Climate Etc.

U.S. military and climate skeptics

Posted on May 20, 2011 by curryja | 227 comments

by Judith Curry

A must read article in the Guardian by Jules Boykoff entitled “U.S. Military Goes to War With Climate Skeptics.”

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227 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Null hypothesis discussion thread

Posted on May 16, 2011 by curryja | 435 comments

by Judith Curry

On the politics of climate expertise thread, we discussed Kevin Trenberth’s statement:

Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.

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435 Comments

Posted in Scientific method

On admitting and correcting mistakes

Posted on May 14, 2011 by curryja | 534 comments

by Judith Curry

Inside Higher Education (UK) has a lengthy article by Darrel Ince entitled “Systems failure”, with the subtitle “A scandal involving clinical trials based on research that was riddled with errors shows that journals, institutions and individuals must raise their standards.” An interview with Ince can be found here. There is discussion of this on two threads at Bishop Hill (here and here). The article and interview are very thought provoking, with relevance to the context of the climate debate.

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534 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Scientific method, Sociology of science

Tropospheric Temperature Trends

Posted on May 13, 2011 by curryja | 145 comments

by Judith Curry

A comprehensive history of the controversy surrounding tropospheric temperature trends has recently been published in WIRES Climate Change (h/t WUWT and Lorne LeClerc).

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145 Comments

Posted in Data and observations

NASA Earth Science Advisory Subcommittee

Posted on May 11, 2011 by curryja | 124 comments

by Judith Curry

This week I am attending a meeting of the Earth Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council. As described in the Public Notice for the meeting, the topic of this meeting is evaluation of NASA’s Earth Science Modeling and Activities.

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124 Comments

Posted in climate models

NCAR Community Climate System Model Version 4

Posted on May 8, 2011 by curryja | 482 comments

by Judith Curry

A new paper describing the latest version of the NCAR climate model has just been published at the Journal of Climate. This is the version of the model that is being used for the IPCC AR5.

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482 Comments

Posted in climate models

Sense from Von Storch

Posted on May 7, 2011 by curryja | 390 comments

by Judith Curry

NoTricksZone reports on an interview (in German) with Hans von Storch on the topic “Scientists request honest dialogue” that addresses the issue of climate skepticism.

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390 Comments

Posted in Skeptics

Redefining dangerous climate change

Posted on May 6, 2011 by curryja | 138 comments

by Judith Curry

There is some “buzz” about a new paper and essay by Timothy Lenton on dangerous climate change.

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138 Comments

Posted in Policy

Quote of the week

Posted on May 5, 2011 by curryja | 141 comments

by Judith Curry

“Do not confuse science with scientists, expertise with experts, or intellect with intellectuals. Society is not anti-intellectual or anti-science, it is anti-intellectuals, opposed to the people who claim those credentials, and for excellent reasons. Even those who on any given issue make appeals to the authority of selected scientists or experts will discount or reject equivalent authority when it does not confirm cherished biases.”

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141 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Monbiot on environmental fixes

Posted on May 4, 2011 by curryja | 157 comments

by Judith Curry

George Monbiot has published an interesting essay in the Guardian entitled “Lets face it: none of our environmental fixes break the planet-wrecking project.” The subtitle to the article is “All of us in the green movement are lost before the planet’s real problem: not too little fossil fuel but too much.”

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157 Comments

Posted in Policy

Anticipating the Climate Black Swan

Posted on May 2, 2011 by curryja | 465 comments

by Judith Curry

I just received the reviews on the manuscript I submitted to special issue of the journal Climatic Change, entitled “Reasoning About Climate Uncertainty.” Overall, the review was pretty mild. One comment from the editor was about my paragraph that mentioned “black swans.”

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465 Comments

Posted in Policy, Prediction

A prediction market for climate outcomes

Posted on April 30, 2011 by curryja | 185 comments

by Judith Curry

I am a strong believer that academic freedom is essential for scientific progress, and such freedom includes the right to be “wrong.” In fact, scientists can often learn much from failed experiments and failed predictions. However, for regulatory science and science for policy, should there be some premium on (and some reward for) actually being “right”? How can we know what is “right” in the short term? Shi-Ling Hsu has a provocative new essay that advocates an entirely different path for evaluating climate science that draws upon an institution that is truly independent: markets.
.

