This has no relation to 99% of what AGW "skeptics" claim, It contradicts everyone who claims (1) that humans are not significantly altering the planet's atmospheric chemistry, (2) everyone who claims that CO2 lags temperature; (3) everyone who claims that anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 is not warming the planet, (4) everyone who claims there is fraudulent and/or unprofessional behavior by climate scientists; (5) everyone who claims that AGW is part of some scientific and/or political conspiracy or political agenda, and (6) everyone who claims that AGW is generally false.
In any case, 99% of AGW “skeptics” lack the education and knowledge to understand what Curry is saying or to have an informed opinion on the merit of her statement – and, therefore, they do not even know enough to know that they are not skeptics, but just ignorant deniers.
>>However the real difficulty is that nothing remains equal, and reliable prediction of the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate requires that we understand natural climate variability
Until we understand natural climate variability better, we cannot reliably infer sensitivity to
greenhouse gas forcing or understand its role in influencing extreme weather events.
Natural climate variability refers to forcing from the sun, volcanic eruptions and natural internal variability associated with chaotic interactions between the atmosphere and ocean.>>><<
This is an ill-informed and never-ending demand. AGW theory was adopted only after every known natural driver of global temperature had been repeatedly tested and shown to not be cause of the empirical observations. Moreover, this is exactly the kind of “academic” viewpoint that she dismisses. AGW is a real-world issue that is operating in real-time and that requires decisions to be made in real-time. If anything, the impacts of AGW seem to be occurring faster and stronger than the majority of scientific estimates predict. It is a risk-reward problem with potentially great risk, but no reward. The only “reward” is the unfounded hope that the risk proves to be minimal.
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Pat --
>>pegminer ... I don't need to understand climate science to understand your bias. <<
ROTFLMAO - That is like saying you do not need to understand the meanings of words in order to understand what someone says.
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OM --
Forget Curry - Pat has given you the perfect "summary of the AGW skeptical viewpoint" - that being - "You do not need to understand climate science in order to understand climate science."
That single sentence explains every AGW Denier statement that has ever been made - and that ever will be made.
Shlt, I think that Pat may have stumbled upon the beginnings of scientific postulate in Sociological Theory.
It is a far more lucid viewpoint than most I have heard from the skeptical side outside of the scientific community itself and seems completely removed from the arguments that have become popularly-except by the ones who practice it-known as denial.
It is also refreshing to see arguments put forth that are not so obviously politically partisan rather than based in the underlying science, and a more appropriate analysis about weather and climate trends. While Curry addresses one of the issues that has been raised in the opposition view-that climate scientists need to be more transparent and forthcoming, she does not engage in the character assassination that has been so commonly practiced here and elsewhere, particularly in the conservative media and political circles.
So yes, I think it is a good summary of the 'skeptical' argument, but by and large it is not the viewpoint that has been put forth outside of scientific circles in most respects. Thanks for the link and information, this is the sort of reference material I come here for, and has become increasingly rare in this Y/A category.
The average skeptics are the same as average warmons, they both accept what they are told by people they believe have their same values. That's why it's easy to convince a warmon to sign a petition to ban water or that a hurricane during hurricane season is a result of our actions simply because people were impacted, it's why you still see followers of warmonism believing the ozone hole is the cause of global warming. It's why it's easy to get your average skeptic to agree that the sun is what warms the earth, that it's funny to make a warmon angry when you complain about shoveling global warming, and it's why you are able to convince them hurricane Katrina was a natural occurrence.
While it is refreshing to see a warmon priestess say there are complex reasons that intelligent, educated and well-informed people disagree on the subject of climate change, it is unfortunate I know this person believes those complex reasons are ignorant, based on a lack of education, from uninformed people who know nothing about the subject of climate change.
Looks like she took the hammer away from "The Dookster" (i.e. Hey Dook). It has always been my observance that media and communications make the world seem smaller than it actually is. The uncertainties that science face are clear and always have been. Absolute conclusions are far from being had. Natural Climate Variability has always been the rule.
Financing Global Warming/Climate Change is something that does need curtailed. More emphasis on banking practices (i.e. Centralized Banking) across the globe is a much bigger concern and a huge problem for most people and Governments. Financial Elites control the issues of the day. Any crises needs funding whether it be Global concerns or Wars. That's why banks love a crises. The weather is something that is still well beyond our influence and control.
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pegminer - You seem to be the ultimate skeptic on "Natural Climate Variability" and give too much credit to CO2 and humans. That's good to see. You will find in your further research on this subject that humans are very minor influences on the climate. I don't need to understand climate science to understand your bias. The facts are in front of you, yet you still want to perpetuate the propaganda. Maybe Climate Science should be re-named to show it's true meaning and now be called "Climate Research" so people can walk, peddle, drive, and fly on their own free will and not carry a guilty conscience. It seems that most of the CO2 produced is from the big cities anyway. Maybe we should create laws that limit mobilization in those cities (i.e. Chicago,L.A., and New York).That's where most of the domestic problems come from anyway. (We can throw in Detroit too)
There are virtually no YA "skeptics" that make arguments like this. It would be great if they did, then the level of discussion in here would go way up. I generally agree with much of what Curry says, but not what she emphasizes. There is still no doubt we are running the largest experiment in the history of the world.
