Certainly the debate over manmade climate change and global warming can get heated at times (pun intended).  Today that went to a new level pitting William (Bill) Gray, Professor Emeritus of Colorado State University who is best known for his hurricane forecasts against James Hansen of NASA’s GISS division and devout climate change advocate.

Bill Gray has long been warning that the threat of manmade climate change is not real.  In his own words, “I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.  I’ve been in meteorology over 50 years. I’ve worked damn hard, and I’ve been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who’ve been around have not been asked about this. It’s sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing.”

On the other side James Hansen has become Al Gore’s best friend thanks to his sometimes outlandish claims about the effects of global warming.  He recently warned that President Obama has ‘four years to save the world’ and was quoted as saying, “We cannot afford to put off change any longer.  We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.”

The latest battle is over the decision of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to grant its highest award, the Rossby Research Medal, to Hansen.  In a seven page letter to the AMS titled “On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society,” Mr. Hansen no longer seems willing to be outshouted in the debate over global warming. 

This is great reading and very interesting debate – check out the complete article and read the letter on our Examiner.com pages!  There is also a great slideshow of the key players in the global warming debate.

For all the details, read the rest of this story on our Denver Weather Examiner page.