Category Archives: History

by Tony Brown

Is our popular understanding of the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) correct, as being a predominantly cold era lasting 500 years, leavened by a few brief warm spells?

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by Judith Curry

Science is not concerned only with things that we understand. The most exciting and creative parts of science are concerned with things that we are still struggling to understand. Wrong theories are not an impediment to the progress of science. They are a central part of the struggle. – Freeman Dyson

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by Tony Brown

Climate changes. How often? In what direction? What is actually meant by ‘climate change?’ Is the current definition useful?

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by Paul Farquharson

From about the fifth century A.D. onwards,  the Western tradition of history writing preserves abundant descriptions of weather and climate phenomena in sources such as Chronicles,  Annals and Histories.  If this material is left out of our understanding and memory of climate,  then contemporary extreme events may be mistaken for unique or unprecedented events.

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by Judith Curry

The Case for Modernization as the Road to Salvation

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by Judith Curry

[A] key message within Gore’s Climate Reality Project was that our recent strange weather and accompanying social problems are inextricably linked to the climate crisis. And say what you will about Gore, that part seems increasingly true. What’s more, there’s nothing new about such cause-and-effect. According to a new study, climate change has played a significant role in several of the  crises of pre-industrial Europe and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere over the course of the 300 years.

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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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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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