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Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by stevenreincarnated

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I’ve always found it interesting that the same people arguing for a small transient/equilibrium sensitivity ratio have no problem at all with one strong solar cycle mid century causing all solar after that to be a negative forcing.


Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Ragnaar

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“Anaxagoras, for example, got into legal trouble for claiming that the sun was a burning rock rather than a god.  But there was no pagan Greek equivalent of the medieval Christian insistence on conformity to detailed doctrinal minutiæ over the precise nature of the Trinity or the Incarnation; thus the range of permissible dissent and diversity was significantly greater.”
http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ancient-greeces-legacy-liberty-how-competition-created-greek-philosophy#.osstvq:QKFO

“But if we take “philosophy” in the strict sense of an intellectual discipline that attempts to formulate such a worldview through reasoned arguments, without appeal to tradition or authority…”
IPCC, appeal to authority. 97% consensus, appeal to authority.

“As (Karl) Popper points (out), philosophy arose on the periphery of the wider Greek world rather than in mainland Greece itself…”
My take, the Greeks (the consensus) didn’t do it sitting safely in their homes in Greece. They had to go outside of Greece and deal with other points of view.

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by climatereason

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by matthewrmarler

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more about CA levees, from the 21 Aug issue of Science, vol 349, p 799. Note reference to Australia and Texas.

Drought threatens
California’s levees
CALIFORNIA HAS MORE than 21,000 km
(1) of earthen embankments (referred
to as levees) that protect dryland from
floods and also function as water storage
and management systems. The resilience
of these levees under the record drought
conditions California faces is an emerging
issue that requires attention.
Prolonged droughts undermine the
stability of levee systems by increasing
water seepage through soil, soil cracking,
soil strength reduction, soil organic carbon
(SOC) decomposition, and land subsidence
and erosion (2). The sand-clay mixtures,
which form the body of the levees and
consequently the entire structure, can lose
a substantial amount of strength under
dry conditions. Furthermore, levees in
California are built on peaty soils, and
the extreme drought leads to greater
SOC decomposition in these soils. A large
amount of the global carbon stock is found
in peaty soils, and ~25% of this estimated
stock is predicted to diminish under
extremely dry conditions (3). Oxidation of
SOC under a prolonged drought can also
accelerate land subsidence. In fact, 75% of
the land subsidence across California is
accredited to oxidation of SOC (3). Land
subsidence can increase the risk of water
rising over the top of the levees.
Australia’s Millennium Drought (1997–
2009) is often considered the type of event
for which California should prepare (4). At
the peak of the drought (i.e., 2008 to 2009),
Australia experienced disastrous failures of
alluvial river banks along the Murray River
(5). Similar failures occurred in other parts
of the world during extreme drought conditions,
such as the 2003 Wilnis Levee failure
in the Netherlands (6).
California’s drought is yet another
stress that poses a great risk to an already
endangered levee system. At this time,
55% of California’s levee systems are
rated as “high hazard,” meaning that
they are in danger of failing if a flood
event or an earthquake occurs (1). This
indicates that California’s levee systems
have a high failure risk without even
considering an extreme event such as a
prolonged drought. If the drought ends
with heavy rainfall-induced flooding, as
seen in 2010 in Australia (5) and 2015 in
Texas and Oklahoma (7), the levees could
be at even greater risk. Drought risk and
potential changes in the future climate
were not considered in the engineering
design of these levee systems and
are still not considered in maintenance
guidelines today. There is an urgent need
to invest in research on (i) effects of the
rate and variability of drought on the
short- and long-term behavior of levees;
(ii) constraints in existing levee design,
maintenance, and monitoring guidelines
for extreme droughts; (iii) adaptation and
mitigation strategies for reducing drought
impacts on the performance of levee systems;
(iv) socioeconomic consequences of
levee failures; and (v) multi-hazard disaster
risk science to assess the impacts of compound
and consecutive extreme events on
levees. Community engagement, public risk
education, and close collaboration with
stakeholders are key to enhancing societal
resilience of levees to extreme droughts.
Farshid Vahedifard,1
* Amir
AghaKouchak,2 Joe D. Robinson1
1Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Mississippi State University,
Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. 2Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of
California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: farshid@cee.
msstate.edu
REFERENCES
1. California Department of Water Resources, Flood Control
System Status Report [Central Valley Flood Management
Planning (CVFMP) Program, California, 2011];www.water.
ca.gov/cvfmp/docs/FCSSRDec2011_FullDocument.pdf.
2. P. Vardon, Env. Geotechnics 2, 166 (2014).
3. B. A. Brooks et al., San Francisco Estuary Watershed
Sci. 10(1) (2012); http://escholarship.org/uc/
item/15g1b9tm.
4. A. Aghakouchak et al., Science 343, 1430 (2014).
5. E. V. De Carli, T. C. T. Hubble, in Proceedings of the 7th
Australian Stream Management Conference, G. Vietz, I.
D. Rutherfurd, R. Hughes, Eds. (Townsville, Queensland,
Australia, 2014), pp. 255–261.
6. S. Van Baars, Géotechnique 55, 319 (2005).
7. A. Freedman, A. Li, “Texas and Oklahoma hit by
severe flooding, killing 2” (2015); http://mashable.
com/2015/05/24/texas-oklahoma-flash-flooding/.

