Uncertainty and the IPCC

Posted on June 17, 2011 by | 25 comments

by Judith Curry

Two previous threads (here and here) have presented sections of my draft paper on Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster.  Here is an additional section on Uncertainty and the IPCC.

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25 Comments

Posted in IPCC, Uncertainty

Taming the Uncertainty Monster

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 54 comments

by Judith Curry

The concluding section in my draft paper on “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster” (discussed previously on this thread) is entitled “Taming the uncertainty monster.”

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54 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

IPCC as a knowledge monopoly

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 94 comments

by Judith Curry

There have been numerous criticisms of the IPCC and proposals for change.  One of the most interesting anlayses of the issues surrounding the IPCC is this paper by Richard Tol entitled “Regulating Knowledge Monopolies: The Case of the IPCC.”

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94 Comments

Posted in IPCC

An opening mind

Posted on June 15, 2011 by | 382 comments

by Judith Curry

I suspect that many readers of this blog have already seen Steve McIntyre’s post “IPCC and the Greenpeace Karaoke” that identified Greenpeace as the source of a key recommendation on renewable energy in the recently released IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation.

Such IPCC transgressions are becoming sufficiently regular that they barely seem like news anymore.  The reaction of Mark Lynas to McIntyre’s analysis, however, is indeed news IMO.

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382 Comments

Posted in IPCC

Solar snooze discussion thread

Posted on June 15, 2011 by | 347 comments

by Judith Curry

The Annual Meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society has announced some very interesting results in this press release entitled “Sun’s fading spots signal big drop in solar activity.”

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347 Comments

Posted in Solar

Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution. Part IV

Posted on June 14, 2011 by | 253 comments

by Judith Curry

Last October, I introduced this topic in Part I and followed up with Part II and Part III, which formed an early draft of an argument I was using in a paper entitled “Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster.”  I’ve gotten the reviews back on my paper, this post is a draft of the revised version of that particular section.

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253 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Storm surges on the Arctic Ocean coast

Posted on June 12, 2011 by | 166 comments

by Judith Curry

The latest analysis of sea ice extent by the NSIDC shows that early June sea ice extent is lower than corresponding 2007 value.   A recent article at Yale360 discusses how as Arctic sea ice retreats, storms take toll on the land.

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166 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts, Polar regions

The new geopolitics of food

Posted on June 12, 2011 by | 92 comments

by Judith Curry

Pursuant to the issues raised on the previous food (in)security thread, I spotted this article published by Lester Brown in Foreign Affairs.  The subtitle of the article is “From the middle east to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators.  Welcome to the 21st century food wars.”

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92 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Lindzen and Choi Part II

Posted on June 10, 2011 by | 501 comments

by Judith Curry

Lindzen and Choi have published a new paper entitled “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications.”  This paper is pursuant to a previous paper on the same topic that was discussed by me on a thread at ClimateAudit.  The paper is receiving substantial attention in the blogosphere owing to the unusual  attention that the paper received by the editors at PNAS.

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501 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

RIO+20 Earth Summit: What can we expect?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by | 89 comments

by Judith Curry

The impact of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit is difficult to overestimate: it provided a primary foundation for the Precautionary Principle and fostered an agreement on the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) which in turn led to the Kyoto Protocol. The 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit will be marked by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (RIO+20).

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89 Comments

Posted in Policy

Climate change and food (in)security

Posted on June 8, 2011 by | 245 comments

by Judith Curry

A recent NYTimes article highlighted the issue of climate change impact on global food insecurity.  Roger Pielke Jr has criticizes this analysis in several posts [here and here], arguing that recent extreme weather events are not attributable to AGW and that self-reported food insecurity is at odds with model results from the FAO and USDA.   Lets take a deeper look at the issue of food security, and place climate change in a broader context of this complex issue.

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245 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Climate Change and Food Security Discussion Thread

Posted on June 6, 2011 by | 142 comments

by Judith Curry

Oops, I didn’t intend to publish that thread with a few notes (accidentally pushed the publish button rather than the save), but it seems like people are interested in the topic, so lets make this a food discussion thread. A full thread to follow in a few days.

142 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations

Posted on June 6, 2011 by | 111 comments

by Judith Curry

While working on my null hypothesis essay, I encountered this interview with Michel Foucault shortly before his death, entitled “Polemics, Politics, and Problemizations.”

