Category Archives: Uncertainty

Climate adaptation sense. Part III: Dynamic Adaptation Policy Pathways

Posted on March 17, 2021 by curryja | 88 comments

by Judith Curry

Best practices in adapting to sea level rise use a framework suitable for decision making under deep uncertainty.

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88 Comments

Posted in Adaptation, Oceans, Uncertainty

Climate adaptation follies. Part II: scenarios of future sea level rise

Posted on March 8, 2021 by curryja | 61 comments

by Judith Curry

How did the state of New Jersey come to adopt sea level rise projections for their adaptation planning that are more than twice as high as the IPCC’s values?

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61 Comments

Posted in Adaptation, Uncertainty

Uncomfortable knowledge

Posted on March 3, 2021 by curryja | 197 comments

by Judith Curry

On the misuse of science and scientific authority.

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197 Comments

Posted in Policy, Sociology of science, Uncertainty

Five rules for evidence communication

Posted on November 21, 2020 by curryja | 361 comments

by Judith Curry

“Avoid unwarranted certainty, neat narratives and partisan presentation; strive to inform, not persuade.”

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361 Comments

Posted in Communication, Uncertainty

What the pandemic has taught us about science

Posted on October 10, 2020 by curryja | 285 comments

The scientific method remains the best way to solve many problems, but bias, overconfidence and politics can sometimes lead scientists astray

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285 Comments

Posted in Scientific method, Sociology of science, Uncertainty

How we fool ourselves

Posted on October 4, 2020 by curryja | 268 comments

by Judith Curry

Crowd sourcing examples of fallacious thinking from climate science.

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268 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science, Uncertainty

Coronavirus uncertainty

Posted on March 19, 2020 by curryja | 416 comments

by Judith Curry

My thoughts on coronavirus and deep uncertainty.

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416 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Plausible scenarios for climate change: 2020-2050

Posted on February 13, 2020 by curryja | 229 comments

by Judith Curry

A range of scenarios for global mean surface temperature change between 2020 and 2050, derived using a semi-empirical approach. All three modes of natural climate variability – volcanoes, solar and internal variability – are expected to act in the direction of cooling during this period.

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229 Comments

Posted in climate models, Sensitivity & feedbacks, Solar, Uncertainty

Escape from model land

Posted on October 29, 2019 by curryja | 348 comments

by Judith Curry

“Letting go of the phantastic mathematical objects and achievables of model- land can lead to more relevant information on the real world and thus better-informed decision- making.” – Erica Thompson and Lenny Smith

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348 Comments

Posted in climate models, Uncertainty

Climate Change: What’s the Worst Case?

Posted on August 22, 2019 by curryja | 200 comments

by Judith Curry

My new manuscript is now available.

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200 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Climate science’s ‘masking bias’ problem

Posted on June 21, 2019 by curryja | 117 comments

by Judith Curry

How valid conclusions often lay hidden within research reports, masked by plausible but unjustified conclusions reached in those reports. And how the IPCC institutionalizes such masking errors in climate science.

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117 Comments

Posted in Scientific method, Sociology of science, Uncertainty

Climate’s uncertainty principle

Posted on May 6, 2019 by curryja | 223 comments

by Garth Paltridge

On the costs and benefits of climate action.

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223 Comments

Posted in Policy, Uncertainty

National Climate Assessment: A crisis of epistemic overconfidence

Posted on January 2, 2019 by curryja | 110 comments

by Judith Curry

“You can say I don’t believe in gravity. But if you step off the cliff you are going down. So we can say I don’t believe climate is changing, but it is based on science.” – Katherine Hayhoe, co-author of the 4th National Climate Assessment Report.

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110 Comments

Posted in Consensus, Uncertainty

Sea level rise: what’s the worst case?

Posted on November 29, 2018 by curryja | 145 comments

by Judith Curry

Draft of article to be submitted for journal publication.

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145 Comments

Posted in Oceans, Uncertainty

Resplandy et al. Part 4: Further developments

Posted on November 23, 2018 by niclewis | 47 comments

By Nic Lewis

There have been further interesting developments in this story Continue reading →

47 Comments

Posted in Data and observations, Oceans, Uncertainty

Resplandy et al. Part 3: Findings regarding statistical issues and the authors’ planned correction

Posted on November 17, 2018 by niclewis | 47 comments

By Nic Lewis

Introduction

The Resplandy et al. (2018) ocean heat uptake study (henceforth Resplandy18) is based on measured changes in the O₂/N₂ ratio of air sampled each year, compared to air stored in high pressure tanks originally sampled in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. These are combined to produce an estimate (ΔAPO_Obs) of changes in atmospheric potential oxygen since 1991 (ΔAPO). They break this series down into four components, including one attributable to ocean warming (ΔAPO_Climate). By estimating the other three, they isolate the implied ΔAPO_Climate and use it to estimate the change in ocean heat content. In two recent articles, here and here, I set out why I thought the trend in ΔAPO_Climate – from which they derived their ocean heat uptake estimate – was overstated, and its uncertainty greatly understated. Continue reading →

47 Comments

Posted in Data and observations, Oceans, Uncertainty

A major problem with the Resplandy et al. ocean heat uptake paper

Posted on November 6, 2018 by niclewis | 410 comments

by Nic Lewis

Obviously doubtful claims about new research regarding ocean content reveal how unquestioning Nature, climate scientists and the MSM are. Continue reading →

410 Comments

Posted in Data and observations, Oceans, Uncertainty