Author Archives: curryja

Science: in the doghouse(?)

Posted on May 27, 2015 | 459 comments

by Judith Curry

One of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations. – Richard Horton

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459 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Sociology of science

Observational support for Lindzen’s iris hypothesis

Posted on May 26, 2015 | 190 comments

by Judith Curry

It’s nice to see that our ‘discredited’ theory doesn’t seem to go away. – Richard Lindzen

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190 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Modeling Lindzen’s adaptive infrared iris

Posted on May 26, 2015 | 70 comments

by Rud Istvan

In 2001, MIT’s Professor Richard Lindzen and colleagues published a controversial paper titled “Does the Earth have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?” [1] If there were a tropical adaptive infrared iris, then Earth’s sensitivity to GHGs would be much less than the IPCC had supposed.

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70 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Scientific integrity versus ideologically-fueled research

Posted on May 25, 2015 | 246 comments

by Judith Curry

The main intellectual fault in all these cases is failing to be responsive to genuine empirical concerns, because doing so would make one’s political point weaker or undermine a cherished ideological perspective. – Heather Douglas

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246 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Sociology of science

Did human-caused climate change lead to war in Syria?

Posted on May 22, 2015 | 154 comments

by Chip Knappenberger and Pat Michaels

Understand climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world. It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East – President Obama

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154 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

The method of multiple working hypotheses

Posted on May 21, 2015 | 232 comments

by Judith Curry

With this method the dangers of parental affection for a favorite theory can be circumvented. – T.C. Chamberlin

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232 Comments

Posted in Scientific method

What can we do about climate change?

Posted on May 19, 2015 | 431 comments

by Judith Curry

Do we have the resources (from, say, economics or ethics) to answer these sorts of questions?

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431 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Policy

Overreach at the EPA

Posted on May 18, 2015 | 132 comments

by Judith Curry

When did the EPA become our Nation’s energy regulator? When did the EPA acquire both the statutory mandate from Congress and the required subject-matter expertise to do FERC’s and the States’ jobs? When did the EPA gain the expertise to determine the optimal and most reliable mix of coal and natural gas power plants? When did the EPA acquire the expertise to determine how much power can (or should) be reliably generated using wind farms and solar arrays? – Forbes

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132 Comments

Posted in Policy

Tackling human biases in science

Posted on May 14, 2015 | 326 comments

by Judith Curry

Psychologist Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia says that the most common and problematic bias in science is “motivated reasoning”: We interpret observations to fit a particular idea.

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326 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

What would it take to convince you about global warming?

Posted on May 13, 2015 | 261 comments

by Judith Curry

If the objective is to change public opinion, then changing elite opinion is a necessary prerequisite. In fact, I would say necessary and sufficient. I don’t think you need to win a war on talk radio to have your impact on right-of-center opinion. – Jerry Taylor

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261 Comments

Posted in Policy, Skeptics

True costs of wind electricity

Posted on May 12, 2015 | 204 comments

by Planning Engineer and Rud Istvan

Wind turbines have become a familiar sight in many countries as a favorite CAGW mitigation means. Since at least 2010, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has been assuring NGOs and the public that wind would be cost competitive by now, all things considered. Many pro-wind organizations claim wind is cost competitive today. But is it?

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204 Comments

Posted in Energy

ENSO and the anchovy

Posted on May 11, 2015 | 144 comments

by phlogiston a.k.a Phil Salmon

If one wishes to gain a “heads-up” as to imminent developments in ENSO and possible beginnings of an el Nino or La Nina event, I would advise turning to the Peruvian anchovy as an important but often overlooked oracle to the oceanography of the anchovy’s home ocean, the Pacific.

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144 Comments

Posted in Oceans

Transmission planning: wind and solar

Posted on May 7, 2015 | 210 comments

by Planning Engineer

Some of the denizens have requested an introduction to transmission planning and a discussion of how the transmission system is impacted by renewable resources.

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210 Comments

Posted in Energy

Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2

Posted on May 6, 2015 | 2,119 comments

by Fred Haynie

I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.

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2,119 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

Is federal funding biasing climate research?

Posted on May 6, 2015 | 207 comments

by Judith Curry

Does biased funding skew research in a preferred direction, one that supports an agency mission, policy or paradigm?

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207 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Follow-up questions re my recent House testimony

Posted on May 5, 2015 | 263 comments

by Judith Curry

Some interesting follow-up questions from the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology regarding my recent Congressional testimony.

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263 Comments

Posted in Policy

What are the most controversial points in climate science?

Posted on May 4, 2015 | 412 comments

by Judith Curry

And how might these controversies be resolved?

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412 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Ethics of climate expertise

Posted on April 30, 2015 | 466 comments

by Judith Curry

If deference to the authoritative opinions of experts is essential to our rationality and knowledge, and if that deference unavoidably rests on trust, not only in the competence, but also in the epistemic and ethical characters of our experts–then it is high time that we get to work on the ethics of expertise. Indeed, it is past time. – John Hardwig

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466 Comments

Posted in Consensus, Ethics

Pope Francis, climate change, and morality

Posted on April 29, 2015 | 202 comments

by Judith Curry

The Pontifical Academy of Science meeting on climate change is raising some interesting issues for Catholics and for humanity.

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202 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Policy

Making (non)sense of climate denial

Posted on April 28, 2015 | 425 comments

by Judith Curry

See update

I’m wondering how we can inoculate ourselves and broader public from the latest nonsense from John Cook: an online MOOC Making Sense of Climate Denial.

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425 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science