Source:  UK Mail

Dr. Judith Curry

• The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
• This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

By David Rose

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years. (more…)

Source: Climate Etc.

Judith Curry

by Judith Curry

Source:  Climate Etc.  

by Judith Curry

Much is being made of Hansen’s ‘loaded dice’ as a metaphor for the changing climate.  I think we should be talking about ‘fuzzy dice.’

Hansen’s PNAS paper and the Washington Post have  received a huge play in the MSM and the blogosphere.  As an example of the media hype, see this article by Seth Borenstein (once again he solicited my comments, and didn’t use them).  “This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact,” Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.  The blogosphere is also rife with critiques of Hansen’s analysis; I had an earlier critical post at Climate Etc. [here].

Lets focus in on the ‘loaded dice’ metaphor used by Hansen.

‘Loaded’ dice

Here is how Hansen explains the ‘loaded dice’ in the op-ed: (more…)

Source: UK Mail Online

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997. (more…)

Source: Climate, etc.

Source: Climate Etc.

Judith Curry

by Judith Curry

Source: Climate, Etc.

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.

Some important insights on this issue are provided by this paper on The authority of the IPCC and the manufacture of consensus by Jean Goodwin at Iowa State University.  Some excerpts are provided below:

Through a series of (up to now) four reports starting in 1990, the IPCC has managed to establish as a political “given” that the earth is warming, and that human activity is a significant cause. The fourth report was the occasion for the Bush II administration’s shift from statements like this:

We do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it. (more…)

Source: The Register

Economists ride into sulphurous cloud of aerosols

By Andrew Orlowski

The refusal of the global temperatures to rise as predicted has caused much angst among academics. “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” wrote one in 2009. Either the instruments were wrong, or the heat energy had gone missing somewhere.

Now a team of academics, after tweaking a statistical model to include sulphur emissions, suggest that coal power stations may be to blame for a lack of global warming since 1998. The IPCC’s 2007 assessment acknowledged the negative radiative forcing (aka, cooling effect) of both natural aerosols from volcanoes and manmade aerosols, but admitted the level of scientific understanding was low. (more…)

Source: Scientific American

by Michael D. Lemonick

As a profile of Judith Curry in the November 2010 issue of Scientific American makes clear, the University of Georgia climate scientist has become an increasingly polarizing figure IN the past year or so. Once firmly in the mainstream, Curry says she was radicalized by the so-called Climategate affair. It crystallized her sense that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in particular, had become corrupted by what Curry calls “groupthink”—the idea that questioning some of the facts asserted by the IPCC is tantamount to treason.

Yet Curry herself is convinced that some of those facts are seriously exaggerated, and that the IPCC has failed to acknowledge the real uncertainty in the science. As a result, she’s been engaging with climate outsiders, including outright skeptics, and trying to force her colleagues to acknowledge some of what she considers serious flaws in the IPCC process. She’s been denounced, sometimes vehemently, for her efforts. (more…)

Source: Climate ETC.

by Judith Curry

I’m having another “Alice down the rabbit hole” moment, in response to the Scientific American article, the explication of the article by its author Michael Lemonick, Scientific American’s survey on whether I am a dupe or a peacemaker, and the numerous discussions in blogosphere.  My first such moment was in 2005 in response to the media attention associated with the hurricane wars, which was described in a Q&A with Keith Kloor at collide-a-scape.  While I really want to make this blog about the science and not about personalities (and especially not about me),  this article deserves a response.

The title of the article itself is rather astonishing.  The Wikipedia defines heresy as: “Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.”  The definition of dogma is “Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from.”   Use of the word “heretic” by Lemonick implies general acceptance by the “insiders” of the IPCC as dogma.  If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic.  The story should not be about me, but about how and why the IPCC became dogma. (more…)

Source:  Scientific American

by Michael D. Lemonick

In trying to understand the Judith Curry phenomenon, it is tempting to default to one of two comfortable and familiar story lines.

CRITIC: Judith Curry has traded harsh words with many of her colleagues in climate science

For most of her career, Curry, who heads the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been known for her work on hurricanes, Arctic ice dynamics and other climate-related topics. But over the past year or so she has become better known for something that annoys, even infuriates, many of her scientific colleagues. Curry has been engaging actively with the climate change skeptic community, largely by participating on outsider blogs such as Climate Audit, the Air Vent and the Black­board. Along the way, she has come to question how climatologists react to those who question the science, no matter how well established it is. Although many of the skeptics recycle critiques that have long since been disproved, others, she believes, bring up valid points—and by lumping the good with the bad, climate researchers not only miss out on a chance to improve their science, they come across to the public as haughty. “Yes, there’s a lot of crankology out there,” Curry says. “But not all of it is. If only 1 percent of it or 10 percent of what the skeptics say is right, that is time well spent because we have just been too encumbered by groupthink.” (more…)

Source:  Wattsup

From Scientific American : Judith Curry acknowledges that the IPCC is corrupt and that skeptic blogs are technically savvy.
Once Curry ventured out onto the skeptic blogs, the questions she saw coming from the most technically savvy of the outsiders—including statisticians, mechanical engineers and computer modelers from industry—helped to solidify her own uneasiness. “Not to say that the IPCC science was wrong, but I no longer felt obligated in substituting the IPCC for my own personal judgment,” she said in a recent interview posted on the Collide-a-Scape climate blog.

She reserves her harshest criticism for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For most climate scientists the major reports issued by the United Nations–sponsored body every five years or so constitute the consensus on climate science. Few scientists would claim the IPCC is perfect, but Curry thinks it needs thoroughgoing reform. She accuses it of  “corruption.” “I’m not going to just spout off and endorse the IPCC,” she says, “because I think I don’t have confidence in the process.”

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

• Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology has offered the following thoughtful essay for publication in Physics and Society. The essay has been mildly edited to add hyperlinks to backup or add context to some parts of the essay, and to follow Physics Today’s style guide when appropriate. This essay does not reflect the views of Physics Today or the American Institute of Physics, but of the opinion writer.

I am trying something new, a blogospheric experiment, if you will. I have been a fairly active participant in the blogosphere since 2006, and recently posted two essays on climategate, one at climateaudit.org and the other at climateprogress.org. Both essays were subsequently picked up by other blogs, and the diversity of opinions expressed at the different blogs was quite interesting. Hence I am distributing this essay to a number of different blogs simultaneously with the hope of demonstrating the collective power of the blogosphere to generate ideas and debate them. I look forward to a stimulating discussion on this important topic. (more…)