Monthly Archives: September 2012

Academic versus professional perspectives

Posted on September 30, 2012 by | 600 comments

by Judith Curry

In pondering the challenges of climate change (both science and policy), it seems that academics have different perspectives from many other people, with a discriminator being professional decision making experience.

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600 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

What are blogs good for anyways?

Posted on September 29, 2012 by | 532 comments

by Judith Curry

We are starting to see blog discourse making it into academic papers, being the subject of presentations and conference sessions, and the development of blogs specifically to analyze the dynamics of other blogs.  So, lets address the question raised in the recent presentation by Franziska Hollender:

What are blogs good for anyways?

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532 Comments

Posted in Communication, Open knowledge, Sociology of science

Effects of solar variability on climate

Posted on September 27, 2012 by | 695 comments

by Judith Curry

Two new workshop reports provide  insights into what we know and don’t know about the effects of solar variability on climate.

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695 Comments

Posted in Solar

Cool first, warm later

Posted on September 22, 2012 by | 626 comments

by Judith Curry

From an article in the New Scientist by Fred Pearce, written in Sept 2009:

One of the world’s top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.

“I am not one of the sceptics,” insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. “However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it.”

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626 Comments

Posted in Prediction, Skeptics

PBS Ombudsman

Posted on September 22, 2012 by | 678 comments

by Judith Curry

A segment on climate change last Monday evening produced a storm of protest from critics who felt the program mislead viewers — by a faulty application of journalistic balance — about the very real threat of global warming and man’s contribution to it, as well as a sprinkling of support from those who think that threat is overstated and that balance was just the right touch for the NewsHour. – Michael Getler, PBS

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678 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Workshop on attribution of extreme events

Posted on September 21, 2012 by | 100 comments

by Judith Curry

Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming. – Nature

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100 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Uncertainty in health impacts of climate change

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | 320 comments

by Judith Curry

Health risks arise from the interaction of uncertain future climatic changes with complex ecological, physical, and socio-economic systems, which are simultaneously affected by numerous other changes, e.g. globalisation, demographic changes, and changes in land use, nutrition, health care quality. Policymaking on adaptation to health risks of climate change thus faces substantial uncertainty. – Wardekker et al.

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320 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Uncertainty

Skeptics: make your best case. Part II

Posted on September 18, 2012 by | 1,251 comments

by Judith Curry

By popular request, here is  new thread on one of the original ‘hot topics’ at Climate Etc.

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1,251 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Reflections on the Arctic sea ice minimum: Part II

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 480 comments

Judith Curry

Pursuant to Part I, i ask the following questions:

  • Whence an ‘ice free’ Arctic?
  • Does an ‘ice free’ Arctic matter?

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480 Comments

Posted in Polar regions

Reflections on the Arctic sea ice minimum: Part I

Posted on September 16, 2012 by | 399 comments

by Judith Curry

How should we interpret the record low minimum sea ice extent?

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399 Comments

Posted in Polar regions

BS detectors

Posted on September 15, 2012 by | 802 comments

by Judith Curry

Most likely, their bullshit detectors just went on high alert. – Greg Breining

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802 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

National Strategy for Advancing Climate Models

Posted on September 14, 2012 by | 319 comments

by Judith Curry

Overall, climate modeling has made enormous progress in the past several decades, but meeting the information needs of users will require further advances in the coming decades. – NRC

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319 Comments

Posted in climate models

The costs of tackling or not tackling anthropogenic global warming

Posted on September 12, 2012 by | 407 comments

by Michael Cunningham (“Faustino”)

There are many issues of debate about global warming.  Has there been warming this century?  Will there be further warming?  If so, will the cause be anthropogenic or other?  What will be the impacts, both positive and negative?  Should we take action to reduce emissions?  How might we proceed, and what are the costs and benefits of various approaches?

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407 Comments

Posted in Policy

Refocusing the debate about advocacy

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 225 comments

by Judith Curry

The notion that a scientist is either an advocate or does nothing at all to shape policy is a false dichotomy that has muddied the debate about science and advocacy. – Scott and Rachlow

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225 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Policy

Too much advocacy?

Posted on September 10, 2012 by | 492 comments

by Judith Curry

By advocating social policy positions, scientists may be forfeiting their credibility, instead becoming just ordinary folks with opinions. – Greg Breining

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492 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Policy

The weatherman is not a moron

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | 486 comments

by Judith Curry

Why are weather forecasters succeeding when other predictors fail? It’s because long ago they came to accept the imperfections in their knowledge. – Nate Silver

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486 Comments

Posted in Prediction

Climate change and U.S. presidential politics

Posted on September 7, 2012 by | 523 comments

by Judith Curry

So . . .  what do the U.S. presidential candidates have to say about climate change?

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523 Comments

Posted in Politics

Decision making under uncertainty: the dog and the frisbee

Posted on September 6, 2012 by | 301 comments

by Judith Curry

As you do not fight fire with fire, you do not fight complexity with complexity. Because complexity generates uncertainty, not risk, it requires a regulatory response grounded in simplicity, not complexity.

To ask today’s regulators to save us from tomorrow’s crisis using yesterday’s toolbox is to ask a border collie to catch a frisbee by first applying Newton’s Law of Gravity. – Haldane and Madouros

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301 Comments

Posted in Policy

The ‘hard won’ consensus

Posted on September 3, 2012 by | 913 comments

by Judith Curry

The extent to which a consensus is “hard won” can be understood to depend on the personal qualities of the participating experts.” Brent Ranalli

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913 Comments

Posted in Communication, Consensus, Skeptics

Climate Etc. at 2

Posted on September 1, 2012 by | 454 comments

by Judith Curry

September 2  marks the 2nd anniversary of Climate Etc.  Time for some reflection, on where we’ve been and where we might be going.

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454 Comments

Posted in Welcome

Rhetoric and rafts

Posted on September 1, 2012 by | 398 comments

by Judith Curry

The warning signals from the planet are clear. Now is the moment for our commu- nity to adopt the rallying cry of sea kayakers confronted with conditions too challenging to handle alone: “Time to raft up!”. – Chris Rapley

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398 Comments

Posted in Communication