Jackson, WY /PRNewswire/ - No scientist has ever demonstrated experimentally that observed increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations actually cause air to warm enough to explain global warming. The only experiments documented in the literature were done in 1900 by Knut Angstrom, who showed any warming to be minimal.

"Ozone depletion is the most credible explanation for global warming," says longtime US geophysicist Dr. Peter L. Ward. "Depletion allows more solar ultraviolet-B radiation to reach Earth, providing a more direct and clearer explanation for observed warming."

On January 12, Ward speaks to climate leaders at the American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans in a session honoring Mario J. Molina, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for showing how manufactured chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases deplete ozone.

Ward, who worked 27 years with the US Geological Survey and recently published the book What Really Causes Global Warming?, explains how Molina's discovery led world leaders to pass the Montreal Protocol, which began limiting CFC production in 1989. Increases in CFCs stopped by 1993, increases in ozone depletion stopped by 1995, and increases in surface temperature stopped by 1998.

"If we hadn't passed the Montreal Protocol," Ward concludes, "temperatures today would likely be a degree warmer."

"2015 was the hottest ever recorded," Ward explains, "but that is most likely the result of ozone depletion caused by chlorine and bromine emissions from massive lava flows extruded from Baroarbunga volcano in Iceland between August 2014 and February 2015, the highest rate of basaltic lava eruption since 1783.

"As world leaders prepare to spend billions of dollars to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions," Ward asks, "wouldn't it seem prudent to perform some simple tests to demonstrate that greenhouse warming theory actually works?"

This is why Ward issued the Climate Change Challenge in November, offering $10,000 to the first scientist who can prove experimentally that greenhouse gases are more effective than ozone depletion in causing global warming.

"It is vital to all life on Earth that we get this right," Ward says.

Visit WhyClimateChanges.com, watch a TEDx talk atVolcanoesClimate.com, or read Ward's new book. What Really Causes Global Warming? Greenhouse Gases or Ozone Depletion?

For an interview with Ward, contact Lonni Miller at 973/686-3660 or Email.