Wicked messy Judith Curry's vexing denial of science

You've got to wonder about Judith Curry.  It's some time now since she "outed herself" as a science misinformer but one can't help but speculate just how involved she is in what has been exposed in this Bloomberg article.  Maybe she's just a bandwagon jumper ...

In her recent blog articles (eg as archived here and here) she's been quoting tabloid disinformer David Rose as if he's credible (he's not).  Today she's written an article for The Australian in which she basically denies the science.  In it she spreads the denier memes of idiots like Laframboise and Rose (without mentioning them by name) and adds her "wickedness" (a favourite word of hers) to that of similar deniers - all protesting the yet-to-be-released IPCC report.

From denier Judith - she writes of a "vexing dilemma" and says:

If the IPCC attributes the pause to natural internal variability, then this prompts the question as to what extent the warming between 1975 and 2000 can also be explained by natural internal variability.

Notice how she "prompts the question" as if there are no answers or as if no other scientist has been looking at this.  Isn't she up with the science?  It's well known, for example, that the spike in 1998 is largely attributed to El Nino - on top of global warming.  If she doesn't already know the answer she will be able to read it in the IPCC report at the end of the month.  (Perhaps she thinks that earth warmed mostly by magic between 1975 and 2000, like perennially puzzled Bob Tisdale of WUWT infamy.)

There's more where that came from.  Judith quotes what she says is the "final AR5 draft of the summary for policymakers"

"It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951-2010.

"Continued emissions of greenhouse gases would cause further warming. Emissions at or above current rates would induce changes in all components in the climate system, some of which would very likely be unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years."

And then goes on to say:

WHY is my reasoning about the implications of the pause, in terms of attribution of the late 20th-century warming and implications for future warming, so different from the conclusions drawn by the IPCC? The disagreement arises from different assessments of the value and importance of particular classes of evidence as well as disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence. My reasoning is weighted heavily in favour of observational evidence and understanding of natural internal variability of the climate system, whereas the IPCC's reasoning is weighted heavily in favour of climate model simulations and external forcing of climate change.

Judith doesn't expand on her "classes of evidence" or "logical framework" except for her ridiculous claim that she and not the IPCC favour "observational evidence" and "understanding of natural internal variability".

Is she making the ludicrous claim that no other scientist uses observations and no-one else understands natural internal variability?  If you parse what she wrote, you have to ask:- is Judith claiming that the IPCC report is relying on models for the surface temperature between 1951 and 2010? (It doesn't.)  If not, she must be saying she bases her own projections for the future on her own observations of the future!

Judith knows better because it's inconceivable that she hasn't read any IPCC reports.  She knows darn well that the science is based on known physics and known past climates as well as observations in the instrumental record.  Scientists (not Judith Curry, she's not a climate modeler) have developed climate models based on this knowledge to project future surface temperature and other aspects of the climate under different scenarios (of CO2 emissions and technological development etc).  The IPCC "reasoning" is not "weighted heavily" in favour of climate model simulations.  I can only conclude that Judith Curry is telling lies - deliberately so.

Judith isn't interested in the earth system or the full extent of what global warming entails.  She focuses on global average surface temperature.  She only mentions the word "ocean" twice in the entire article and neither of those referred to ocean acidification. She doesn't mention the Arctic or Antarctica.  She doesn't mention melting sea ice, rising sea levels or melting glaciers - except for a reference to the Himalayan glacier mistake in the last IPCC report.  She doesn't mention wildfires, drought, heat waves, floods or any of the weather events that are becoming worse with global warming.  She doesn't mention the impact of global warming on ecology and food webs and agriculture and fishing.  Instead she harks back to stolen emails and "green advocacy groups" - as if environmental concerns are unrelated to global warming.

Judith writes:

The growing implications of the messy wickedness of the climate-change problem are becoming increasingly apparent, highlighting the inadequacies of the "consensus to power" approach for decision-making on such complex issues.

Which is a load of twaddle.  Judith Curry is a science denier in the fashion of the Heartland Institute.  She makes up stuff for gullible readers - implying that the IPCC reports don't present "arguments for and against, discusses the uncertainties, and speculates on the known and unknown unknowns".

Past IPCC reports do discuss the different scientific findings, including areas where there is conflicting or uncertain science.  The reports naturally favour science to wild "speculation" but they definitely discuss the known knowns and unknowns as well as the unknown unknowns.  Contrary to what "wicked messy" Judith would have you think, there is no reason to think that this new report will be any different.