Friday, May 22, 2015

Judith Curry is unclear: is Jeb Bush too dumb?

The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.


The period in question being from 1951 to 2010. You all probably recognise the above statement from the IPCC WG1 report: The human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over the period. In other words, 100% of the warming from 1951 to 2010 is caused by humans.

Judith Curry is clear that she is unclear about clear science


That was written in 2013. Judith Curry today quoted Jeb Bush and wrote that he "gets it exactly right" (my emphasis):
As he has before, Bush acknowledged “the climate is changing” but stressed that it’s unknown why. “I don’t think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted,” he said at a house party in Bedford, New Hampshire.
...Jeb gets it exactly right. There are two broad hypotheses for recent climate change: human causes and natural causes (with numerous sub-hypotheses contained within).  The climate debate is dominated by the premature carving in stone of a theory that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change. 

What? You don't believe a Professor who is a climate scientist would get it so wrong? Look for yourself.


Gavin Schmidt is astonished that Judith is not clear, and so am I


When Gavin Schmidt called her on it in a tweet, saying "I find it astonishing that you 'are still not clear' what the IPCC attribution statement means", Judith replied that no, she was not clear, tweeting: "Not clear at all what it means in terms of the question that many policy makers have - how much natural, vs anthro"


Is Jeb Bush really as dumb as Judith Curry thinks?


Then Judith said that Jeb Bush was too dumb to do arithmetic, tweeting:

Now I don't know about you, but it strikes me that someone who is smart enough to become governor of a state (even or especially Florida), would be able to figure out that 110% of positive forcing and 10% of negative forcing equals 100% of global warming. What do you think?

Judith gets all confused and she thinks that Jeb Bush will too. She tweetedAnd then he'll ask: what % (out of 100%) is natural vs human. Which is where I started my criticism of IPCC stmt


It's natural - mutters Judith


Huh? Does Judith really and truly think that global warming since the 1950s is discernibly "natural"? What does she think it was  - the sun? The sun's been sending less energy since the 1950s, not more. Fewer volcanoes? They don't have any long term effect anyway - even were there fewer than there were in the first half of last century, and I don't know that there were. Judith ought to go to SkepticalScience for some lessons.


UPDATE:


I just caught up with this howler from Judith Curry - she sent a similar tweet to Michael Tobis:


So she does think "it's the sun" - is there any other positive natural forcing you can think of? (Albedo won't do it because it's us who are causing the ice to melt.) No. It's not the sun. Nor is it magic. Nor is it a bouncing Little Ice Age.

Sou 11:28 am 22 May 2015

If you didn't think that Judith Curry had lost the plot before, then the above must convince you.

Okay, you were already convinced - let's go back to last September:




Do I need to update it? You can read the whole sorry mess on Twitter and on her blog (archived here). She's really lost the plot (again).


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32 comments:

  1. Added an update above - it looks as if Judith does think "it's the sun" :(

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  2. That is the bottom line isn't it. If the global warming is mostly natural as some say, the burden of evidence is on them to demonstrate this.

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    Replies
    1. You're assuming the "some" are rational, Harry.

      Delete
  3. As I said in a comment on one of the news stories about this thing:

    "Yo! Jebbie! Scientists have a very good idea of how much of the warming is caused by us. It's a number between 80% and 120%. Can you guess what it is?"

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  4. Yup. It should be easy for her to post a graph of solar activity over the past few decades and show that the increasing solar output...

    Oh, wait...

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  5. You make a lot of good points but actually you can be the governor of Texas and be dumb as a brick. Just sayin'

    That's a great moving GIF!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion - Rick Perry
      Here's more dumb as brick comments from the long term Texas Gov and the next President of the United Nations..Ooops.
      http://www.buzzfeed.com/parentwin/34-deliciously-ridiculous-rick-perry-quotes-c8nl#.nyarA3XMp

      Delete
    2. Indeed that is a good GIF, I wonder what ones for Richard Lindzen, Pat Michaels, Roy Spencer and John Christy would behave like. Note that the latter has recently made some really crass statements to Congress, as heard in the video at the head of this from Climate Denial Crock of the Week:

      The Stupid – It Burneth On in Congress

      Delete
  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Curry seems to have become a Salby groupie of late

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    Replies
    1. John I think she's more of a Shakespeare groupie. She's long held an ambition to play Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew.

      Enter JUDITH, KATHERINE, HORTENSIO and Servants

      JUDITH
      Come, let’s continue on toward your father’s house. Good Lord, how bright and splendid is the moon tonight!
      KATHERINE
      The moon? You mean the sun! It is not nighttime now.
      JUDITH
      I say it’s the moon that shines so bright.
      KATHERINE
      I know it’s the moon that shines so bright.
      JUDITH
      Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s me, it will be moon or star or whatever I want before I’ll travel to your father’s house. (to servants) Go return our horses.— Constantly contradicted and contradicted, and nothing but contradicted!
      HORTENSIO
      (to KATHERINE) Say what Judith wants or we’ll never go.
      KATHERINE
      Since we’ve come this far, please—let’s continue on. And whatever it is—moon or sun or anything you like—if you want to call it a tea candle, that’s what it is as far as I’m concerned. From now on, I promise.
      JUDITH
      I say it’s the moon.
      KATHERINE
      I know it’s the moon.
      JUDITH
      Well, you’re a liar, then. It’s the blessed sun.

