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Oct232010
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Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Judy C in Scientific American
Oct 23, 2010 Climate: Curry Journals There is a major profile of Judy Curry in Scientific American. Read it here.
Update on Oct 23, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
WUWT is reporting that the current issue of SciAm has more sceptic friendly coverage as well. They'll be reviewing The Hockey Stick Illusion next!
Reader Comments (52)
Scientific American's feature article reads like an admonishment from the worthies of the ecumenical climate council to a problem child flirting with heresy.
A creepy little article trying to set Curry up as "peacemaker or dupe?" - pathetic.
What the Scientific American should be doing is taking its audience through the mathematical/statistical analysis of the hockey stick and laying that open for inspection. The Scientific American reader would then be informed on this topic. It might take them a few articles - but they would be very popular (given the importance) - this the kind of thing that used to be in the Scientific American.
The reason that they don't - current scientific journalists do not know what PCA is - much less know how to explain it!
Judith Curry was formerly a contented member of the AGW bandwagon but she is clever enough to read the writing on the wall and wants to have a career in climatology after the scam has been thoroughly exposed. Most people can sense this so she is distrusted by everybody and regarded as a trimmer.
Interesting article. Pity it was so annoying to read because of how long it took those Shell ads to load.
Hmmm...was Shell supporting the nouveau sceptique JC or the old-line "mainstream" site SA?
Gosh, I'm so tied up in trying to track down the impact of "big oil" money, it's hard for me to be able to think on my own.
Climate scientists
{feel embattled by / are engaged in }
a politically motivated witch hunt .
With such a catchy headline, Lemonick must feel right at home, after years at Time.
@ david waugh ´trimmer!´ indeed: you have a powerful ability to discern motives; can you help us with insights re current prominent disciples?
You get a mention in the comments Bishop. Apparently the HSI is a "highly misleading and false account of the Hockey Stick". I wonder if the commenter has read the book, most critical comments I have read on the HSI are produced by people who won't read heretical texts, although it beats me how they know they are heretical if they have never read them.
Ed
From the article teaser:
"If people and governments are going to take serious action to reduce carbon emissions, the time pretty much has to be now, because any delay will make efforts to stave off major changes more difficult and expensive to achieve."
Tendentious twaddle. This isn't science, it's scientology.
SA is still in the toilet for CC stuff, and blows the sci-activist trumpet for just about every leftist cause. Not worth the bother, usually, though their Curry profile's not bad.
The article has some interesting insights into Judith Currys background, whilst obviously not omitting the usual boiler plate about "serious action" "to avert a potential disaster".
I was struck by Gavin Schmidts comment:
"What scientists worry is that such exposure means Curry has the power to do damage to a consensus on climate change that has been building for the past 20 years."
I dont see how? Surely public opinion cannot influence the consensus amongst the scientists; so he must be saying Curry is making some horrible consensus breaking precedent that could influence scientists to be sceptical. Either way, the 20 years of work he and his mates have put in seemed to have built a fragile beast if he is that worried.
The final touch in the article of getting the shrink in to say “I think her criticisms are damaging" was priceless. I have to say, the piece succeeded in ensuring she has my admiration now.
It isn't Judith that is threatening damage to the consensus, it's what Judith is doing that is threatening to Schmidt and his friends.
You can't maintain or make the consensus more potent by fully recognising and acknowledging inherent uncertainties; you can't maintain the consensus and force policy action while challenging the scientific validity or relevance of climate models. What Judith is doing is science in the way science should be done, and that's the last thing that Schmidt and the consensus crowd want anyone to be doing in climate sciences.
Ah, Postmodernism moves on! First Nature and now Scientific American. Who will be left to do real science in 20 years?
I agree with several commentators above. This is not what SA use to do.
For the fun of it, I looked at what other "scientific" writing Lemonick did and here is a sample:
They have these "story lines", but have they even considered the simplest possibility? That she is doing what any scientist should be doing: assessing and re-assessing the evidence. And being open about it.
WUWT has picked up another Scientific American article, this time on confirmation bias.
"Climate researchers trying to surmise past temperature patterns by using proxy data are also engaged in a 'particularly challenging exercise because the data are incredibly messy' says David J. Hand, a statistician at Imperial College London."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fudge-factor
The posts on Dr Curry's blog have been reasoned and intelligent, and attract a range of interesting comments. Have SA ever been anywhere near this blog, and can show evidence of heretical behaviour?
@Don Pablo
You can't really blame postmodernism for this. Read Sokal lately? In fact, after 9/11 there was a big realignment and worldview-shift inside the Left, which saw the colonisers-versus-natives narrative put on the back burner and the progress-versus-superstition narrative given a prominence it hadn't had for decades. One consequence of this was the New Atheist phenom, of course. Another is - notice how the "Science Wars" went away all of a sudden? How Monbiot shifted his focus from GMO to AGW? In fact Alan Sokal and Bruno Latour are now united in defending science'n'reason against the forces of darkness.
I'm currently reading this (it arrived on Thursday). The only problem with it is that it's a little like reading the Daily Mail: you can feel your blood pressure rising with every page.
This is abit off topic but important. JoNova has a thread highlighting the possible demise of an important Italian building containing a very important data set. There is an online petition.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/rare-historic-weather-observatory-faces-closure/
This comment on the thread "hits the spot"
"Jo
Perhaps you can explain why the IPCC has billions of dollars to spend on all sorts of obscure and tenuous links to climate “history” (to the tune of $79 billon, I’m told) and yet has no interest whatsoever in protecting a critical set of measured historical data? Could it be that the IPCC doesn’t want to know (or promulgate) the real truth ? Could it be that the IPCC’s mission is more about politics, and less about facts and science? And, in which case, what is the basis for using their findings as a foundation for sound policy?
Just wondering.
Cheers,
Speedy."
Correction to my last post, I read it in a hurry, it is rather "un-named" scientists that are worriying that Currys exposure would damage the consensus, Schmidt isn't attributed to the quote I said. The relevant section is:
re Steve2
Schmidt isn't that old is he? 20 years ago he was probably more worried about puberty than his future as Mann's stunt double. As another Jones once said though, experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Some of the RC crowd still haven't learned that lesson, or why winning hearts and minds is actually quite important if you want to make social changes.
I for one am pretty unexcited by that article, it's not really about Curry at all.
The plain subtext is: "Ok, there are some uncertainties we maybe didn't explain as well as we might have, but we didn't want to confuse all you simple people: and ok a single model perhaps isn't all that robust, but the point is all these non-robust models actually agree with one another, and that's a really robust result; and finally while there sure are uncertainties, our great big CONSENSUS nullifies all those. So there."
Not the slightest nod to empirical evidence. My empirical evidence here in Victoria Australia is that when the clouds clear and the sun peeks out I feel warmer, and - mirabile dictu - the thermometer on my veranda starts to crank up! Of course, like the MWP, it's probably just an insignificant regional phenomenon, and I can't wait to write a breathtaking paper and get myself invited to all these exotic conference locations.
The comment #14 at SA by Iconoclast is getting wide coverage:
The proposition that the average temperature of the earth's surface is warming because of increased emissions of human-produced greenhouse gases cannot be tested by any known scientific procedure
It is impossible to position temperature sensors randomly over the earth's surface (including the 71% of ocean, and all the deserts, forests, and icecaps) and maintain it in constant condition long enough to tell if any average is increasing. Even if this were done the difference between the temperature during day and night is so great that no rational aveage can be derived.
Measurements at weather stations are quite unsuitable since they are not positioned representatively and they only measure maximum and minimum once a day, from which no average can be derived. They also constantly change in number, location and surroundings. Recent studies show that most of the current stations are unable to measure temperature to better than a degree or two
The assumptions of climate models are absurd. They assume the earth is flat, that the sun shines with equal intensity day and night, and the earth is in equilibrium, with the energy received equal to that emitted.
Half of the time there is no sun, where the temperature regime is quite different from the day.
No part of the earth ever is in energy equilibrium, neither is there any evidence of an overall "balance".
It is unsurprising that such models are incapable of predicting sny future climate behsviour, even if this could be measured satisfactorily.
There are no representative measurements of the concentration of atmospheric csrbon dioxide over any land surface, where "greenhouse warming" is supposed to happen.
After twenty years of study, and as expert reviewer to the IPCC from the very beginning , I can only conclude that the whole affair is a gigantic fraud.
Bishop Hill Said:
Don't be silly!
Scientific American changed editors within the last year.
@ edbhoy
Reading heretical texts -the faithful are not allowed to in case they begin to harbour doubts that their "truth" is not the truth.
@Phillip Bratby
Where is Iconoclast getting wide coverage?
Atomic Hairdryer
Yes, it must be the authors own opinion, Michael D. Lemonick, that scientists worry that Curry is damaging the consensus. I wish Lemonick had said precisely which scientists are worrying that way, but with Schmidts quote abutting so close to that statement I merged the two in my mind.
20 years ago was around the time when Schmidts (eventual) boss Hansen, gave his 1988 congressional testimony, and then the 1990 IPCC FAR appeared.
Still, it strikes me that the whole 'consensus' edifice must be on a knife edge if the little engagment that Judth Curry has undertaken with sceptics on blogs risks bringing all that down to the ground.
@Phillip Bratby
Do Iconoclast's comments seem to you to be the thoughts or observations of a scientific mind? They don't to me.
I don't buy the claim of expert reviewer either.
Skeptical in one, Skeptical in all.
OT, but Anonym mentioned Alan Sokal who has recently become involved in an interesting plagiarism kerfuffle.
https://chronicle.com/article/Alan-Sokal-Takes-Aim-at-an/124969/ (tnx AMac)
@Phillip Bratby
Do Iconoclast's comments seem to you to be the thoughts or observations of a scientific mind? They don't to me.
I don't buy the claim of expert reviewer either.
Skeptical in one, Skeptical in all.
I'm not the best researcher, so happy that I have found a fraction of the information required. The information I have gleaned is that "expert reviewers" are people (and they may or may not be scientists) who have agreed to review IPCC reports. Apparently they are not allowed to publicly state their views from the reading of said IPCC report.
Obviously we (if we are to take the information seriously from iconoclast) do not know of this persons credentials or indeed if he/she is/was a genuine expert reviewer. However if they have been an "expert reviewer" then the comments surely have some validity.
It would seem to me that the fact that the raw data has yet to be made available to the general scientific community at large for approproate review that the comments made by iconoclast could well have significant validity.
As an outsider the lack of transparency bothers me and my doubts I had some 10 years ago have only been doubled and trebled from reading the many blogs around the internet and it is some consolation that I find better qualified people such as Lindzen, Curry, Spencer et al who appear to have scientifically generated data to qualify my doubts.
@stephen lewis
I suspect irrelevancies in Iconoclast's assertions.
"Half of the time there is no sun, where the temperature regime is quite different from the day." as an example. This stuff sounds like Chance the Gardener from "Being There", the excellent book by Jerszy Kosinski and great film starring Peter Sellers.
Clearly night and day are as different as night and day, but so what?
"Half of the time there is no sun, where the temperature regime is quite different from the day." That is what the climate models assume. 50% of the sun's energy to average day and night. It's not a reasonable assumption if there are non-linear effects.
Iconoclasts comments cited by P Bratby I (perhaps incorrectly) assume are related to how the original raw data is collected and then subsequently "managed".
That is to say that the temperature records are not collected over oceans, collected by day (when it is hot) on land mass and subsequently "managed" and "averaged" without appropriate information having been collected. (eg night averages) thus the average is high. If (and it is an IF) he is indeed an "expert reviewer" then he may have been identified this poor data collection.
However, it would appear that if you are an "expert reviewer" then your hands are tied as to whom you can pass on this inofrmation to. If you come out of the woodwork then you won't be privy to the information anymore as you will become disapproved.
Phillip Bratby
I think in my unfortunately continuing ignorance, I assume that the obvious is covered in the models. It's like Pablo's suspicion that the guys that write their code don't understand the number crunching hazards of the compilers and computers they use.
I suppose it's part of the way I look at things I don't understand - the errors wouldn't be easily cured if the guys doing this stuff are pretty sharp and have the time to consider and deal with them.
Notwithstanding poor Harry.
oops, make that "the errors WOULD be easily cured.."
Phillip, given the immense importance of surface-driven convection for large and local scale heat transfer within the troposphere, the idea that the impact of night then day then night etc can be adequately captured by assuming 50% sun for 24 hours is a priori not at all plausible. I think 'non-linear' would be the least of it when you have a spinning turbulent fluid around a sphere, and give it pulses of solar radiation every 24 hours. But what is a (now not so) poor modeller to do when pressed for results? Average this, and average that, a parameter here and a parameter there to deal with the occasional irritation, like clouds for example, plus lots of editing and tweaking facilities to get fits to climate records, until, at last, something pops out that is roughly Earthlike, rather than say Venusian or Martian or NoConceivablePlanetian.
Phillip, given the immense importance of surface-driven convection for large and local scale heat transfer within the troposphere, the idea that the impact of night then day then night etc can be adequately captured by assuming 50% sun for 24 hours is a priori not at all plausible. I think 'non-linear' would be the least of it when you have a spinning turbulent fluid around a sphere, and give it pulses of solar radiation every 24 hours. But what is a (now not so) poor modeller to do when pressed for results? Average this, and average that, a parameter here and a parameter there to deal with the occasional irritation, like clouds for example, plus lots of editing and tweaking facilities to get fits to climate records, until, at last, something pops out that is roughly Earthlike, rather than say Venusian or Martian or NoConceivablePlanetian
And therein lies the problem with modelling without physical verification. In most other areas of mathematical modelling I believe you can ratify your results and subsequently apply the new information to the model thus always improving the model.
In climate it appears that the model is woefully inadequate as climategate demonstrates the ease of which averages can be manipulated, never mind the actual unknowns (of which there appear to be a multitude). Add to the mix the political desire to generate a new global economy in carbon trade and you have a recipe that is actually quite distasteful (though the powers that be appear to have sugared it enough for the policy makers).
Folks --
Let us not forget the oceans that cover about -- what? 75% of the surface of the Earth, and contain trillions of tons of water, which soak up sun light as heat every day, cause currents to shift and give off much heat and water vapor every day. Surely, just possibly, maybe, that has a slight impact of the global weather?
I might also point of the the CO2, bicarbonate, lime, buffer that is in the ocean has a major impact on the CO2 levels of the world and if you don't believe me go look at the White Cliffs of Dover.
Why would $cientificAmerican do $omething like thi$ now? What can po$$ibly have cau$ed them to do thi$ now? There'$ ju$t no explaining the my$terie$ of journali$m in the modern world. I$ there?
LevelGaze
"@Phillip Bratby
Where is Iconoclast getting wide coverage?"
Here - http://climaterealists.com/
"Vincent Gray's comment at Scientific American"
and here:-
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100060493/warmists-plot-secretly-to-kill-off-the-medieval-warming-period-again/#dsq-content
"Vincent Gray / Scientific American."
Without trying
And don't forget that the earth is modelled as a flat (2-d) surface. An inadequate model, without verification and with no way of it being validated.
Steve2 ,
"Still, it strikes me that the whole 'consensus' edifice must be on a knife edge if the little engagment that Judth Curry has undertaken with sceptics on blogs risks bringing all that down to the ground."
If it was truly robust, indeed no. There and again we wouldn't see the hysterical talk of deniers and the exaggerated claims about sea level increases, nor the concealed data and methods, nor the rigging of peer review into pals review. It would simply be robust and there would be no need.
Steve 2's point is an excellent one. The highly-strung Gavin A. Schmidt does himself and his cause no favours at all with his reactions to Dr Curry's perfectly reasonable approach. In any more civilised 'salon' than that of RealClimate, she would be admired for devoting a little of her professional time and thought to pleasant discourse with and about those who, like me, are puzzled by what they see in the world of 'climate science' and 'climate politics'.
You can see the tactics of warmists with regards those who stray or may stray from the one true faith.
1. Engage
2. Persuade
3. Dissuade
4. Ad-hom
5. Smear
6. Destroy
I do not trust people like Judith Curry, who all too readily in this piece accuses sceptics of being cranks, she has never strayed from the light.
Schmidt says:
'Science is not a political campaign. We’re not trying to be everyone’s best friend, kiss everyone’s baby'.
Anyone who has had dealings with Real Climate will certainly testify to the truth of the second sentence. Not being everybody's best friend is a behaviour in which he and his cronies approach world-class.
And in the first sentence, he also speaks the truth as he sees it. But what he doesn't say is that his campaign is a quasi-religious one. He seeks - by being the 'gatekeeper' to The Knowledge (i.e the RC view of reality) - to impose that view upon everyone else.
Only he and his fellow high priests can see the real truth behind it all (eg Mann's hockey stick data and methods). Others must just accept what they say at face value. Heretics must be suppressed...even worse fates await apostates like Curry. Expulsion from the inner circle and eternal damnation at minimum.
But like the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, the priests can only hold the line for so long. In their case, Luther was the catalyst for a fundamental change in people's belief systems. As the sceptic tide continues to grow, and most especially as economic gloom descends on the West, people will demand a re-examination of the fundamentals of the faith. They will no longer be prepared to pay the price of the 'Indulgences', that allow them to be absolved from their carbon burning guilt.
Like those who wondered if Purgatory was indeed real, and if not why they should continue funding the Pope and the Chruch to intercede on their behalf, governments will see that they are becoming out of touch with popular opinion. At a time when they have to do some unpopular things anyway, there is no point in them additionally doing totally unnecessary ones. And the savvy politicos already know this.
For Gav and his crew, I foresee only a gradual, but inevitable and terminal decline in influence. Never again will they hit the pre-Climategate heights of power and renown. How they will react to this marginalisation to irrelevance is hard to forecast. But I'm certain that they will not suddenly become every body's friend or start kissing babies. It is just not in their nature.
Pride and arrogance always come before a fall........
Mac
Thats a bit harsh. She did not write it, and I think from reading her many comments over the last few months that she typically engages respectfully with numerous 'sceptics'. That, poignantly, elevates and distinguishes her from the great majority of her peers, although briefly Gavin Schmidt attempted to do so on Collide-a-Scape (but struggled to maintain that illusion of virtue). We do not have to agree with all her conclusions. She does not have to agree with ours. Or we with each other, which is as it should be in a controversial and uncertain subject, after all.
There seem to be many excellent comments on that SciAm thread.
If I could afford a subscription to SciAm, I'd have a hard choice to make.
Would it be safer to bask in the consensual warmth of this august publication, to survive another harsh winter, or just spend my money on inflated heating bills?
From what I've read, no one has died recently from the cold but, gazillions have from heat stress!
I really want to believe Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have our best interests at heart but why am I freezing my eff*ng b***ocks off?
@Green Sand
Aw, ok. I didn't know that Iconoclast=Vincent Gray.
I think there might have been quite a few of us in that boat, so no need to be snotty.
Scientific American asks us to take a poll on Curry and climate:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=taking-the-temperature-climate-chan-2010-10-25
Don B
SciAm survey. Just done it, but it ony seeks to polarise opinion, such that holding a sceptical opinion will be interpreted as being anti-science flatearther etc
SA are doingh a poll about Judith Curry at http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=taking-the-temperature-climate-chan-2010-10-25
Liker all polls, it has some stupid questions. There is no sensible answer option to some of the questions.
At SciAm The Judith Curry piece is the 2nd most commented on. The 1st is a piece possibly saying physicists should not beleive in religion. No common theme then