# Willie Soon Back to [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate|Climate Change Science and Policy Debate]] · [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/Research and Evidence|Research and Evidence]] **Role:** Astrophysicist; co-author of Cohler's Keeling-intercept paper. - PhD (USC, 1991) ⚠️. Worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from the late 1990s until about 2022 ⚠️, mostly on solar variability as a climate driver. - Co-founded CERES (Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences) ⚠️. - **Funding disclosure controversy (2015):** documents obtained by Greenpeace showed more than $1 million in fossil-fuel-industry funding for his research, with papers that did not disclose it (reported by the *New York Times* and others) ⚠️ (from memory; not re-fetched). - **Soon & Baliunas 2003** (*Climate Research*): a medieval-warmth paper whose publication led several editors, including Hans von Storch, to resign ⚠️. Cohler cited a related Soon et al. 2003 reappraisal on Oct 19, 2026 ([2112145101585555759](https://x.com/cohler/status/2112145101585555759)). - Co-author with Cohler of the Argo ocean-heat paper (*Science of Climate Change*, Mar 2026) and of "Falsification of the Fossil-Dominant CO₂ Hypothesis via the Keeling Relation" (under review, Aug 2026). See the [[Users/@cohler/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - cohler on the Keeling Intercept and Fossil CO2 (2026-10-24)|Cohler seed analysis]].