Climate Depot Exclusive
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, who was until recently the Chair of School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, detailed her conversion from a scientist who accepted the global warming “consensus” on man-made global warming to one who now openly challenges it. Curry spoke at the National Press Club in Washington DC on September 16 at an event sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute.
[Update: Curry has full text of her speech with PowerPoint slides here.]
Curry warned of possible global cooling. “We also see a cooling period starting around the turn of the (21st) century.” She also suggested that the “current cool phase will continue until the 2030s.” [Also see: Scientists and Studies predict ‘imminent global COOLING’ ahead – Drop in global temps ‘almost a slam dunk’]
“Even on the timescale of decade or two, we could end up be very surprised on how the climate plays out and it might not be getting warmer like the UN IPCC says,” Curry noted.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen. All other things being equal – yes — more carbon dioxide means warmer, but all other things are never equal,” she emphasized.
“We just don’t know. I think we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales,” she added.
“I view the [climate change] problem as a ‘big wicked mess,” Curry told the crowd at luncheon assembled. “The main problem is we are putting the policy cart before the scientific horse,” Curry said.
Curry believes the United Nations has distorted the research of global warming and shifted too much on carbon dioxide as the “control knob” of the climate system. “Climate scientists have focused primarily on greenhouse gases,” Curry noted, linking that focus on the IPCC’s focus and the funding streams available to scientists who focus on CO2.
“Other factors relatively neglected,” Curry declared.
Curry’s PowerPoint
“The early articulation of a preferred policy option by the UN framework marginalized research on broader issues surrounding climate change and resulted in an overconfident assessment of the importance of greenhouse gases in future climate change and stifled development of a broad range of policy options.”
UN Treaty Futility
Curry also dismissed the UN global climate treaty process. “Relying on global international treaty to solve the problem — which I do not think would really solve the problem even if it was implemented — is politically unviable and economically unviable. [Also see: Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘I don’t think anyone can credibly argue that CO2 reduced under Obama’s plan will change or improve the climate’]
Curry told of her conversion and how she ended up disillusioned with the so-called “consensus.”
“Prior to 2005, I was comfortably ensconced in academia,” Curry noted and discussed how she grew increasingly “uneasy about how the UN IPCC dealt with uncertainty.”
Curry’s turning point was the Climategate email controversy in 2009. She said she was disappointed at the “lack of transparency” and the ‘silence” of many of her colleagues about the behavior of the upper echelon of the UN scientists revealed in the emails. [See: She was once dubbed the “high priestess of global warming” and now freely admits to being “duped into supporting the UN IPCC.” Chatting With ‘A Climate Heretic’: Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry reverses belief in AGW – Climategate ‘triggered a massive re-examination of my support of the IPCC, and made me look at the science much more skeptically’]
(Curry now testifies to Congress about her skepticism of the “consensus.” [See: Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry’s at Senate hearing: ‘Attempts to modify the climate through reducing CO2 emissions may turn out to be futile’ – UN IPCC now making ‘a weaker case for anthropogenic global warming’]
Curry showed the headline from Scientific American termed her a “heretic” and the headline blared: ‘Climate Heretic’: ‘Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues’
Screen capture of November 2010 Scientific American article.
“By that time I had becoming increasingly skeptic of the UN IPCC,” she noted. [See: Curry: ‘If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic’]
Crushing of Scientific Dissent
Curry spoke of the “intolerance of dissent” and attempts to silence skeptic in the global warming discussion today. “President Obama said in his State of the Union address, ‘we don’t have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.’” [See: Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘I am mystified as to why Obama and John Kerry are making such strong (and indefensible) statements about climate change’]
She called claims of a 97% consensus “deeply flawed.”
“You cannot even talk about these kinds of issues in the mainstream climate debate. We get called ‘deniers’. This is a very sad state of affairs,” she noted.
“Careerism is a big problem. It much more beneficial to join the dominant paradigm, rather than to fight against it,” Curry explained.
“If I were nontenured scientist, I would fear for my job! But I am a senior scientist with retirement in my sight, so I can afford to do what I want, say what I think.”
“I no longer write government grant proposals. I have lot more independence. I truly feel liberated by not having to chase dollars,” she added.
