FG Rodríguez, F. Vahrenholt (2018): The Medieval Climate Anomaly in South America . Quaternary International, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2018.10.041 .
  • Lüning, S., M. Gałka, IB Danladi, TA Adagunodo, F. Vahrenholt (2018): Hydroclimate in Africa during the Medieval Climate Anomaly . Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol., 495: 309-322, doi: 10.1016 / j.palaeo.2018.01.025 .
  • Lüning, S., M. Gałka, F. Vahrenholt (2017): Warming and cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and Arabia . Paleoceanography 32 (11): 1219-1235, doi: 10.1002 / 2017PA003237 .
  • Laurenz, L., HJ. Lüdecke, S. Lüning (2019): Influence of solar activity on European rainfall . Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 185: 29-42, doi: 10.1016 / j.jastp.2019.01.012 (English)

book

  • With Fritz Vahrenholt: The cold sun. Why the climate catastrophe does not take place. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-455-50250-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=13392 . See bildungsklick.de, Hanns-Bruno-Geinitz-Preis awarded in Dresden
  2. ^ Fritz Vahrenholt: SPD rebel considers climate forecasts to be exaggerated . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , February 6, 2012.
  3. ↑ Christopher Schrader : Climate Change - What Role Does the Sun Really Play? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 8, 2012.
  4. ^ Frank Drieschner, Christiane Grefe & Christian Tenbrock: Fritz Vahrenholt: Störenfritz des Klimafriedens . In: Die Zeit , No. 7, February 9, 2012.
  5. ↑ Stefan Schmitt and Christian Tenbrock: Cold from space ? In: The time . January 26, 2012, accessed on August 1, 2018 (payment barrier on the website).
  6. ↑ a b Controversial book "The Cold Sun": Half-truths about the CO2 lie. In: Focus Online . July 30, 2012, accessed March 18, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Jens Soentgen , Helena Bilandzic: The structure of climate- skeptical arguments. Conspiracy Theory as Critique of Science . In: GAIA . tape 23 , no. 1 , 2014, p. 40-47 , doi : 10.14512 / gaia.23.1.10 .
  8. ^ Skeptics in the fact check , ZEIT Online from February 8, 2012.
  9. ↑ Researchers feel they have been instrumentalized by climate skeptic Vahrenholt . In: Die Zeit , August 10, 2012, accessed on June 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ Hans von Storch : A skeptic lacking skepticism: Fritz Vahrenholt. The climate bulb , February 8, 2012, accessed on March 25, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Carole Koch and Boas Ruh: The climate war: An international network of climate skeptics attacks researchers. In: NZZ on Sunday , March 9, 2019, accessed on March 10, 2019.
  12. ↑ Climate damage, tree play, alternative climate bible . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 27, 2013, accessed on July 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Lüning, Sebastian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1970