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by matthewrmarler

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Jubilation! today I received my signed copy of Mark Steyn’s book, “A disgrace to the profession.”

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by climatereason

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Willard

Please refer to my reply here;

http://judithcurry.com/2015/08/30/hurricanes-and-global-warming-10-years-post-katrina/#comment-728827

I agree that we would all be better off if we used much vaguer scales when dealing with historic reconstructions rather than tenths of a degree. I repeatedly state that and point out we can not expect fractional accuracy

Perhaps you ought to be addressing your comments to those that don’t admit to the uncertainties and insist on claiming high accuracy rather than a tendency, such as GISS, BEST and the Met office, the latter of which maintains instrumental CET from 1659.

Their figures represent the vast majority of the graphic you reference. You are surely not suggesting that I should switch from their scales to an entirely different set from 1538 to 1659? That would render the simple ‘man of 70 graphic’ somewhat meaningless.. When I create the other graphic I put the figures into much broader bands.

tonyb

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by Peter Davies

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Gives us your thoughts on the book MattStat. They would be valued by all unbiased commenters here!

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by Willard

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> Please refer to my comment here [...] In that comment, there is the claim that <blockquote><strong>It is at least half a degree c</strong> which becomes more unquantifiable the further back in time I step.</blockquote> Yet, the chart named <strong>Average Temperature Experienced During Lifetime of Someone Born at the Start of a Decade and Who Died in the Last Year of a Decade 70 Years Later</strong> varies by tenths of degrees each year, <strong>starting in 1540 and ending in 1960</strong>. Just imagine if the IPCC did this, TonyB.

Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by sciguy54

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New Solar Window Can Make Any Glass Pane a Solar Panel

News flash for all green ignorati: The most efficient “solar panel” is insulated glass properly oriented to the sun. Just allow solar radiation in and let interior surfaces “convert” it to heat. Is the collected energy useful on a south Florida summer afternoon? Probably not. On a Wisconsin winter afternoon? Maybe. YMMV

Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by beththeserf

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‘ Perhaps the most powerful cause of the breakdown of the
closed society was the development of sea communications
and commerce. Close contact with other tribes is liable to
undermine the feeling of necessity with which tribal institutions
are viewed; and trade, commercial initiative, appears to be
one of the few forms in which individual initiative and
independence can assert itself, even in a society in which
tribalism still prevails. These two, seafaring and commerce,
became the main characteristics of Athenian imperialism
as it developed in the fifth century BC. And indeed they
were recognized as the most dangerous developments by
the oligarchs, the members of the privileged, or of the
formerly privileged classes, of Athens.It became clear to
them that that the trade of Athens, its monetary
commercialism, its naval policy, and its democratic
tendencies, were parts of one single movement, and that
it was impossible to defeat democracy without going to
the roots of the evil and destroying both the naval policy
and the empire.’

Karl Popper, ‘ The Open Society and Its Enemies.’ Vol 1.
Ch 10.

Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by blueice2hotsea

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eadler2

PA’a calculation:
0.2 W/m2 / 3.7 Wm-2/°C = 0.054°C/decade.
needs further explanation because as-is, it appears to be nonsense. And Pa follows that calculation with “For the 21st century the GHG forcing is less than 0.054°C/Decade., conflating forcing with temp trend.

But importantly, PA draws attention to a paper which may impact TCR estimates. Why don’t you do the sensitivity calculations and show us what you get?

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by Willard

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TonyB,

Thank you for this misplaced comment:

http://judithcurry.com/2015/08/30/hurricanes-and-global-warming-10-years-post-katrina/#comment-728851

You say:

I agree that we would all be better off if we used much vaguer scales when dealing with historic reconstructions rather than tenths of a degree. I repeatedly state that and point out we can not expect fractional accuracy

I don’t know where in that text you say that you would have been better off using a vaguer scale. What I do know is that your claim that you make no claim that the chronicles can demonstrate accuracy to tenths of a degree. You should retract that claim, since it’s clear that the chart named Average Temperature Experienced During Lifetime of Someone Born at the Start of a Decade and Who Died in the Last Year of a Decade 70 Years Later varies by tenths of degrees each year, starting in 1540 and ending in 1960.