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185 Comments

Posted in Prediction

Tornado madness

Posted on April 30, 2011 by curryja | 104 comments

by Judith Curry

I’ve been pretty clear about where I stand with regards to the attribution of extreme events to global warming, e.g. see this thread. The recent tornado outbreak in the southeast U.S. has spawned a number of statements and articles about the cause of the outbreak including, inevitably, global warming.

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104 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Uncertainty in Catastrophe Modeling

Posted on April 28, 2011 by curryja | 66 comments

by Judith Curry

Roger Pielke Jr. has a very interesting post on uncertainty in catastrophe modeling. The basis for the post is an interview with Karen Clark. Karen Clark developed the first catastrophe model, and is worried that these models are being given more credit and influence than they deserve.

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66 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Brain sprain

Posted on April 26, 2011 by curryja | 228 comments

by Judith Curry

There is an interesting new paper in press in Behavioral and Brain Science that is generating substantial discussion in the blogosphere, entitled “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.” Perhaps this article can provide us with some insights on the climate debate.

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228 Comments

Posted in Communication, Scientific method

Science without method

Posted on April 25, 2011 by curryja | 639 comments

by Judith Curry

Since people are clamoring for a new thread, lets talk about this article in the the Australian Quadrant entitled “Science without method,” subtitled “Global warming research: whatever happened to the scientific method?” To review previous Climate Etc. posts on the Scientific Method, click here.

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639 Comments

Posted in Greenhouse effect, Scientific method

Overstretching Attribution

Posted on April 23, 2011 by curryja | 190 comments

by Judith Curry

Attribution of climate change and its impacts has been a recurring theme at Climate Etc. The first issue of Nature Climate Change has a provocative article entitled “Overstretching Attribution.”

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190 Comments

Posted in Attribution

Polyclimate

Posted on April 22, 2011 by curryja | 510 comments

by Judith Curry

I am trying to germinate an idea on how to move forward on the climate debate. Bear with me through this argument, and let me know what you think.

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510 Comments

Posted in Communication, Open knowledge, Scientific method, Sociology of science

Hidden knowledge

Posted on April 20, 2011 by curryja | 368 comments

by Judith Curry

I stumbled across this essay by Michael Nielsen entitled “Science Beyond Individual Understanding,” which I think is very relevant to the climate problem.

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368 Comments

Posted in Open knowledge, Scientific method, Sociology of science

Climate Shift

Posted on April 19, 2011 by curryja | 271 comments

by Judith Curry

Matt Nisbet has published a new report entitled “Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate,” that is generating substantial controversy in the blogosphere.

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271 Comments

Posted in Communication

Earth’s Energy Imbalance

Posted on April 18, 2011 by curryja | 306 comments

by Judith Curry

Jim Hansen has just posted his latest draft paper, entitled “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications.” This is quite a meaty paper, and will be of particular interest to those of you wondering “where’s the missing heat?”

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306 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Climate refugees

Posted on April 17, 2011 by curryja | 238 comments

by Judith Curry

This post is motivated by the article in the Asian Correspondent by Gavin Atkins entitled “What happened to the climate refugees?”

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238 Comments

Posted in Climate change impacts

Climate Capitalism

Posted on April 15, 2011 by curryja | 282 comments

by Judith Curry

There is a new book out entitled “Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change,” by Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, authors of an earlier book entitled “Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution“.

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282 Comments

Posted in Policy

Scafetta on climate oscillations

Posted on April 14, 2011 by curryja | 325 comments

by Judith Curry

David Hagen wrote on the Dempster thread:

There appears need for much more effort on grappling with both with major statistical issues involved (as highlighted by Dempster and Scafetta) as well as identifying natural causes that can have strong impacts on climate far beyond what is currently included in climate models (per Scafetta, and Svensmark).

As a case in point, lets examine one of Nicola Scafetta’s papers, which ties in with our previous threads on attribution of decadal variability.

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325 Comments

Posted in Attribution