Author Archives: curryja

Kardashian Index

Posted on August 3, 2014 | 257 comments

by Judith Curry

I am concerned that phenomena similar to that of Kim Kardashian may also exist in the scientific community. I think it is possible that there are individuals who are famous for being famous.  – Neil Hall

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257 Comments

Posted in Communication, Sociology of science

Montgomery’s Senate testimony: economics of climate adaptation

Posted on August 1, 2014 | 154 comments

by Judith Curry

If we really want to help globally, there is clear evidence that most can be accomplished through effective support at a community level for locally-designed and implemented adaptation measures in Africa and poor Asian countries where the real vulnerability exists, not nugatory mitigation that helps no one. – W. David Montgomery

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154 Comments

Posted in Adaptation

Lomborg’s Senate testimony

Posted on July 30, 2014 | 496 comments

by Judith Curry

Because   there   is   no   good, cheap   green   energy,   the   almost   universal  political  choices   have   been   expensive   policies   that   do   very   little. There   is   much   greater   scope   for   climate   policies to   make   the   total   climate   cost   greater   through  the   21st   century. – Bjorn Lomborg

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496 Comments

Posted in Economics, Energy

Politicizing the IPCC report

Posted on July 29, 2014 | 242 comments

by Judith Curry

UK Energy and Climate Change Committee report on IPCC AR5 – another pointless exercise in circular reasoning, confirmation bias and division? – Paul Matthews

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242 Comments

Posted in IPCC

The 97% feud

Posted on July 27, 2014 | 620 comments

by Judith Curry

An academic feud swirls around how best or even whether to express the scientific consensus around climate change.  

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620 Comments

Posted in Consensus, Sociology of science

Towards a pragmatic ethics of climate change

Posted on July 24, 2014 | 420 comments

by Judith Curry

The global climate change debate has gone badly wrong. Many mainstream environmentalists are arguing for the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons, and so long as they continue to do so they put all our futures in jeopardy. – Thomas Wells

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420 Comments

Posted in Ethics

The raw politics of science

Posted on July 23, 2014 | 170 comments

by Judith Curry

 The myth that there is no politics of science is dangerous as it prevents the important and urgently needed institution of some democratic control of the existing system of politics within the commonwealth of learning. – Joseph Agassi

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170 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Are the deep oceans cooling?

Posted on July 22, 2014 | 242 comments

by Judith Curry

Direct determination of changes in oceanic heat content over the last 20 years are not in conflict with estimates of the radiative forcing, but the uncertainties remain too large to rationalize e.g., the apparent “pause” in warming. – Wunsch and Heimbach

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242 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

Pentagon’s war against climate change

Posted on July 20, 2014 | 316 comments

by Judith Curry

The military frames those efforts in terms of saving money and reducing its dependence on vulnerable supply lines, not dealing with climate change, but the result is the same.

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316 Comments

Posted in Policy

Open thread

Posted on July 19, 2014 | 239 comments

by Judith Curry

It’s your turn to introduce topics for discussion.

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239 Comments

Posted in Open thread

On academic bullying

Posted on July 18, 2014 | 465 comments

by Judith Curry

So Prof. Enoch is basically seeking to harm Prof. Bell’s reputation, without providing literally ANY documentation that Prof. Bell is wrong, much less so egregiously wrong that his work should be considered “pseudo-scholarship” and his reputation should suffer. 

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465 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Exploring controversy: NIPCC versus IPCC

Posted on July 17, 2014 | 205 comments

by Judith Curry

Who assesses the assessors of climate science research?  A new paper reviews the climate change reviewers by comparing references in the NIPCC and IPCC reports.

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205 Comments

Posted in Skeptics, Sociology of science

Why scientists should talk to philosophers

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 295 comments

by Judith Curry

The divorce between philosophers and scientists is fairly recent.  Its time for a reconciliation.

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295 Comments

Posted in Scientific method, Sociology of science, Uncertainty

‘Scientist’: the evolving story of a word

Posted on July 15, 2014 | 144 comments

by Judith Curry

Tracing the acceptance or rejection of “scientist” among researchers not only gives us a history of a word—it also provides insight into the self-image of scientific researchers in the English-speaking world in a time when the social and cultural status of “science” was undergoing tremendous changes. – Melinda Baldwin

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144 Comments

Posted in History, Sociology of science

IPCC and treatment of uncertainties

Posted on July 11, 2014 | 135 comments

by Judith Curry

A new review paper on the IPCC and treatment of uncertainties.

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135 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Disentangling forced from intrinsic climate variability

Posted on July 9, 2014 | 323 comments

by Marcia Wyatt

Implications for the “stadium wave” and Northern Hemisphere climate variability.

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323 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Understanding adjustments to temperature data

Posted on July 7, 2014 | 2,044 comments

by Zeke Hausfather

There has been much discussion of temperature adjustment of late in both climate blogs and in the media, but not much background on what specific adjustments are being made, why they are being made, and what effects they have. Adjustments have a big effect on temperature trends in the U.S., and a modest effect on global land trends. The large contribution of adjustments to century-scale U.S. temperature trends lends itself to an unfortunate narrative that “government bureaucrats are cooking the books”.

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2,044 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

Phunny Physics

Posted on July 6, 2014 | 303 comments

by Judith Curry

Newtons Laws of Expertise and the 4th Law of Thermodynamics.

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303 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Climate Smart Development

Posted on July 4, 2014 | 164 comments

by Judith Curry

With careful design, the same development projects that improve communities, save lives, and increase GDP can also fight climate change.

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164 Comments

Posted in Policy

Overconfidence(?)

Posted on July 2, 2014 | 803 comments

by Judith Curry

Yet not once has overconfidence by actual scientists been demonstrated. You just keep making that up. – Chris Colose

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803 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

NCDC responds to concerns about surface temperature data set

Posted on July 1, 2014 | 465 comments

Our algorithm is working as designed. – NOAA NCDC

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465 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

Consensus angst

Posted on June 30, 2014 | 643 comments

by Judith Curry

The public seems to have gotten the memo that climate scientists believe that humans are warming the planet, and the warming is dangerous.  They also don’t seem to care.

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643 Comments

Posted in Consensus

Model structural uncertainty – are GCMs the best tools?

Posted on June 25, 2014 | 385 comments

by Judith Curry

Rarely are the following questions asked:  Is the approach that we are taking to climate modeling adequate?  Could other model structural forms be more useful for advancing climate science and informing policy?

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385 Comments

Posted in climate models

Uneasy expertise

Posted on June 24, 2014 | 310 comments

by Judith Curry

Experts might instead need to pick a side, join the fight, and accept that their claims to knowledge and authority will always and everywhere be contested. – Jason Wilson

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310 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Pondering the anthropocene

Posted on June 22, 2014 | 360 comments

by Judith Curry

[H]ow we meet the needs and aspirations of all of humanity while sustaining the planet’s ecology, is what the Anthropocene is all about. – Keith Kloor

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360 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts