Hans von Storch (born 13 August 1949) is a German climate scientist. He is a professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, and (since 2001) Director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre (previously: GKSS Research Center) in Geesthacht, Germany. He is a member of the advisory boards of the journals Journal of Climate and Annals of Geophysics. He worked at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology from 1986 to 1995 and headed the Statistical Analysis and Modelling research group there. Opinion on global warming Storch said in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 that anthropogenic climate change exists: "Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." He is also known for an article in Der Spiegel he co-wrote with Nico Stehr, which states that: "Scientific research faces a crisis because its public figures are overselling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for newsworthy information." "The alarmists think that climate change is something extremely dangerous, extremely bad and that overselling a little bit, if it serves a good purpose, is not that bad." In December 2009, he expressed concern about the credibility of science and criticized some publicly visible scientists for simplifying and dramatizing their communications. He pointed to the German Waldsterben (Forest dieback) hype of the 1980s: Research about the forest die back in Germany may serve as an example at the other end of the spectrum. The science of forest damages was in the 1980s heavily politicized, and used as support for a specific preconceived "good" policy of environmental protection. The resulting overselling and dramatization broke down in the 1990s, and news about adverse developments in German forests is now a hard sell in Germany. An observer wrote in 2004: "The damage for the scientists is enormous. Nobody believes them any longer." Of course, the damage was not only limited to the forest researchers, but also to other environmental scientists and politicians as well. On 20 June 2013 Storch stated "So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we