      Delete
  8. "JC comment: It should be obvious that climate change has multiple causes, although the political definition of climate change has attempted to define natural causes of climate change out of existence."

    "Should be obvious"? Better than a presumption of obviousness, let's dedicate a working group to attribution...we'll call it WG1! Let's provide the 'obvious' so it's...obvious!

    We'll give their findings to the political community. It's all us, because natural forcings sum to zip over the period.

    So, where is the basis of Curry's claim about political definition defining away the obvious, given that the political community has been shown what's 'obvious'?

    How does she f**k this stuff up?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "JC comment: It should be obvious that climate change has multiple causes..."

      Yes, we know that, but anthropogenic climate change does not have multiple causes. It has one: anthropoids. That's why it's anthropogenic. FFS.

      "...although the political definition of climate change has attempted to define natural causes of climate change out of existence."

      No, it has not. It has just attempted to define "anthropogenic" as not being lumped under "natural" causes.*

      *Even though bipedal apes are a product of nature, so technically you could argue...

      Delete
    2. "How does she f**k this stuff up?"

      It takes a particular skill (or perhaps lack thereof...).

      Or absolute pig-headed selling of one's soul.

      Delete
    3. JC cannot be embarrassed. Her self esteem is not reliant on acceptance from the scientific community. She's content being a fellow traveller of Seitz, Singer, Christie, Lawson and Screaming Lord Such. She's found her niche. Irrelevancy

      Delete
  9. "There are two broad hypotheses for recent climate change: human causes and natural causes"

    Well if so then the "natural cause" team has a heckofa lot of work to do to catch up. First they need to develop a physical, natural mechanism to account for 20th century warming (and stratospheric cooling). Then they need an additional physical explanation of how addition of teratons of CO2 does not cause these impacts. They'll also need to develop a track record of predictions of climate changes past and present. And they must do so with multiple different approaches which confirm and support each other.

    Oh and lastly it will need to be convincing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Curry seems to be laboring under the misconception that the 'two broad hypotheses' are not fundamental in the IPCC process...her article is frighteningly self-indulgent and oblivious.

      Delete
  10. Judith has recently been busy obfuscating the rise in CO2 as anthropogenic, implying that 50% natural is plausible.

    She asserts the same for CO2 as temperature; that natural variation *must* be >0, but without making any argument as to why.

    I stated that the anthro contribution is arguably bounded somewhere between 50% (Freds number) and 100% (and I don’t think it is 100%, and I’m not exactly sure where it says 100% in the IPCC AR5; it doesn’t explicitly say this in SPM). so 20-30 ppm is well within range. Remind me again what we are arguing about? It would have been far more productive to argue why fred’s number for natural variability is too high, rather than to say he is completely wrong and natural variability contributes nothing. So if the contribution to natural variability is > 0, how do we go about assessing this? What implications does this have for our models of 21st century CO2 contributions? Now, can we get to the interesting questions that mass balance can’t address?

    http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-703062

    Searching that thread for Judith’s other comments is very revealing, damning even.

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  11. Heh, I was just reading that very thread and thinking that it was perfect HotWhopper material. Curry's turned into one of those aunts who, just when you think they can't go any mor bananas, pulls a new trick from the hat.

    If she doesn't pull her head in you'll need a few more updates Sou.

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  12. When they make a movie about the ideologically-driven denial of climate science they should cast Glenn Close in the role of Judy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was thinking about historical documentaries earlier. Come the next bicentennial, large parts of Sydney are going to be under water. Big Chief Budgie Smuggler is going to be famous for centuries, but not in quite the way he would have liked.

      Delete
  13. Curry's comments are so jaw-droppingly dumb that I'm wondering if she's beginning to feel the effects of some kind of dementia.

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    Replies
    1. Exactly what I began thinking a couple of years ago. But this is climate revisionism and it is very effective.

      Delete
  14. Curry is effectively saying that she is not interested in giving accurate scientific information to politicians.

    Well, I guess nobody should be surprised...

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    Replies
    1. You must admit she is consistent in that. Witness the sort of rubbish she has fed government committees in the past.

      Delete
  15. The Very Reverend Jebediah HypotenuseMay 23, 2015 at 1:43 AM

    Curry:

    And finally, why does it matter whether we attribute 100% or 90% or 50% of the increase in atm CO2 to humans?


    http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/quantifying-the-anthropogenic-contribution-to-atmospheric-co2/#comment-702513


    … the white part of the Italian flag is pretty big here.


    Blog-science at its best, folks!

    Scientific value = 0.

    Entertainment value = priceless.


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  16. While skimming comments elsewhere very rapidly, I thought I saw a comment saying JC had endorsed chem-trails. I wasn't the slightest bit surprised.

    Then I re-read it, and the comment had nothing to do with Curry believing in chem-trails. Still, if she did believe in that conspiracy theory I wouldn't have been surprised. It just seems a natural part of her personal journey.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, she has gone emeritus w/o actually retiring.

      Delete
  17. Rattus -- As a soon-to-be emeritus professor (actually, my wife will divorce me if I retire, but it can't be that much longer), I resemble that remark.

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  18. So you are a professor Palindrom. I think I have been reading your excellent comments since about 2007 if you're the same Palindrom who used to post in the climate section of Huffington Post.

    ReplyDelete

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