Monthly Archives: November 2017

Going Nuclear

Posted on November 29, 2017 by

An epic tweetspat with pseudo-modern engineers made me think of the following confutation of the Breakthrough playbook: First, nuclear energy needs to compete with fossil fuels, not renewables like wind or solar. This point rests on the basic observation that the … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, GRRRROWTH | Tagged , , , | 89 Comments

Combining different ECS estimates

Posted on November 25, 2017 by

I wanted to briefly highlight a new paper by Nic Lewis and Peter Grünwald called [o]bjectively combining AR5 instrumental period and paleoclimate climate sensitivity evidence. You may want, however, to be cautious of the term objective. As the title indicates, … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 133 Comments

Carbon budget constraints

Posted on November 23, 2017 by

I’d been meaning to highlight a statement from Kevin Anderson for quite some time. A brief lull in postings gives me a chance to do so. It relates to the Paris goal of keeping global warming below 2oC. I haven’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ethics, Global warming, Policy, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 25 Comments

Climate communicators in Edinburgh

Posted on November 20, 2017 by

It was a bit of a weekend of climate communication in Edinburgh. Yesterday morning I went along to Dynamic Earth, where the Natural Environment Research Council was hosting an event called UnEarthed. Ed Hawkins was there with a display about … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Science, Scientists, The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , , | 111 Comments

Mertonian norms

Posted on November 17, 2017 by

There are a set of norms of science, first presented by Robert K Merton and known as the Mertonian norms. I found what seems to be a good description of them here. There are four Mertonian norms, called universalism, communalism, … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Roger Pielke Jr, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 67 Comments

A real time global warming index

Posted on November 16, 2017 by

This is a guest post by Karsten Haustein, a researcher in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. The post is about a new paper that discusses their real time global warming index. Have you … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Research, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 56 Comments

I’m confused….

Posted on November 14, 2017 by

Recently, Warren Pearce and colleagues published a paper called [b]eyond climate consensus which I wrote about here. There was a response from John Cook, one from Naomi Oreskes, and a Guardian article by multiple authors. Pearce et al. have now … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming | Tagged , , , | 130 Comments