by Judith Curry
Robert Socolow of Princeton University has written and essay “Wedges Reaffirme,” that examines the impact of his 2004 paper with Stephen Pacala, entitled “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies”.
Its core messages are as valid today as seven years ago, but they have not led to action.
by Judith Curry
Six Italian seismologists and one government official went on trial for manslaughter in Italy last week. The unusual trial stems from accusations that the seven failed to adequately communicate the potential for a major earthquake to the population around the central Italian town of L’Aquila, which was hit by a devastating magnitude 6.3 earthquake in the predawn hours of April 6, 2009.
Posted in Ethics
by Judith Curry
I’m in San Diego, with a few moments to catch up on the blog and share my impressions of my visit to MIT.
Posted in Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
This Thursday, I will be visiting the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT, giving the Victor Starr Lecture.
Posted in Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
…on average, climate change researchers will prefer to reach a decision or come to closure and ‘move on’ to the next step more quickly than the general population.
Posted in Communication
by Judith Curry
A new paper is in press that sheds some light on the relationship between cosmic rays and lower tropospheric cloud cover.
Posted in Solar
by Judith Curry
I think I am gaining some insight into the debate between scientists versus engineers regarding climate model verification and validation.
Posted in climate models, Uncertainty
It is difficult these days to get a paper published in a mainstream climate journal if it emphasises the uncertainty associated with some basic aspect of global warming.
by Judith Curry
A blogospheric debate has erupted this weekend over who is more anti-science: the political right, or the left.
Posted in Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
by Judith Curry
“Climategate”—the unauthorized release of, and news stories about, e-mails between climate scientists in the United States and United Kingdom—undermined belief in global warming and possibly also trust in climate scientists among TV meteorologists in the United States.
Posted in Communication
by Judith Curry
Update: response from Jared Diamond.
Several years ago, I read with great interest Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The starkest example in the book was the ecological collapse of Easter Island.
Mark Lynas has written a provocative essay that argues that “recent archaeological work suggests that the eco-collapse hypothesis is almost certainly wrong – and that the truth is far more shocking.”
Posted in Climate change impacts
by Judith Curry
Circa 2003-2005, we had the “hockey wars”. In 2005-2006, we had the “hurricane wars”. It looks like this is the season for “cloud wars.”
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
by Judith Curry
Here is the punchline of a new paper by Besley and Nisbet:
Most scientists in the US and UK blame public ignorance of science for flawed policy preferences and political choices. They tend to be critical of media coverage, yet rate favorably their own experience with the media. Scientists say policy-makers and journalists are the most important groups to engage and view the public as having secondary importance in political decision-making. Among scientists, perceptions of science-related policy debates are likely to be influenced by ideology and like-minded information sources such as blogs.
Posted in Communication
by Judith Curry
John and Michel are hypothetical pub owners in Britain and France. Lenny Smith asks the following questions:
Can today’s science tell John what +4 degrees would be like for his pub? Or his insurer? (or their reinsurer?) Or better still “climate-proof” his business? Is it a question of mere probabilities? Or might models see a “Big Surprise”? How to best manage Expectations (Theirs) and Credibility (Ours) ? Why is this so hard? Should Michel care about global mean temperature?
Posted in Climate change impacts
by Judith Curry
From Roger Pielke Jr.: A fundamental problem with climate science in the public realm, as conventionally practiced by the IPCC, is the essential ink blot nature of its presentation. By “ink blot” I mean that there is literally nothing that could occur in the real world that would allow those who are skeptical of scientific claims to revise their views due to unfolding experience. That is to say, anything that occurs with respect to the climate on planet earth is “consistent with” projections made by the climate science community.
Posted in climate models, Prediction
by Judith Curry
A new paper by Polyakov, Kwok and Walsh is in press in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, entitled: “Recent changes in arctic multi-year sea ice coverage and likely causes.” This is the best paper I’ve seen on this topic, which clearly articulates the complexity of the issue.
Posted in Polar regions
by Judith Curry
although very few researchers will go as far as to make up their own data, many will “torture the data until they confess”, and forget to mention that the results were obtained by torture….
by Judith Curry
I was going to try to ignore Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Climate Reality, but I am starting to get queries from journalists.
Posted in Communication, Politics
by Judith Curry
An important new paper on this topic has been published in J. Climate, that raises the bar in terms of uncertainty analysis.
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks, Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
Santer et al. have a new paper in press entitled “Separating Signal and Noise in Atmospheric Temperature Changes: The Importance of Time Scale.”
Posted in Attribution, climate models
by Judith Curry
My paper “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” is in press at the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Posted in Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
[I]n the past year, climate researchers in the United States and Britain have formed a loose coalition under the banner ‘ACE’ — Attribution of Climate-related Events — and have begun a series of coordinated studies designed to lay the foundations for a systematic weather-attribution programme.
Posted in Attribution
by Judith Curry
NCAR/UCAR has issued a press release: “First global portrait of greenhouse gases emerges from pole-to-pole flights.”
Posted in Greenhouse effect
by Judith Curry
The story surrounding Spencer & Braswell has gotten more interesting with the pre-publication of the rebuttal paper by Dessler.
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