Will you amend the posts where you published this chart and edit the chart to reflect that you would have been better off using a vaguer scale?

Until then, it would be great if you could retract your claim that you make no claim that the chronicles can demonstrate accuracy to tenths of a degree, because it’s quite obvious that you did.

***

I have two questions regarding this.

Perhaps you ought to be addressing your comments to those that don’t admit to the uncertainties and insist on claiming high accuracy rather than a tendency.

First, if you could point to me any commitment from my part regarding these squirrels, that would be great too. Failure to do so will demonstrate that you’re just deflecting.

Second, I’m not sure how you “admit to the uncertainties” at all, or for that matter what you mean by that. What’s clear from your chart named Average Temperature Experienced During Lifetime of Someone Born at the Start of a Decade and Who Died in the Last Year of a Decade 70 Years Later is that you assign tenths of Celcius to chronicles. While I can understand the uncertainty bars for tenths of Celcius, I’m not sure where are the error bars for your chronicles.

So my (main) question is: please explain chronicle uncertainty.

Many thanks!

Comment on Ins and outs of the ivory tower by Willard

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> I really tried to understand your point.

It’s a question, Sir Rud. You claim that

There are big differences between op-eds […] and activities like those of […]

Under these “activities,” I want to know if you include testimonies to Congress. So writing op-eds is one thing. What about Congress testimonies?

It is exactly because concepts are not crisp (cf. fuzzy logic, shades of grey, etc) that I’m asking that question.

Comment on Ins and outs of the ivory tower by Willard

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We need more essays about warmunists, Vaughan.

Comment on Ins and outs of the ivory tower by Willard

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> climate change science has suffered from limiting action of gatekeepers

Hans must have had Soon & Baliunas in mind when he was saying that, no doubt:

When von Storch found that some of the other editors thought the Soon and Baliunas paper was acceptable, he “concluded that we have different standards”, and suspected that “some of the skeptics had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common.”. He felt that “editors used different scales for judging the validity of an article. Some editors considered the problem of the Soon & Baliunas paper as merely a problem of ‘opinion’, while it was really a problem of severe methodological flaws. Thus, I decided that I had to disconnect from that journal, which I had served proudly for about 10 years.”

Hans von Storch resigned on the same day, 28 July, and condemned the journal’s review process in his resignation letter: “The review process had utterly failed; important questions have not been asked … the methodological basis for such a conclusion (that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period of the last millennium) was simply not given.” Clare Goodess also resigned later that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy

Denizens may insert their favorite post-normal epilogue.


Comment on Ins and outs of the ivory tower by Absolving Judith Curry from Her Political Sins | Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), Exposed

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[…] you get a moment, check out Judith Curry’s latest blog post, “Ins and Outs of the Ivory Tower.” In it, Curry relies on her same tired trick of highlighting writings from some obscure thinker and […]

Comment on Carly Fiorina hits the ‘sweet spot’ on climate change by Absolving Judith Curry from Her Political Sins | Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), Exposed

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[…]  Cheerleading and endorsement of Carly Fiorina’s climate change statements. […]

Comment on President Obama’s Clean Power Plan by Absolving Judith Curry from Her Political Sins | Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), Exposed

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[…] She has stated her highly evidence-based conclusion that the EPA is “trying to sell [Obama’s clean power plan] as economic and public health issue is a ploy to develop political will for President Obama’s preferred energy policies.” […]

Comment on Ins and outs of the ivory tower by Jim D

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JC says yes scientists should offer their expertise, but “Engagement without partisanship is the key IMO.”
What do they do when one whole political party seems to be against believing their science? It may look like partisanship, but it is actually still promoting the science. The partisanship is not on their part, and the public needs to be able to separate out that situation. Sometimes when someone warns of coastal flooding or heatwaves increasing in frequency, it is just presenting the science, but is bitterly resented by some partisans, just like with past battles on tobacco, CFCs, sulfates, lead, particulates, pesticides, etc. Drawing attention to risks based on scientific studies is not a partisan act, but it may attract political opponents.

Comment on Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina by franktoo

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David and Judith: When the reliability of data varies with time, analysis of time series is problematic. More importantly, time doesn’t directly change hurricane intensity; time is a proxy for increasing SST beneath the track of hurricanes. A poor proxy for warmer SSTs. If you want to know whether GW will increase the proportion of Category 4/5 storms, why not see if warmer SST actually increases the probability of a TC intensifying. Instead of being limited to perhaps 30 years of data (less due to autocorrelation), you’d have 700 TCs per decade with constant observation methodology.

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