by Judith Curry
Converging evidence from the behavioural and brain sciences suggests that the human moral judgement system is not well equipped to identify climate change — a complex, large-scale and unintentionally caused phenomenon — as an important moral imperative.
Posted in Ethics
by Judith Curry
The last time apocalyptic anxiety spilled into the mainstream to the extent that it altered the course of history — during the Reformation — it relied on a revolutionary new communications technology: the printing press. In a similar way, could the current surge in apocalyptic anxiety be attributed in part to our own revolution in communications technology?
Posted in Attribution, Climate change impacts, Communication
by Judith Curry
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. Erich Fromm
Posted in Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
A very provocative paper by Henrik Svensmark has been published today by the Royal Astronomical Society.
Posted in Solar
by Judith Curry
Ignorance is the true engine of science, according to a new book by Stuart Firestein, Chair of the Department of Biology at Columbia University.
Posted in Scientific method
by Judith Curry
This past week, there have been a number of articles describing a range of responses to climate change from different countries.
Posted in Climate change impacts, Policy
by Judith Curry
Do you ever find yourself reading something by a commentator you disagree with and wanting to punch them in the face? Do you listen to people on the other side of the political debate and find yourself almost hating them?
Posted in Uncategorized
by Judith Curry
[T]he world’s military leaders . . are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts.
Posted in Polar regions
by Judith Curry
The new International Journal of Uncertainty Quantification has some very interesting papers. Lets take a look at a paper entitled ‘Error and Uncertainty Quantification and Sensitivity Analysis in Mechanics Computational Models.’
Posted in climate models, Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
There is a war under way for control of the Internet, and every day brings word of new clashes on a shifting and widening battlefront. Governments, corporations, criminals, anarchists—they all have their own war aims.
Posted in Open knowledge
by Anonymous
[O]ur notion of software quality with respect to climate models is theoretically and conceptually vague. It is not clear to us what differentiates high from low quality software; nor is it clear which aspects of the models or modelling processes we might reliably look to make to that assessment.
Posted in climate models
by Judith Curry
Global warming in the coming years will foster trauma, depression, violence, alienation, substance abuse, suicide, psychotic episodes, post traumatic stress disorder and many other mental health-related conditions.
Posted in Climate change impacts
Posted in Skeptics
by Judith Curry
Conservationists need to work with development, not condemn it as leading to the end of nature. In truth, nature’s resilience has been overlooked, its fragility “grossly overstated.” Areas blasted by nuclear radiation are bio-diverse. Forest cover is rising in the Northern Hemisphere even as it declines globally.
Posted in Climate change impacts, Policy
by Judith Curry
If Booth and colleagues’ results can be corroborated, then they suggest that multidecadal temperature fluctuations of the North Atlantic are dominated by human activity, with natural variability taking a secondary role. This has many implications. Foremost among them is that the AMO does not exist, in the sense that the temperature variations concerned are neither intrinsically oscillatory nor purely multidecadal.
Posted in Attribution
by Judith Curry
In recent weeks, we are seeing two very interesting debates, both of which involve Richard Lindzen. The first debate involves the recent WSJ op-ed No Need to Panic About Global Warming. The second involves Lindzen’s seminar at the House of Commons.
Lets take a look at the latest response and parries in these ongoing debates.
Posted in Skeptics
by Judith Curry
In political debates that involve considerations of science, it is tempting to characterize scientists who demand particular types of action simply as political partisans. But when scientists make demands of the political process there is often more going on than just an effort to achieve political gain for one’s preferred policies.
Posted in Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
Nature’s exuberant smashing of daily high temperature records [in the U.S.] in recent weeks can only be described as “Meteorological March Madness”. Conditions more fitting of June than March prevailed east of the Rocky Mountains since the start of the month. NOAA’s National Climate Data Center reported that over 7000 daily record high temperatures were broken over the U.S. from 1 March thru 27 March.
Posted in Attribution