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111 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Towards sane policies on natural disasters

Posted on June 5, 2011 by | 434 comments

by Judith Curry

The issue of whether or not global  climate change is causing more frequent or intense natural disasters is a red herring that is interfering with developing sane policies for reducing our vulnerability to natural disasters.

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434 Comments

Posted in Policy

When Scientists Advise Politicians

Posted on June 3, 2011 by | 125 comments

by Judith Curry

Bishop Hill spotted an essay with the title of this post that was published in Science and Public Affairs (UK).  The essay is written by Lord William Waldegrave, who is an investment banker and former Cabinet Minister. He is Chairman of the trustees of the Science Museum and President of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. This article is based on a talk he gave  at the Royal Institution in 2003.

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125 Comments

Posted in Policy

Doubt, uncertainty and ignorance

Posted on June 2, 2011 by | 316 comments

by Judith Curry

The word “doubt” has a bad connotation in the climate debate owing to the merchants of doubt meme.  Richard Feynman puts the word “doubt”  into the appropriate perspective in the context of science:

When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. 

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316 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Is Extreme Weather Linked to Global Warming?

Posted on June 2, 2011 by | 296 comments

by Judith Curry

Yale Environment 360 has just posted  a  forum with the same title as this post. I along with 7 other scientists provided a 250 word response to the question:

Do you think there is growing evidence that human-caused global warming is contributing to an increased incidence of extreme weather ?

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296 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Making the lukewarmer case

Posted on June 1, 2011 by | 398 comments

by Judith Curry

Many skeptics have attempted to lay out their arguments in a broad sense for the broader public, presumably hoping to convince the uninformed or the weakly convinced.  There are books, booklets, ppt presentations, youtube videos.  While these may inform people that are already skeptical, and maybe catch the attention of the uninformed, I suspect that the do not make much if any headway in convincing to be skeptical those that are already convinced.

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398 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

UN Talks and Power Politics: Its Not About the Temperature

Posted on May 29, 2011 by | 219 comments

by Judith Curry

In the wake of the breaking  announcement that Russia, Japan and Canada told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US reiterated it would remain outside the treaty, it is instructive to took a look at what has been going on in the context of the UNFCCC.

The title of this post comes from a recent hearing from the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

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219 Comments

Posted in Politics

Risk Perception

Posted on May 29, 2011 by | 100 comments

by Judith Curry

Over at nature.com,  Dave Ropeik has posted an essay entitled “Risk Perception.”

“No matter what the hard risk sciences may tell us the facts are about a risk, the social sciences tell us that our interpretation of those facts is ultimately subjective.”

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100 Comments

Posted in Policy

Uncertainty, risk, and (in)action

Posted on May 28, 2011 by | 321 comments

by Judith Curry

“So when you take uncertainty into account, it actually leads to the decision that we should take action more quickly.”

I first spotted the statement in the Discover Magazine interview with myself and Michael Mann .  I thought it had to be a typo or misquote (note, Mann said this, not me :))

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321 Comments

Posted in Policy, Uncertainty

The futility of carbon reduction?

Posted on May 26, 2011 by | 646 comments

by Tony Brown (tonyb)

This article assesses the impact of UK’s proposed climate change legislation.

“To achieve the target of an 80% reduction in (UK) carbon emissions by 2050 virtually all our electricity will need to come from clean sources.” – Gordon Brown, 2007

 “(UK) Families will have to get used to only using power when it is available”-Steve Holliday, Chief Executive of National Grid- Sunday Times of 22 May 2011

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646 Comments

Posted in Policy

Freedom of Information

Posted on May 25, 2011 by | 547 comments

by Judith Curry

Some interesting issues this week regarding Freedom of Information (FOI), related to Michael Mann and the UVa and also some statements by Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society.

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547 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

More tornado madness

Posted on May 25, 2011 by | 100 comments

by Judith Curry

With the tragic damage and loss of life in Joplin, the tornado madness continues unabated.   Here is the latest from Roy Spencer, Bill McKibben, and Joe Romm.

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100 Comments

Posted in Attribution

What we agree(?) on

Posted on May 24, 2011 by | 355 comments

by Judith Curry

This post draws heavily from Bishop Hill’s post with (almost) the same title, related to the Cambridge Workshop discussed on the previous thread. Specifically, this addresses the attempt by Dr. Eric Wolff to find a measure of agreement between the two sides in the climate debate.  I attempted something similar on a previous Climate Etc. thread titled What we know with confidence.

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355 Comments

Posted in Skeptics