Monthly Archives: June 2011

Climate Change, Extreme Weather Linked(?) at Last

Posted on June 30, 2011 by | 192 comments

by Judith Curry

The title for this post comes from a post at Pew Climate, highlighting a big three-part series featured on ScientificAmerican.com  to explain the link between climate change extreme weather.

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192 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Critique of the HADSST3 uncertainty analysis

Posted on June 29, 2011 by | 207 comments

by Judith Curry

On the previous sea surface temperature thread, I stated “Do you for one minute believe that the uncertainty in global average sea surface temperature in the 19th century is 0.3C? I sure as heck don’t.” Sharper00 challenged me to further support this statement, which provides the motivation for this thread along with the recent release of the latest version of the Hadley Centre SST dataset (HADSST3).

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207 Comments

Posted in Data and observations, Uncertainty

Mooney on Kahan on Skeptics

Posted on June 28, 2011 by | 394 comments

by Judith Curry

Chris Mooney has a new post up entitled “A little knowledge: why the biggest problem with climate skeptics may be their confidence.”  Mooney’s post responds to Kahan et al.’s new study entitled “The tragedy of the risk-perception commons: culture conflict, rationality conflict, and climate change.”

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394 Comments

Posted in Communication, Skeptics

On meeting 80% of the world’s energy supply by renewables

Posted on June 27, 2011 by | 150 comments

by Roger Caiazza

The lead statement to the IPCC press release announcing their renewables report stated “Close to 80 percent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling policies a new report shows.” I believe that the only way this could happen is if there were multiple miracles but don’t take my word for it.  Do you your own analysis.

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150 Comments

Posted in Energy

Unknown and uncertain sea surface temperatures

Posted on June 27, 2011 by | 484 comments

by Tony Brown

Over the years I have become intrigued at the manner in which historic surface temperature records- that were never intended to be more than a broad reflection of the micro climate around them- have been used as if they were highly accurate scientific data and subsequently used to inform policy. I have written two articles about their historic accuracy, both of which can be accessed through this link.

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484 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

Dueling grandchildren

Posted on June 25, 2011 by | 261 comments

by Judith Curry

I am visiting my 9 month old granddaughter Clara this week, which provides motivation for this post about intergenerational equity and justice.

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261 Comments

Posted in Ethics

How did we get into this?

Posted on June 24, 2011 by | 737 comments

by Don Aitkin

This essay was prompted by the recent thread ‘Understanding(?) the Conflict’. On this website, and elsewhere over the last few years, I have seen a great variety of explanations of how AGW orthodoxy got to the position of authority that it now enjoys in the Western world. I do not have a complete answer — at least, not a simple one — but I think that the question I have used as the title for this essay is an important one, and what follows is an attempt to respond to it.

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737 Comments

Posted in Week in review

Threatened Island Nations

Posted on June 23, 2011 by | 402 comments

by Judith Curry

The Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School and the Republic of the Marshall Islands recently co-sponsored a conference on “Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of a Changing Climate.”

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402 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Sea Level Hockey Stick

Posted on June 22, 2011 by | 319 comments

by Judith Curry

A new paper on sea level variations over the past two millennia is receiving substantial attention.

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319 Comments

Posted in Attribution, Data and observations

Conflict of interest guidelines for the IPCC

Posted on June 20, 2011 by | 411 comments

by Judith Curry

The current issues surrounding conflict of interest guidelines for the IPCC are summarized in this recent news release from the U.S. House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight:

Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Chairman Paul Broun (R-GA) today sent a letter to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, calling for the adoption of a Conflict of Interest Policy for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

“Despite my previous requests for the IPCC to adopt and enforce more stringent policies related to conflicts of interest and the use and citation of ‘gray literature,’ the IPCC has delayed action.”        

In the letter, Broun wrote that it is “imperative for the IPCC to adopt a rigorous conflict of interest policy before its 34th Session, tentatively scheduled to take place in January 2012.” 

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411 Comments

Posted in Ethics, IPCC

Barrier islands and climate change

Posted on June 19, 2011 by | 275 comments

by Judith Curry

Pursuant to the controversy surrounding the last analysis of sea level rise from the University of Colorado, I spotted this article entitled “What will climate change and sea level rise mean for barrier islands?”

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275 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Understanding(?) the conflict

Posted on June 19, 2011 by | 609 comments

by Judith Curry

The events of the past week have provided some potential insights into the conflict over the climate debate among the climate establishment, McIntyre & McKitrick, skeptical scientists, the extended peer community of the climate blogosphere, and a public that is trying to to make sense of it all.

