Author Archives: curryja

Nature has just published an editorial on the Heartland Conference entitled “Heart of the Matter” with subtitle “The Heartland Institute’s climate conference reveals the motives of global warming skeptics.”

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401 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Cyclomania

Posted on July 27, 2011 | 157 comments

by Judith Curry

The thread on the recent Loehle and Scafetta paper (here and WUWT) have spawned the term “cyclomania” in the context of searches for natural cycles that can explain 20th century climate change and potentially predict climate change in the 21st century.

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157 Comments

Posted in Attribution

America’s First Global Warming Debate

Posted on July 26, 2011 | 94 comments

by Judith Curry

So, when do you think America’s first climate debate took place, and who were the participants? Here is a hint:

As the tumultuous century was drawing to a close, the conservative Yale grad challenged the sitting vice president’s ideas about global warming. The vice president, a cerebral Southerner, was planning his own run for the presidency, and the fiery Connecticut native was eager to denounce the opposition party.

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94 Comments

Posted in History

A Scientist’s Manifesto

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 111 comments

by Judith Curry

A Scientist’s Manifesto challenges scientists to think about their work in a broader context, and to engage more fully with the society that supports them and ultimately stands to be impacted by them – for good or bad.

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111 Comments

Posted in Communication, Ethics

Theories vs theories

Posted on July 23, 2011 | 476 comments

by Judith Curry

There is an interesting new article at boingboing entitled “Lowercase theories, uppercase Theories, and the myth of global cooling.” (h/t Keith Kloor).

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476 Comments

Posted in Scientific method

Week in review 07/22/11

Posted on July 22, 2011 | 249 comments

by Judith Curry

Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week:

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249 Comments

Posted in Week in review

Stephen Schneider and the “Double Ethical Bind” of Climate Change Communication

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 443 comments

By Judith Curry

On the first anniversary of Steve Schneider’s untimely death, it is worth reflecting on his contributions at the intersection of climate science, policy, politics and media in the public communication of climate change. Schneider’s views on this topic are infamously characterized by his 1989 statement (page 5 of the link):

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

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443 Comments

Posted in Communication

Essay on “Our evolving climate”

Posted on July 20, 2011 | 225 comments

by Judith Curry

This article aims to portray and communicate the important role played by natural variability in our evolving climate. Understanding and acknowledging these variations is important for society and policymakers. Much of this variability is chaotic and unpredictable but some significant fraction is potentially predictable, providing an opportunity to narrow the uncertainty in climate predictions of the coming decade.

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225 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Who’s afraid of big bad coal?

Posted on July 19, 2011 | 348 comments

by Judith Curry

Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project aims to “reveal the complete truth about the climate crisis” and “bringing the facts about the climate crisis into the mainstream and engaging the public in conversation about how to solve it.” Gore’s promotional video accuses “Big Oil” and “Big Coal” of evil manipulation.

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348 Comments

Posted in Communication

On the role of trust in climate communication

Posted on July 17, 2011 | 578 comments

by Judith Curry

Much has been written on the need for better communication of climate science and for rebuilding trust in the wake of Climategate. Such efforts are generally dismissed by climate skeptics as manipulative and further increase distrust. But surely there must be better modes of communication between climate scientists and the lay public?

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578 Comments

Posted in Communication

Manufacturing(?) consensus

Posted on July 16, 2011 | 635 comments

by Judith Curry

The consensus on anthropogenic climate change provided by the IPCC is the source of much controversy. Central to the controversy is the meaning and implications of “consensus,” in both scientific and sociological contexts.

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635 Comments

Posted in Scientific method

Time-varying trend in global mean surface temperature

Posted on July 14, 2011 | 446 comments

by Judith Curry

Two key questions in the climate debate are:

How much of the recent warming can be attributed to natural variability versus anthropogenic forcing?
Is the rate of warming in the latter half of the 20th century unusual or unprecedented?

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446 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Historic variations in sea levels. Part 1: From the Holocene to Romans

Posted on July 12, 2011 | 512 comments

by Tony Brown

The IPCC AR4 projected sea level rise in 2100 to range from 18-59 cm, depending on the emission scenario. More recent projections are for a 1 m sea level rise in 2100 [here and here]. Apart from the issue of uncertainty and reliability of these future sea level projections, how do these magnitudes of sea level rise compare with historic variations in sea level rise?

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512 Comments

Posted in History

Agnotology, Agnoiology and Cognitronics

Posted on July 11, 2011 | 281 comments

by Judith Curry

I’ve just come across three really interesting words, that I have somehow missed up to this point in my studies on uncertainty and ignorance: agnotology, agnoiology and cognitronics.

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281 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

IPCC’s problems at the top

Posted on July 10, 2011 | 236 comments

by David Ritson

After the Copenhagen meeting and Himalaya-gate the IPCC has been faced with serious credibility problems. Himalayan-gate was largely dismissed by the establishment loyalists as a minor error that slipped through the system and was then corrected. What was so disquieting was not he occurrence of a mistake but the subsequent reaction of the IPCC chairman, Dr. Pachauri. Dr Pachauri, when questioned in an interview (youtube), not only reaffirmed the correctness of the original report but characterized the Indian government report, whose disaster-predictions were measured in centuries not decades, as “voodoo science”. Only after a month’s delay, and under pressure, was the mistake admitted (youtube).

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236 Comments

Posted in IPCC

IPCC’s new protocol for addressing possible errors

Posted on July 9, 2011 | 112 comments

by Judith Curry

Nic Lewis sent me the following message in an email:

I have some news to report on a response to the letter forming this post from the IPCC authors. Gabi Hegerl, joint coordinating lead author of Chapter 9, emailed me late yesterday afternoon to say that she had brought my letter to the attention of the WG1 AR5 Co-Chairs to initiate the appropriate handling of the alleged error, and that it will be dealt with in accordance with the recently approved “IPCC Protocol for Addressing Possible Errors in IPCC Assessment Reports, Synthesis Reports, Special Reports or Methodology Reports.

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112 Comments

Posted in IPCC

Climate sensitivity follow-up

Posted on July 7, 2011 | 370 comments

by Nicholas Lewis

JC note: Pursuant to Nic’s post on “The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results,” he has sent a letter to Gabi Hegerl, who was coordinating lead author on chapter 9 of the IPCC AR4.

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370 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results

Posted on July 5, 2011 | 651 comments

by Nicholas Lewis

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 (AR4) contained various errors, including the well publicised overestimate of the speed at which Himalayan glaciers would melt. However, the IPCC’s defenders point out that such errors were inadvertent and inconsequential: they did not undermine the scientific basis of AR4. Here I demonstrate an error in the core scientific report (WGI) that came about through the IPCC’s alteration of a peer-reviewed result. This error is highly consequential, since it involves the only instrumental evidence that is climate-model independent cited by the IPCC as to the probability distribution of climate sensitivity, and it substantially increases the apparent risk of high warming from increases in CO₂ concentration.

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651 Comments

Posted in IPCC, Sensitivity & feedbacks

An explanation(?) for lack of warming since 1998

Posted on July 4, 2011 | 442 comments

by Judith Curry

A new paper has been published in PNAS entitled “Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008.”

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442 Comments

Posted in Attribution

The Civil Heretic

Posted on July 2, 2011 | 459 comments

by Judith Curry

In the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the EPA (discussed previously here) included this footnote:

“For views opposing EPA’s, see, e.g., Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic, N. Y. Times Magazine 32 (March 29, 2009). The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.”

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459 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Climate Change, Extreme Weather Linked(?) at Last

Posted on June 30, 2011 | 192 comments

by Judith Curry

The title for this post comes from a post at Pew Climate, highlighting a big three-part series featured on ScientificAmerican.com to explain the link between climate change extreme weather.

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192 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Critique of the HADSST3 uncertainty analysis

Posted on June 29, 2011 | 207 comments

by Judith Curry

On the previous sea surface temperature thread, I stated “Do you for one minute believe that the uncertainty in global average sea surface temperature in the 19th century is 0.3C? I sure as heck don’t.” Sharper00 challenged me to further support this statement, which provides the motivation for this thread along with the recent release of the latest version of the Hadley Centre SST dataset (HADSST3).

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207 Comments

Posted in Data and observations, Uncertainty