Judith Curry's temperature predictions - charted

It's been brought to my attention that there's another set of projections guesses about global surface temperature floating about, this time from Judith Curry.

I don't have time to go into her "arguments" in detail. Suffice to say she seems to be hanging on to the failed "stadium wave" theory and has maybe tossed in a few other ideas as well such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flavoured with a smidgen of "it's the sun".

Judith has put up three options for the temperature change over the next 30 years: warmest +0.7C, moderate +0.11C and coldest -0.5C.

What I will do is what she hasn't (for reasons that seem obvious to me). I'll put up some charts showing her guesses. I can't tell from her post what she's used as a baseline, so I've taken it as the average global surface temperature for 2019. I've also made the assumption her predicted change relates to the last year of the prediction. That is, her prediction of 0.5 cooling is that in 2050 the average global surface temperature will be 0.5C colder than it was last year.

Two uncomplicated tips for Judith Curry's dilemma

Judith Curry, who used to be a scientist and is now science denier, has asked a question: "How can the fundamental disagreement about the causes of climate change be most effectively communicated?"

She claims there is a fundamental disagreement on what is causing the climate to change. She doesn't cite any people who disagree with the fact that increasing atmospheric CO2 is causing global warming. She just asserts that there is "fundamental disagreement".

Nor does she explain what she thinks the fundamental disagreement is over, although she hints in a mockup of a slide that she thinks something other than the massive increase in CO2 is causing global warming. What that is only she knows, or doesn't. If she does she isn't saying, which is typical of deniers.

Pat Michaels theorises climate conspiracies, at Judith Curry's place

Judith Curry has posted an article by Patrick J. Michaels from the Cato Institute (archived here).  He is wearing his conspiratorial tendencies on his sleeve, and wants Donald Trump to prevent the publication of a report mandated by the US 1990 Global Change Research Act, the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4). The chapter headings of the new report are listed here.

Pat describes his conspiracy theory in the second paragraph, where he believes that US civil servants "portray global warming as alarming" for money. He wrote:

The Assessment Report will be produced by civil servants in the federal government (mainly unfireable GS15’s reporting to Obama Administration bosses), many of whom handle large amounts of climate research money. It has always been in their interest to portray global warming as alarming, and therefore in need of even more federal research dollars.

I call this projection. Would Pat Michaels retain his own job for the Cato Institute if he started to write about climate science in an objective, factual manner? It seems to me he managed to get a job with them because he was a science disinformer.

The world gets crazier - Judith Curry goes Lizard Men

Did you know that Judith Curry recently appeared on an internet alternative television show, with a chap called Richie Allen. Now I've not heard of Richie Allen before, but I have heard of his colleague, David Icke. Richie works for or with David Icke.

I'm serious. I'm not kidding. It's all over WUWT - right here. Judith did a Tim Ball and Christopher Monckton. Nah - I think she surpassed even those two this time. It's called Rock Bottom.

Alt-Right Pro-Trump ex-scientist Judith Curry sez climate science is a hoax

If you've visited Judith Curry's blog in the last few months you'll have noticed she has fully completed her switch to climate science denial. Most of her articles are from guests who reject science. She hasn't written much herself lately, but her latest article (archived here) confirms that she is now a hard core climate science denier.

What Judith has declared is her support for the alt-right anti-semitic populist Hitler wannabe, for the sexual predator and woman-despising President-elect, Donald Trump. She has also declared, again, her position as a climate science denier. Judith was arguing that Donald Trump was correct when he said that climate science is a hoax. She wrote a definition of the word "hoax" and then wrote this:

Where are the clowns?

There is not a lot to report from denialists this week. Their repetitive denial is boring. Judith Curry is not very busy, merely posting things that caught her eye to give voice to her Trump fans (politics), her core anti-science brigade (science), and her luddites (energy and policy), interspersed with silly guest articles by deniers. She's given up on science altogether and is now a hard core climate science disinformer.

At WUWT, Anthony Watts has been posting articles saying the reason no debates had a climate question was because no-one in the USA is interested in climate change. Given that Anthony touts his blog as "the world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change", this raises the question of whether he is rethinking the point of his anti-science efforts of the past nine years or so.

Don't make promises you can't keep...

Occasionally I've made promises that I haven't kept, including some here on this blog. On rare occasions I've promised to write about something at some point in the future and haven't. In the past few months Judith Curry hinted that she would be paying more attention to her blog. Or that's how I've interpreted Judith. She doesn't write much herself, apart from long lists of links to what she finds interesting on the internet. Her blog is mainly a notice board for denier tripe. Even the articles Judith posts under her own name are usually large slabs copied from somewhere else, with a short note from Judith at the bottom saying as little as possible.

Anthony Watts is the same. It does look as if he's at least reading his blog from time to time now, but there's little sign that he's going to write much himself in the future, any more than he has in the past. Which is probably a good thing.

Judith Curry objects to scientists warning US Congress about the dangers of climate change

Deniers are getting antsy. Judith Curry is complaining about a letter from leaders of prominent scientific organisations in the USA to US Congress (archived here). She is framing it as a political stunt. She just wants to rail against science and climate science in particular, again. Boringly predictable is Judith.

Judith doesn't think much of the knowledge of scientists. She claims that scientists who study fish and amphibians don't know or care that climate change is changing the world's fisheries and frog habitats. She's wrong.

Brexit tidbits from climate conspiracy blogs

Here are some tidbits from around some of the denier blogs following Brexit.  At Anthony Watts' blog WUWT, a lot of the articles have been about UK politics in the wake of the vote to leave the EU. In one article, Anthony had the gall to compare the "leave" vote to a defining moment in the civil rights movement in the USA (archived here). Given that a lot of the "leave" vote was fueled by xenophobia, his article at best showed an appalling lack of knowledge of US history and the threat of a rise in right wing populism around the world, but could more easily be construed as extreme right-wing racists wanting to re-write history. (In a similar vein, Jo Nova points to British imperialism and past colonisation of countries in Asia and Africa to prove that there's no xenophobia in the UK.)

CEI and WUWT attack the messengers, and the strange role of Judith Curry and Peter Webster

Deniers get very excited when they get their grubby paws on private emails between scientists. It doesn't matter what is written in those emails. The very fact that academics have been using email to communicate from a time before most people had heard of the Internet is sufficient for them to claim that climate science is a hoax.

Yesterday Anthony Watts posted some emails released through yet another FOI demand by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) (archived here). They were related to the support from some scientists of a RICO investigation, proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, into fossil fuel companies and other organisations who have allegedly "knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change". The emails contain nothing that shows anything more than the very real concern by scientists that there are wicked people who are trying to thwart efforts to mitigate global warming. That there are evil people in the world who have been knowingly working to deceive the public by by saying that global warming either doesn't exist or is not dangerous. They've even got some people believing that climate science is a hoax.

Anthony Watts of WUWT is one of the low-level tools used by anti-mitigation activist organisations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, that wish harm on the world.

Beyond loopy: Latest Judith Curry-ism: the Earth could be flat after all

Judith Curry has tipped into "beyond denier weirdness". She's picked up an article that looks as if it first appeared at WUWT three years ago (archived here) - and who knows where Anthony Watts dug it up from. Anyway, according to Judith Curry (see here), if scientists generally agree about something then it's evidence of a lack of evidence of that something. Yes. You read that right.

Credit: Plognark

Here is what Judith Curry thought so nice she quoted it thrice (here and here and here):

In our view, the fact that so many scientists agree so closely about the [causes of the] earth’s warming is, itself, evidence of a lack of evidence for [human caused] global warming – D. Ryan Brumberg and Matthew Brumberg

Is there a denial of twilight? - with Judith Curry and Mario Loyola

Earlier this week Judith Curry claimed that the "climate movement" is in twilight. Her headline was the deniosaur's plaintive hope "Twilight of the Climate Change Movement". I don't know what was going through Judith's mind when she wrote that. Was it that global warming will go away soon? Was it that the science of the past two centuries is nothing more than a "movement"? Whatever it was, it is evidence that Judith wants to continue to cement her place in the science denial movement.

Judith's evidence of twilight or movement or something was a copy and paste from an article by a science denier from the USA called Mario Loyola (who gets some minor mentions at DeSmog Blog). Judith emphasised some of the passages she liked, which were straight from the climate conspiracy handbook. She wrote:

I excerpted about a third of Loyola’s essay, highlighting the parts that I find most insightful. 

(I'm not sure Judith's excerpting without any substantive critique or analysis would pass the fair use test.) I read Mario Loyola's article at The American Interest (you only get one shot before you have to pay). It was your run-of-the-mill gish gallop complaining about efforts to mitigate global warming, with the sciency bits mostly about "ice age" and "CO2 is plant food". Mario wants us to adapt to multi-meter sea level rise rather than reduce the impact of climate change.

Judith said she highlighted the bits that she found insightful. Here's my take:

Judith Curry adopts a pet ostrich, Kip Hansen, promoting the Dozen Bright Minds Climate Workshop

After attacking scientists who push for open data, Judith Curry now wants to muzzle climate scientists. She promoted another article from a science-denying WUWT-er, who wants to restart climate science research (archived here).

Kip Hansen wants to ban monitoring of at least the following:

• global mean surface temperature
• ocean heat content
• global sea level.

He doesn't say why, but I expect that he's tired of hearing about the "hottest year on record" and the rest, and thinks that if he doesn't know what's happening it can't hurt him.

Judith Curry attacks open data advocates and encourages people who try to suppress science

No-one will be surprised to learn that Judith Curry supports vicious attacks on scientists who publish on controversial topics (archived here). She gave up science for blogging her science denial a few years ago. Now she's turned her attack onto two people who have been strong advocates for open science, Professor Stephan Lewandowsky and Professor Dorothy Bishop.

Deniersville: in the spirit of Christmas, the gift that keeps on giving

Over the past few days I've begun but not finished several articles - guiltily enjoying time spent on other worthwhile activities (such as making jam from nectarines fresh from the tree; and roasting coffee beans; and finding pretty jars; and wrapping them up for the family for Christmas). On Monday Sunday I drove to Albury, through weird stormy weather, watching the smoke from a scary bushfire in the next valley over. (I was reminded that the danger from bushfires isn't just the fire itself, sometimes the roads are impassable because of fallen trees. The wind was fierce and wild and the day was another scorcher - 42 °C, 107.6 °F)

In a fit of rationalisation, I figured this is as good a time as any to take a short break. HotWhopper turned 3 earlier this month, and over those 36 months, it has averaged almost one and a half articles a day. That seems like a good target for the next three years.

Credit: John Cook

Denialism doesn't take breaks

If you are missing your daily dose of denial, it marches on relentlessly.

At first, the fake sceptics didn't know how to react to the COP21 agreement in Paris this month. Some tried to argue that the leaders of 195 nations are deluded, along with their advisers, most of the world's media, 97% of climate scientists and almost all professional associations of scientists throughout the world.

Maybe they realised that wouldn't fly because that effort didn't last. It's old news, or maybe they are pretending it didn't happen.

Judith Curry plays (nuclear) politics

Judith Curry is of the view that science deniers like herself are the only people permitted to "play politics with science".  On her climate conspiracy blog today she wrote about an article in the Guardian by Naomi Oreskes. Professor Oreskes was writing about the push from some quarters into what she called "wholesale expansion of nuclear power". Her article came after a previous Guardian article by Professors James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley.

This week governments try for a sane response while some in the climate world went a little bit mad

Today is the day when COP21 is hoping to finalise the climate change agreement. The meeting was extended by a day, with many people remaining hopeful that a meaningful agreement will be reached. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put out a press release saying that while there were still some important issues to be resolved, there has been considerable progress.

The latest draft can be downloaded here. As at the time of writing, it's Draft 2. (You can compare it with Draft 1 to see the progress in negotiations. Where the brackets have been removed it signifies agreement was reached on that point.)

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UPDATE: I've just seen that the final text has been agreed. I'll let you know as soon as it's available - or you can keep an eye on the UN website. There's a press conference scheduled for 11:30 am CET today - Saturday (Europe time).

Sou 2:23 pm AEDT 12 December 2015

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This week there was real silliness from deniers and from people campaigning to stop climate change.

What a treat for Judith Curry - supping with the morally depraved

Judith Curry is going to be testifying to a Senate Committee next week, along with some other climate science deniers and at least one scientist defamer. The others testifying are from the rogues gallery of science disinformers. The GOP could only find two people who are employed as climate scientists, Judith Curry and John Christy. So they reached into the science denier bag and fished out two disinformers for hire: Will Happer, and Mark Steyn.

Why do the Republicans bother with this crude pantomime? Why not just hang a sign around their necks saying "we want the world to burn"?

Turned not tossed - Judith Curry denier martyr with David Rose

Tabloid writer David Rose has written another puff piece on Judith Curry. Judith used to be a scientist who dabbled in climate stuff, until she gave it away to write a blog for science deniers. David Rose was never what you'd call a journalist. He's a hack writer for a tabloid in the UK. His article this time didn't even make the grade for the Mail. This time he was relegated to a magazine called The Spectator, which if you're like me and have never heard of it, is described in Wikipedia as "a weekly British conservative magazine. It was first published on 6 July 1828,[2] making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language." For a few years Nigel Lawson was editor. Nigel now heads up the denier lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which, as its name suggests, agitates for more global warming. So science denial articles in The Spectator shouldn't surprise anyone.

Denier weirdness: Judith Curry will not be renewing her subscription

There's been no doubt for quite a long time that Judith Curry has discarded any pretense of being a scientist. Today she made it official, declaring:

The APS Statement on Climate Change is now officially posted [link], minor changes from the draft.  I will not be renewing my membership to the APS.

The American Physical Society released it's revised statement on climate change just over a week ago. It's not terribly strong, but it could have been even weaker given the attempts by science denying members to water it down.