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609 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

An opening mind. Part II

Posted on June 17, 2011 by | 504 comments

by Judith Curry

Mark Lynas has a new post up entitled “Questions the IPCC must now urgently answer.”  It is even more powerful than his previous post.  I may not be able to predict the climate, but I think I can predict certain outcomes in the climate debate.

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504 Comments

Posted in IPCC

Uncertainty and the IPCC

Posted on June 17, 2011 by | 25 comments

by Judith Curry

Two previous threads (here and here) have presented sections of my draft paper on Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster.  Here is an additional section on Uncertainty and the IPCC.

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25 Comments

Posted in IPCC, Uncertainty

Taming the Uncertainty Monster

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 54 comments

by Judith Curry

The concluding section in my draft paper on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” (discussed previously on this thread) is entitled “Taming the uncertainty monster.”

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54 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

IPCC as a knowledge monopoly

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 94 comments

by Judith Curry

There have been numerous criticisms of the IPCC and proposals for change.  One of the most interesting anlayses of the issues surrounding the IPCC is this paper by Richard Tol entitled “Regulating Knowledge Monopolies: The Case of the IPCC.”

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94 Comments

Posted in IPCC

An opening mind

Posted on June 15, 2011 by | 382 comments

by Judith Curry

I suspect that many readers of this blog have already seen Steve McIntyre’s post “IPCC and the Greenpeace Karaoke” that identified Greenpeace as the source of a key recommendation on renewable energy in the recently released IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation.

Such IPCC transgressions are becoming sufficiently regular that they barely seem like news anymore.  The reaction of Mark Lynas to McIntyre’s analysis, however, is indeed news IMO.

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382 Comments

Posted in IPCC

Solar snooze discussion thread

Posted on June 15, 2011 by | 347 comments

by Judith Curry

The Annual Meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society has announced some very interesting results in this press release entitled “Sun’s fading spots signal big drop in solar activity.”

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347 Comments

Posted in Solar

Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution. Part IV

Posted on June 14, 2011 by | 253 comments

by Judith Curry

Last October, I introduced this topic in Part I and followed up with Part II and Part III, which formed an early draft of an argument I was using in a paper entitled “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster.”  I’ve gotten the reviews back on my paper, this post is a draft of the revised version of that particular section.

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253 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Storm surges on the Arctic Ocean coast

Posted on June 12, 2011 by | 166 comments

by Judith Curry

The latest analysis of sea ice extent by the NSIDC shows that early June sea ice extent is lower than corresponding 2007 value.   A recent article at Yale360 discusses how as Arctic sea ice retreats, storms take toll on the land.

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166 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Polar regions

The new geopolitics of food

Posted on June 12, 2011 by | 92 comments

by Judith Curry

Pursuant to the issues raised on the previous food (in)security thread, I spotted this article published by Lester Brown in Foreign Affairs.  The subtitle of the article is “From the middle east to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators.  Welcome to the 21st century food wars.”

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92 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Lindzen and Choi Part II

Posted on June 10, 2011 by | 501 comments

by Judith Curry

Lindzen and Choi have published a new paper entitled “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications.”  This paper is pursuant to a previous paper on the same topic that was discussed by me on a thread at ClimateAudit.  The paper is receiving substantial attention in the blogosphere owing to the unusual  attention that the paper received by the editors at PNAS.

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501 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

RIO+20 Earth Summit: What can we expect?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by | 89 comments

by Judith Curry

The impact of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit is difficult to overestimate: it provided a primary foundation for the Precautionary Principle and fostered an agreement on the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) which in turn led to the Kyoto Protocol. The 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit will be marked by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (RIO+20).

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89 Comments

Posted in Policy

Climate change and food (in)security

Posted on June 8, 2011 by | 245 comments

by Judith Curry

A recent NYTimes article highlighted the issue of climate change impact on global food insecurity.  Roger Pielke Jr has criticizes this analysis in several posts [here and here], arguing that recent extreme weather events are not attributable to AGW and that self-reported food insecurity is at odds with model results from the FAO and USDA.   Lets take a deeper look at the issue of food security, and place climate change in a broader context of this complex issue.

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245 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Climate Change and Food Security Discussion Thread

Posted on June 6, 2011 by | 142 comments

by Judith Curry

Oops, I didn’t intend to publish that thread with a few notes (accidentally pushed the publish button rather than the save), but it seems like people are interested in the topic, so lets make this a food discussion thread. A full thread to follow in a few days.

142 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts