Author Archives: curryja

A response to: “Is RCP8.5 an impossible scenario?”. This post demonstrates that RCP8.5 is so highly improbable that it should be dismissed from consideration, and thereby draws into question the validity of RCP8.5-based assertions such as those made in the Fourth National Climate Assessment from the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

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185 Comments

Posted in Energy

Early 20th century global warming

Posted on January 23, 2019 | 377 comments

by Judith Curry

A careful look at the early 20th century global warming, which is almost as large as the warming since 1950. Until we can explain the early 20th century warming, I have little confidence IPCC and NCA4 attribution statements regarding the cause of the recent warming.

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377 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Ocean Heat Content Surprises

Posted on January 14, 2019 | 271 comments

by Judith Curry

There have several interesting papers on ocean heat content published in recent weeks, with some very important implications.

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271 Comments

Posted in Oceans

Sea levels, atmospheric pressure and land temperature during glacial maxima

Posted on January 4, 2019 | 86 comments

by Alan Cannell

The new tropical lands: a carbon sink during formation and huge source of carbon dioxide and methane when lost to the sea.

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86 Comments

Posted in Oceans

Reconstructing a dataset of observed global temperatures 1950-2016 from human and natural influences

Posted on January 3, 2019 | 191 comments

by Frank Bosse

A demonstration that multidecadal variation since 1950 leads to overestimation of the Transient Climate Response (TCR).

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191 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

National Climate Assessment: A crisis of epistemic overconfidence

Posted on January 2, 2019 | 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

Cliff Mass: victim of academic political bullying

Posted on December 12, 2018 | 148 comments

by Judith Curry

There is a disturbing story coming out of the University of Washington surrounding Cliff Mass.

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148 Comments

Posted in Politics, Sociology of science

Politics of climate expertise

Posted on December 3, 2018 | 339 comments

by Judith Curry

“Concerning the inability of expert knowledge to resolve environmental controversy and the pressing need for a pragmatic reframing of policy problems to allow for solutions based on bipartisan values.”

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339 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Sea level rise: what’s the worst case?

Posted on November 29, 2018 | 145 comments

by Judith Curry

Draft of article to be submitted for journal publication.

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145 Comments

Posted in Oceans, Uncertainty

Special Report on Sea Level Rise

Posted on November 27, 2018 | 193 comments

by Judith Curry

I have now completed my assessment of sea level rise and climate change.

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193 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Oceans

CAGW: a ‘snarl’ word?

Posted on November 26, 2018 | 283 comments

The term ‘CAGW’ has both appropriate and inappropriate usage.

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283 Comments

Posted in Communication

Is RCP8.5 an impossible scenario?

Posted on November 24, 2018 | 202 comments

by Judith Curry

In considering ‘worst case’ climate change impacts, we first need to assess the realistic worst case for global carbon emissions.

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202 Comments

Posted in Energy

Admitting mistakes in a ‘hostile environment’

Posted on November 19, 2018 | 262 comments

by Judith Curry

Reflections on Nic Lewis’ audit of the Resplandy et al. paper.

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262 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

The catastrophe narrative

Posted on November 14, 2018 | 421 comments

by Andy West

A narrative propagated by emotive engagement, not veracity.

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421 Comments

Posted in Communication, Sociology of science

Climate uncertainty monster: What’s the worst case?

Posted on October 11, 2018 | 330 comments

by Judith Curry

On possibilities, known neglecteds, and the vicious positive feedback loop between scientific assessment and policy making that has created a climate Frankenstein.

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330 Comments

Posted in Scientific method

1.5 degrees

Posted on October 8, 2018 | 275 comments

by Judith Curry

The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C is now published [link].

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275 Comments

Posted in IPCC

The most amazing greening on Earth

Posted on September 19, 2018 | 225 comments

by Patrick J. Michaels

We’ve long been fond of showing the satellite evidence for planetary greening caused by increasing carbon dioxide, particularly the work of Zhu et al.(2016):

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225 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Hurricane Florence: climate dynamics context

Posted on September 18, 2018 | 62 comments

by Judith Curry

“Impending massive hurricanes bring the best out of weather twitter and the worst out of climate twitter” – Joseph Maykut

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62 Comments

Posted in Hurricanes

A Test of the Tropical 200-300 mb Warming Rate in Climate Models

Posted on September 17, 2018 | 250 comments

by Ross McKitrick

I sat down to write a description of my new paper with John Christy, but when I looked up a reference via Google Scholar something odd cropped up that requires a brief digression.

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250 Comments

Posted in climate models