Category Archives: Science

Tropospheric temperature trends

Roger Pielke Jr appears to have been pondering why it is that discussions, on social media, about the physical science of climate change (WG1 in IPCC-speak) has dissipated in recent years. There are probably many reasons, but amongst them might … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Contrarian Matrix, Roger Pielke Jr, Science | Tagged , , , | 104 Comments

The Gulf Stream

Quite often in the media there will be articles claiming that global warming could cause the Gulf Stream to shutdown, or collapse. This is technically not correct, which is explained really nicely, in the video below, by Sabine Hossenfelder. Essentially, … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Science, Severe Events | Tagged , , , | 32 Comments

Revisiting causality using stochastics

The Proceedings of the Royal Society A has just published two papers by Koutsoyiannis et al. on revisiting causality using stochatics, the first being the theory paper and the second presenting some case studies. One of the case studies in … Continue reading

Posted in Greenhouse effect, Research, Science | Tagged , , | 41 Comments

The Greenhouse Effect

I’ve ended up in a rather silly discussion/debate on Twitter about the Greenhouse Effect. I realise it’s rather pointless, in that those who dispute it are very unlikely to accept its reality. However, it’s still interesting to think about how … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Greenhouse effect, Science | Tagged , , , , | 215 Comments

How scientists failed the pandemic test

Philip Ball has an interesting article about UK science advice called [q]uiet, uncritical, obedient: how the UK’s scientists failed the pandemic test. It make some good points about there appearing to have been collusion between the science advisors and the … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Policy, Science, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 57 Comments

Decoding the Gurus

Since I haven’t had much to write about, I thought I would briefly highlight a podcast that I’ve really enjoyed listening to. It’s called Decoding the Gurus, and is run by Chris Kavanagh, an anthropologist, and Matt Browne, a psychologist. … Continue reading

Posted in Pseudoscience, Research, Science, Scientists | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Science communication

I listened to one of Andy Revkin’s Twitter broadcasts with Randy Olson which discussed if science communication was worse now than it was 100 years ago. I’ve actually read most of Randy Olson’s book, where he introduces his 3-step model … Continue reading

Posted in Pseudoscience, Science, Scientists | Tagged , , , , | 48 Comments

Declaring a climate emergency?

Matthew Nisbet, Professor of Communication, Public Policy, and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, has a new article called Manufacturing Consent: The dangerous campaign behind climate emergency declarations. It makes similar arguments to those made by Mike Hulme in an article … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy for Bloggers, Policy, Politics, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 57 Comments

Halting the vast release of methane is critical

A week or so ago there was a New York Times article called Halting the Vast Release of Methane Is Critical for Climate, U.N. Says. As the title suggests, it was reporting on a United Nations Report that (according to … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Environmental change, Global warming, Policy, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 95 Comments

Science in the Time of COVID-19

There was an interesting BBC Radio 4 item, hosted by Sonia Sodha, on Science in the Time of COVID-19. If you can’t access it, there is a related Guardian article. I’ve listened to it a few times, and I’m still … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, Science, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method, We Are Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 63 Comments