Author Archives: curryja

Climate science’s ‘masking bias’ problem

Posted on June 21, 2019 | 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 scientists’ motivated reasoning

Posted on June 19, 2019 | 147 comments

by Judith Curry

Insights into the motivated reasoning of climate scientists, including my own efforts to sort out my own biases and motivated reasoning following publication of the Webster et al. (2005) paper

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147 Comments

Posted in Scientific method, Sociology of science

Gallery

Extremes

Posted on June 13, 2019

by Judith Curry Politics versus science in attributing extreme weather events to manmade global warming.

225 Comments

2019 Atlantic hurricane forecast

Posted on June 4, 2019 | 49 comments

by Judith Curry and Jim Johnstone

CFAN predicts an active North Atlantic hurricane season season.

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49 Comments

Posted in Hurricanes

Hearing on the Biodiversity Report

Posted on May 22, 2019 | 189 comments

by Judith Curry

The House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife is holding a Hearing today on Responding to the Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

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189 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Consensus

Climate’s uncertainty principle

Posted on May 6, 2019 | 223 comments

by Garth Paltridge

On the costs and benefits of climate action.

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223 Comments

Posted in Policy, Uncertainty

Rebelling against the Extinction Rebellion

Posted on May 4, 2019 | 168 comments

by Larry Kummer

The Extinction Rebellion and the Green New Deal arouse fears of extinction for other species, and humanity. Only the complicit silence of climate scientists makes this possible. Compare the alarmists’ claims with what scientists said in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Too bad that journalists don’t.

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168 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Communication

Beto’s climate action plan

Posted on April 29, 2019 | 317 comments

by Judith Curry

Beto O’Rourke’s Climate Change Plan deserves a close look.

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317 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Energy Security and Grid Resilience

Posted on April 20, 2019 | 235 comments

by Judith Curry

Diversifying and securing energy supplies nationally and locally.

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235 Comments

Posted in Energy

2019 ENSO forecast

Posted on April 4, 2019 | 75 comments

by Judith Curry and Jim Johnstone

CFAN’s 2019 ENSO forecast is for a transition away from El Niño conditions as the summer progresses. The forecast for Sept-Oct-Nov 2019 calls for 60% probability of ENSO neutral conditions, with 40% probability of weak El Niño conditions. – Forecast issued 3/25/19

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75 Comments

Posted in Prediction

What’s the worst case? Climate sensitivity

Posted on April 1, 2019 | 95 comments

by Judith Curry

Are values of equilibrium climate sensitivity > 4.5 C plausible?

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95 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Why climate predictions are so difficult

Posted on March 30, 2019 | 110 comments

by Judith Curry

An insightful interview with Bjorn Stevens.

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110 Comments

Posted in climate models, Prediction, Sensitivity & feedbacks

What’s the worst case? Emissions/concentration scenarios

Posted on March 28, 2019 | 98 comments

by Judith Curry

Is the RCP8.5 scenario plausible?

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98 Comments

Posted in Prediction

What’s the worst case? A possibilistic approach

Posted on March 27, 2019 | 141 comments

by Judith Curry

Are all of the ‘worst-case’ climate scenarios and outcomes described in assessment reports, journal publications and the media plausible? Are some of these outcomes impossible? On the other hand, are there unexplored worst-case scenarios that we have missed, that could turn out to be real outcomes? Are there too many unknowns for us to have confidence that we have credibly identified the worst case? What threshold of plausibility or credibility should be used when assessing these extreme scenarios for policy making and risk management?

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141 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Why I don’t ‘believe’ in ‘science’

Posted on March 26, 2019 | 153 comments

by Judith Curry

” ‘I believe in science’ is an homage given to science by people who generally don’t understand much about it. Science is used here not to describe specific methods or theories, but to provide a badge of tribal identity. Which serves, ironically, to demonstrate a lack of interest in the guiding principles of actual science.” – Robert Tracinski

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153 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Four fronts for climate policy

Posted on March 25, 2019 | 102 comments

by Judith Curry

“For decades, scientists and policymakers have framed the climate-policy debate in a simple way: scientists analyse long-term goals, and policymakers pretend to honour them. Those days are over. Serious climate policy must focus more on the near-term and on feasibility.” – Y. Xu, V. Ramanathan, D. Victor

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102 Comments

Posted in Policy

Climate sensitivity calculator app

Posted on March 18, 2019 | 132 comments

by Alberto Zaragoza Comendador

How sensitive is the Earth’s climate to greenhouse gases? Speaking about carbon dioxide in particular, how much would air temperatures increase if we doubled atmospheric concentrations of said gas?

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132 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Hurricanes & climate change: 21st century projections

Posted on March 11, 2019 | 62 comments

by Judith Curry

Final installment in my series on hurricanes and climate change.

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62 Comments

Posted in Hurricanes

Solar input to high latitudes and the global ice volume

Posted on March 7, 2019 | 141 comments

by Donald Rapp, Ralf Ellis and Clive Best

A review of the relationship between the solar input to high latitudes and the global ice volume over the past 2.7 million years.

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141 Comments

Posted in Polar regions

Hurricanes & climate change: recent U.S. landfalling hurricanes

Posted on March 4, 2019 | 64 comments

by Judith Curry

An assessment of whether any of the impacts of recent U.S. landfalling hurricanes were exacerbated by global warming.

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64 Comments

Posted in Hurricanes

Critique of the new Santer et al. (2019) paper

Posted on March 1, 2019 | 124 comments

by Ross McKitrick

Ben Santer et al. have a new paper out in Nature Climate Change arguing that with 40 years of satellite data available they can detect the anthropogenic influence in the mid-troposphere at a 5-sigma level of confidence. This, they point out, is the “gold standard” of proof in particle physics, even invoking for comparison the Higgs boson discovery in their Supplementary information.

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124 Comments

Posted in Attribution