Generally, I find her a less than credible source. I thought the paper she wrote with her husband that tied increase in hurricane strength to global warming more than a bit overreaching in its conclusions. I also have a hard time taking what she says seriously about "promoting dialogue". After all, it was just a few years ago she was trashing the eminent hurricane scientist (and former colleague of hers) and AGW denier William Gray, saying he suffered from "brain fossilization", saying that “Nobody except a few groupies wants to hear what he has to say.”
<<
warm the planet.However the real difficulty is that nothing remains equal, and reliable prediction of
the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate requires that we understand natural climate variability
properly. Until we understand natural climate variability better, we cannot reliably infer sensitivity to
greenhouse gas forcing or understand its role in influencing extreme weather events.
Natural climate variability refers to forcing from the sun, volcanic eruptions and natural internal variability associated with chaotic interactions between the atmosphere and ocean.>>>
Generally she provided a very good summary of the skeptical viewpoint. I found her financial declaration at the end interesting. I find her openness and understanding a little disconcerting because it is easy to mock and ignore a blatantly partisan alarmist but one that is reasonable and knowledgeable is much more formidable but if we really do have an honest debate, what more could I really ask for. If her fellow alarmists were wise, they would embrace her.
I didn't find anything that I disagreed with.
Yes. I like it. It's simply put and devoid of exaggeration.
"However, since 1998 there has been no statistically significant increase in global surface temperature. While many engaged in the public discourse on this topic dismiss the significance of a hiatus in increasing global temperatures because of expected variations associated with natural variability, analyses of climate model simulations find very unlikely a plateau or period of cooling that extends beyond 17 years in the presence of human-induced global warming."
Is 17 years without statistically significant warming either unusual or evidence of a hiatus? Let's check with the Skepticalscience handy dandy trend calculator.
http://skepticalscience.com/trend.php
For 1998-2012
Trend: 0.052 ±0.153 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1997-2011
Trend: 0.086 ±0.151 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1996-2010
Trend: 0.134 ±0.161 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1995-2009
Trend: 0.140 ±0.164 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1996-2008
Trend: 0.194 ±0.202 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1996-2007
Trend: 0.205 ±0.199 °C/decade (2σ)
For 1995-2006
Trend: 0.220 ±0.233 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1994-2005
Trend: 0.236 ±0.238 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1994-2004
Trend: 0.269 ±0.277 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1994-2003
Trend: 0.256 ±0.339 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1990-2002
Trend: 0.187 ±0.226 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1987-2001
Trend: 0.150 ±0.171 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1987-2000
Trend: 0.173 ±0.192 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1987-1999
Trend: 0.197 ±0.219 °C/decade (2σ)
From 1986-1998
Trend: 0.147 ±0.194 °C/decade (2σ)
Curry is on the right track, here is another accurate view: We are in fact emerging from an Ice age. That being the case we could accurately assume we would experience warming, They taught us about our past ice age back in grade school, before electricity (or was it Independence?). If in fact we are emerging from an ice age that means (ignoring for the moment all the armloads of scientific printouts and gigabytes of Datasets) we are in fact warming and have been for several thousand years deviations in the climate history charts due to Sunspots and solar flares notwithstanding. We even had the "Little Ice age" due to thermohaline ocean current anomalies in the 1300-1700 era, a natural function of desalinization due to glacial melting due to this natural "warming," The Vostok Co2 ice core analyses and subsequent Tschumi-Stauffer climate studies show clearly we have cold hot cycles and their accompanying Co2 variations on 100,000 year intervals. Milankovich elliptical orbit effects are for the most part causing these Hot/Cold cycles. The integration of sunspot and solar flare contribution to climate change just adds more humps and bumps to the graphs and more snakes to the prediction barrel. Providing a climate OVERVIEW reaching back over 6 millions of years tells the real story, but we are now faced with arguments based on data going back less than 50,000 years, the Gore fraud, obscuring the long term picture exposed by old accepted scientific climate history methods. How can man have such a profound effect on the climate in only the past 300 years when normal climate cycles established 6 Million years ago are proceeding as scientifically predicted, the projected temperatures and Co2 values in the mean. That man may be contributing to this climate change is obvious, but the EXTENT to which he is contributing is most assuredly in question. No one to date has been able to address that issue with any degree of Certainty, just a lot of unfounded opinion and fear mongering. Several scientific sources sets the percentage of mans contribution to global greenhouse gas at less than 3%, casting some pretty serious doubts that any changes we make in our energy usage will cause any major change in existing Climate conditions, at least in the foreseeable future. By the way, atmospheric Co2 content does not drive temperature, it is the other way around.
Not really. It did not make it clear enough that during the last decade the temperature declined while CO2 rose. It kind of did in a round about way, but you have to be more clear with congressmen who think that an island can tip over if you get too many people on one end of it.
Judith Curry gave testimony yesterday at a hearing on climate change to a house subcommittee here:
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY18-WState-JCurry-20130425.pdf
Warmists and skeptics alike, what are the parts you agree or disagree with?
The "skeptical argument" is essentially sticking your fingers in your ears and going "Lalala, I can't hear you".
I agree with Jim Z. A sensible depiction.
Science has nothing to do with "viewpoints" (except for paranoid addicted liar-deniers of it).
