Monthly Archives: November 2016

Prospects for narrowing ECS bounds

Posted on November 30, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

I was just going to briefly mention a new paper by Stevens, Sherwood, Bony and Webb in which they present [p]rospects for narrowing bounds on Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity. The basic argument is similar to what has – at times … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, IPCC, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 64 Comments

It woz El Nino wot dunnit!

Posted on November 27, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

It looks likely that 2016 will end up as the warmest year in the surface temperature record. One question is whether or not the recent El Nino contributed significantly to this. As the figure on the right shows, if you … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Comedy, ENSO, Gavin Schmidt, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 46 Comments

Science wars, science crises, and wars on science?

Posted on November 25, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

There have been a number of recent articles (that I’ve noticed, at least) about science wars, the war on science, and a crisis in science. Judith Curry covered one, there was a comment about an unprecedented crisis in science in … Continue reading →

Posted in Pseudoscience, Research, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method, Universities | Tagged , , , , | 108 Comments

Watt about a 10th Anniversary?

Posted on November 19, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

When I started blogging about climate science, I mainly focussed on addressing what was said on Anthony Watt’s blog, Watts Up With That (WUWT) (and often started my post titles with the word “Watt”, as I’ve done again – for … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthony Watts, Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Research, Science, Watts Up With That | Tagged , , , , , | 88 Comments

Negative emissions

Posted on November 18, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

I went to some Departmental talks recently and discovered that some of my colleagues are researchering possible carbon sequestration technologies. This could be very important, but appealing to negative emission technologies is often quite strongly criticised. The basic argument (which … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Non-linear climate sensitivity

Posted on November 15, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

Rather strangely, the recent Science Advances paper Nonlinear climate sensitivity and its implications for future greenhouse warming, that’s been getting some attention recently, made it into our Journal Club today (and it had nothing to do with me). It’s, consequently, … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall | Tagged , , , , | 131 Comments

Working with Trump?

Posted on November 12, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

Jack Stilgoe and Roger Pielke Jr have an article in the Guardian called They may not like it, but scientists must work with Donald Trump. My first impression was rather negative, but some on Twitter suggested that it was really … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Policy, Politics, Research, Roger Pielke Jr, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 287 Comments

What to say?

Posted on November 9, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

Another day, another surprising political result. I don’t really quite know what to say; this certainly seems to reflect a disatisfaction with some supposed political elite, but I don’t really understand why people think that voting for those who belong … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | 321 Comments

Sea surface warming and cloud feedbacks

Posted on November 7, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

I wrote a post a while agoe about a paper that was suggesting that the reason for the difference between the observationally-based estimates for climate sensitivity, and other estimates, was that the pattern of sea surface temperatures can produce different … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Ocean CO2 uptake – part 2

Posted on November 2, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

This is really a continuation of my post in which I tried to lay out the basic chemical reactions associated with the uptake of by the ocean. Nick Stokes has a similar post and has a nice online calculator. What … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , | 140 Comments