Monthly Archives: August 2017

Extreme weather events

Gavin Schmidt had an interesting Twitter thread about discussing the link between extreme weather events and climate change. I’ve included an image of the thread on the right (click on it to expand) but the basic suggestion (with which I … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Science, Scientists | Tagged , , , , , , | 156 Comments

Early 20th century warming

I’ve been involved in a discussion on another blog (which I won’t highlight) about there being a period of warming in the early 20th century that seems comparable to the warming we’ve experienced since about 1980. This is a somewhat … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , | 71 Comments

Machine unlearning

Someone sent me a paper by John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy called the application of machine learning for evaluating anthropogenic versus natural climate change. Their conclusion is that most of the observed warming could be natural and that the Equilibrium … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Greenhouse effect, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , | 186 Comments

Kate Marvel on clouds

Although we are confident that adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will cause the planet to warm, exactly how much we will warm is uncertain (the IPCC likely range for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is 1.5oC to 4.5oC). A … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science, Scientists, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

STS: All talk and no walk?

In my previous post I discussed a paper by Harry Collins, and colleagues, that is mainly a response to an editorial by Sergio Sismondo. Collins et al. argue that Science and Technology Studies (STS) must take some responsibility for today’s … Continue reading

Posted in Politics, Pseudoscience, Research, Science, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 52 Comments

STS as science or politics?

I came across a paper by Harry Collins, Robert Evans, and Martin Weinel called STS as science or politics? For those who don’t know, STS stands for Science and Technology Studies and I have written about it before. I haven’t … Continue reading

Posted in Research, Science, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 51 Comments

Science; it’s complicated

I mentioned, a while ago, that I’d been at a meeting and had an idea for a post. Well, this is my attempt to articulate what I thought at that meeting. A good deal of my own research involves trying … Continue reading

Posted in Research, Science, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , | 59 Comments

A brief roundup: the BBC and OMICS

I guess the big news yesterday was the BBC Radio 4 Today show interviews with Al Gore and Nigel Lawson. If you want to listen, the broadcast is here. Al Gore is on at about 1h10m and Nigel Lawson is … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | 69 Comments

Kevin Anderson: how numbers reveal another reality

I’ve finally watched the video of Kevin Anderson’s talk (posted in a comment that I currently can’t find) which was part of the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series. I found it quite uncomfortable. He addressed things that we typically avoid. The … Continue reading

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, Policy, Politics, Research, Scientists | Tagged , , , , , | 121 Comments

No, pressure alone does not define surface temperatures!

Eli’s already covered this but I thought I would present a slightly different argument. The topic is a recent paper by Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller called new insights on the physical nature of the atmospheric greenhouse effect deduced from … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Greenhouse effect, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , | 135 Comments