by Judith Curry
The #MeToo movement is spawning considerable reflection in academia. Here are some reflections and advice from a senior female scientist (moi) who came up through the academic system during the bad old days of the 1970’s and 1980’s, and who has mentored many young female scientists as they navigate the professional world of academia.
Posted in Sociology of science
by Telis Koskinas
On February 2017, Oroville Dam gained worldwide attention when its main spillway suddenly failed, seemingly without precedent, under natural operating conditions.
Posted in Adaptation, Extreme events
by Javier
Summary: Holocene climate has been affected in different periods by several centennial to millennial solar cycles. The ~ 1000-year Eddy solar cycle seems to have dominated Holocene climate variability between 11,500-4,000 years BP, and in the last two millennia, where it defines the Roman, Medieval, and Modern warm periods. The ~ 208-year de Vries solar cycle displays strong modulation by the ~ 2400-year Bray solar cycle, both in its cosmogenic isotope signature and in its climatic effects. The Centennial, and Pentadecadal solar cycles are observable in the last 400-year sunspot record, and they are responsible for the present extended solar minimum that started in 2008.
Posted in Attribution, Solar
by Jim Johnstone and Judith Curry
The good news: the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season is over. The bad news: it was an extremely active season, with substantial damage in the U.S. and the Caribbean islands. What caused this extremely active hurricane season, and was it foreseeable?
Posted in Hurricanes
by Judith Curry
In private, climate scientists are much less certain than they tell the public. – Rupert Darwall
Posted in Policy, Sociology of science, Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
National security implications of the rapidly changing global population dynamic.
Posted in Policy
by Judith Curry
Red-teaming the the U.S. government’s Climate Science Special Report on the topic of sea level rise.
Posted in Oceans, Sociology of science
Posted in Energy, Sociology of science
By Planning Engineer
Considerable efforts are being undertaken to restore power in Puerto Rico. Most coverage has been pessimistic focusing on challenging logistics and contentious issues with very little upbeat coverage on progress so far. There is one major exception to this trend, the efforts of Elon Musk and Tesla have enjoyed glowing coverage.
Posted in Energy
by Judith Curry
The aim of education is to make people think, not spare them from discomfort. – Robert Zimmer
Posted in Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
My recent interview with David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and the link with global warming.
Posted in Hurricanes
by Ross McKitrick
A number of authors, including the IPCC, have argued that climate models have systematically overstated the rate of global warming in recent decades. A recent paper by Millar et al. (2017) presented the same finding in a diagram of temperature change versus cumulative carbon emissions since 1870.
Posted in climate models
by Javier
The existence of a 1500-year climatic cycle during the Holocene, related to the glacial Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, is a matter of intense debate. However, by introducing precise timing requirements it can be shown that the 1500-year cycle displayed in Northern Hemisphere glacial records is also observed in Holocene records from all over the world.
Posted in Uncategorized
by Judith Curry
Cat 5 Hurricane Irma is one for the record books; it’s eye is on Florida.
Posted in Hurricanes
by Judith Curry
The 12 year drought of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. is over, with catastrophic impacts in Texas. Predictions of Hurricane Harvey illustrate the realization of extended- and long-range hurricane forecasts.
Posted in Hurricanes
by Judith Curry
Calling on CE Denizens to review the Climate Science Special Report: nominate an official reviewer, or participate in the CE Crowdsourced Review.
Posted in Scientific method, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
This post is running parallel to the post Reviewing the Climate Science Special Report (a technical post), to accommodate general discussion on the topic
Posted in Scientific method
by Dr. Ronan Connolly & Dr. Michael Connolly
Satellite observations indicate that the average Arctic sea ice extent has generally decreased since the start of the satellite records in October 1978. Is this period long enough to assess whether the current sea level trend is unusual, and to what extent the decline is caused by humans?
Posted in Polar regions
by Judith Curry
For the sake of argument, let’s accept the IPCC conclusions regarding attribution of global warming, and their 21st century projections. So, exactly who in the U.S. bears the blame for current and future damages?
by Javier
A possible mechanism for the effect of solar variability on climate, whereby solar variability acts over the stratospheric pressure system transmitting the changes top-down, and over ocean temperatures bottom-up.
Posted in Adaptation, Data and observations
by Peter Davies
While onshore wind generation has been relatively inexpensive for some time, solar PV and lithium ion battery storage costs have recently shown dramatic reductions. So can Texas, with excellent onshore wind and solar resources, be powered economically entirely by renewables in the 2030-40 time frame? This article brings together the available public material to estimate the cost.
Posted in Energy
by Frank Bosse
Increasing evidence of small aerosol forcing supports the importance of internal variability in explaining inter hemispheric differences in temperature variability.
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
by Mike Smith
For a decade, the weathercaster and broadcast meteorology communities have been subject of a focused campaign to force them to cover global warming in a manner acceptable to the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and other advocacy groups.
Posted in Sociology of science
by Javier
In Part A, we established the existence of a ~ 2400-year climate cycle, discovered in 1968 by Roger Bray. This climate cycle correlates in period and phase with a ~ 2400-year cycle in the production of cosmogenic isotopes, that corresponds with clusters of solar grand minima at times of abrupt cooling and climate deterioration. The relationship between solar activity and cosmogenic isotope production during the past centuries confirms the ~ 2400-year solar cycle as the origin of the climate cycle.
Posted in Data and observations
by Judith Curry
The climate change debate has entered what we might call the “Campfire Phase”, in which the goal is to tell the scariest story. – Oren Cass (twitter)
Posted in Communication, Sociology of science
