Author Archives: curryja

by Judith Curry

“Something frightening poses a perceived risk. Something dangerous poses a real risk.” – Swedish physician Hans Rosling et al.[i]

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by Judith Curry

With the new media, it’s astonishing  how much trouble a mild-mannered grandmother speaking common sense about climate change can cause without leaving her home.

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by Frank Bosse

A very interesting blog post by Gavin Schmidt provides input on “constraining“  the observed TCR ( Transient Climate Response) in the time window 1979- 2022 using the latest climate models.

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by David Young

This post lays out in fairly complete detail some basic facts about Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling. This technology is the core of all general circulation models of the atmosphere and oceans, and hence global climate models (GCMs).  I discuss some common misconceptions about these models, which lead to overconfidence in these simulations. This situation is related to the replication crisis in science generally, whereby much of the literature is affected by selection and positive results bias.

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by Planning Engineer (Russell Schussler)

The unfolding saga around FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange currently in bankruptcy, appears to share some similarities with factors which led to the demise of Enron. Enron and FTX both initially achieved success because they were able to exploit some of the inefficiencies present in a complex system.

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by Judith Curry

The loss of glaciers from Glacier National Park is one of the most visible manifestations of climate change in the U.S.  Signs were posted all around the park, proclaiming that the glaciers would be gone by 2020.  In 2017, the Park started taking these signs down.  What happened, beyond the obvious fact that the glaciers hadn’t disappeared by 2020?

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by Judith Curry

The apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding the climate “crisis” has numerous victims.  Children and young adults rank among the victims of greatest concern.

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by Judith Curry

Growing realization by the climate establishment  that the threat of future warming has been cut in half over the past 5 years. Continue reading →

by Energy Meteorologist

A local example of the penetration problem for renewable energy in Texas

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by Javier Vinós

A recent paper by Svetlana Veretenenko provides important support for the effect of solar activity on the lower atmospheric circulation through its effect on the polar vortex. Veretenenko’s paper is an important step in demonstrating the solar effect on global atmospheric circulation, an important part of the Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis.

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by Judith Curry

Tim Palmer’s new book has just been published: “The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World”

This book is a physics-intellectual feast.  Must read.

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by Planning Engineer

The “green” provisions of the poorly named  Inflation Reduction Act  are sweeping and it appears they may do more harm than good. The philosophy behind the inflation Reduction Act seems to reflect the belief that if you can get the ball rolling, adding additional wind and solar will get easier. However, as  Part 1 discussed, the compounding problems associated with increasing the penetration level of wind and solar generation are extreme.

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by Planning Engineer

There seems to be a belief that increasing the level of wind and solar projects will make subsequent progress with these resources easier. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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by Nicola Scafetta

Two publications examining the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) have recently been published in Climate Dynamics:

Scafetta, N. (2022a). CMIP6 GCM ensemble members versus global surface temperatures.

Lewis, N. (2022). Objectively combining climate sensitivity evidence.

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by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands climate change.” J. Vinós, paraphrasing Richard Feynman’s words about quantum mechanics.

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by Planning Engineer

The first week in September of this year California was facing rolling blackouts due to a forecast 20-year high Peak. Residents were asked to cut down electric usage and at risk of rolling blackouts. Is this a new normal? Or can the threat of rolling blackouts be avoided?  The likely answer is that the risk of rolling blackouts could be greatly reduced, but because of other priorities such reliability risks are the new normal.

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by Judith Curry

In which wicked scientists are the good guys.

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by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“No philosopher has been able with his own strength to lift this veil stretched by nature over all the first principles of things. Men argue, nature acts.” Voltaire (1764)

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by Judith Curry

Does our future hold a plethora of wind turbines, solar farms, and transmission lines covering an ever-growing fraction of the planet’s surface as energy demand increases?  The output of farmland and forests being burned to provide power?

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by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“Once you start doubting, just like you’re supposed to doubt. You ask me if the science is true and we say ‘No, no, we don’t know what’s true, we’re trying to find out, everything is possibly wrong’ … When you doubt and ask it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing, than to have answers which might be wrong.” Richard Feynman (1981)

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by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s.” Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson & Sergey Kravtsov (2007)

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by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“The atmospheric heat transport on Earth from the Equator to the poles is largely carried out by the mid-latitude storms. However, there is no satisfactory theory to describe this fundamental feature of the Earth’s climate.” Leon Barry, George C. Craig & John Thuburn (2002)

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by Judith Curry

The Inflation Reduction Act that has passed in the US Senate contains a healthy dose of funding for energy and climate initiatives.  There is much discussion as to why this bill looks like it will pass, when previous climate bills (carbon tax, carbon cap and trade) failed.

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The Sun-Climate Effect: The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis (II). Solar activity unexplained/ignored effects on climate

by Javier Vinós & Andy May

“The complicated pattern of sun-weather relationships undoubtedly needs much further clarification, but progress in this field will be hindered if the view prevails that such relationships should not be taken seriously simply because the mechanisms involved in explaining them are not yet identified.” Joe W. King (1975)

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by Javier Vinós and Andy May

“Probably no subfield of meteorology has had as much effort devoted to it as the effects of solar variability on weather and climate. And none has had as little to show for the research labor.” Helmut E. Landsberg (1982)

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