Curry lamented the current state of academia. “There is a system in place with an emphasis on paper counts, an emphasis on dollars, and it is very difficult to dig in and work on hard problem. You have got to keep cranking it out. I really despair. I really despair,” she said.
“I see more of our graduates going into private sector rather than academia,” she added.
Curry was optimistic about how the internet is changing things for the better. “Social media is changing things like crazy. The whole emphasis on peer review being challenged by social media and open access journals. The whole dynamic of research and higher academia is changing for the better,” she explained.
“I was on that treadmill, I am mostly off it now and it is very liberating to be off that treadmill,” she added.
Severe Weather
Curry also challenged the notion that there was more “extreme weather” today. “Much of the severe weather we think we are seeing right now — you look back to the 1930 and 1950s and this is what we were seeing also. This is weather amnesia,” she noted.
“Sandy was a category one, when it struck. There is nothing exceptional about a category one hurricane striking New York City. What was exceptional was the damage and this was associated with extreme wealth and development in that region,” she said.
“We have seen that the hurricane landfalls have become fewer in last few decades overall. So you cannot blame it on global warming,” she said.
Sea Level Rise
Curry downplayed sea level rise fears. “If you look back to the 1930 and 1940s, the rate of sea level rise was at least as large as recent values when there was little contribution of human caused warming.”
“Bangladesh, this is the poster child for sea level rise – has an estimated only 10-15% of their sea level rise associated with warming, the rest of it is associated with land use issues and geological issues. So trying to cure the sea level problem by reducing warming — even if that were possible — is only going to address a fraction of the sea level rise issue,” Curry said.
She also laughed about the growing number of excuses (currently at 52) for the global warming ‘pause‘, approaching 18 years according to satellite data.
Related Links:
Judith Curry, Professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology: ‘Given the widespread nature of the infection and intrinsic motivated reasoning. We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible’
Key Points: There is a ‘growing realization that you can’t control climate by emissions reductions’
15 Responses
I’ve been pondering the fact that the AGW nutcases seem to be all males. Mann, Jones, IPCC heads, etc. Name media shills like Borenstein, etc. The one highly reputable, truth-seeker in the news is Dr Curry. Is this because the Fedgov is biased in handing out taxpayer gravy to males to propagandize for AGW? Or could it be that many more males are at the top in academia and get first-served? Or (I’m prepared to duck). is it that women scientists are smarter than men and are not so easily taken in by this fraud? Anyway, it’s interesting.
Naomi Oreskes?
First, Oreskes is a useful fool. In private all the males call her work a joke.
“date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:16:40 -0700
from: Tom Wigley
subject: Re: [Fwd: Your Submission]
to: Phil Jones
Phil,
This is weird. I used Web of Knowledge, “create citation report”, and
added 1999 thru 2009 numbers. Can’t do you becoz of the too many PDJs
problem.
Here are 3 results …
Kevin Trenberth, 9049
Me, 5523
Ben, 2407
The max on their list has only 3365 cites over this period.
Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless.
A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.
Tom.”
And Again Oreskes is barely a female, pretty much in gender only. Even a blind man would rund.
It´s a male dominated society. And women tend to be more polite unless they know they are REALLY in charge.
Men are stupid. Leona Woods Libby was one of the early scientists that pioneered the climate science of natural cycles. Prior to that she had worked on the n.reactor in the manhattan project. she predicted prior to 1970 that there wood be global warming from appox 1980-2000 followed by fifty years of cooling including a spike in cooling at about 2020-2030. She did this by mapping out the previous climate change using treerings and ice-cores, etc. So far it appears that she was right. Comparing her to hanson,mann, gavin, jones.. is like comparing einstein to your cat.
I don´t think Dr. Curry said the world´s surface temperature was going to drop in the near future. Maybe it should read “explains the current absence of surface warming may continue for several decades” ???
Funny how freedom of thought clears the mind…
“If I were nontenured scientist, I would fear for my job!”. This is proof positive that climate science is actually a new type of political intimidation – there is little real climate science in academia. You toe the political line or you are out, if you are not tenured.
Why should believe someone who has been so wrong for so long? I have zero interest in her predictions.
What were her predictions?
You don’t have to believe Dr. Curry. You can look at the raw data over the past two decades and draw your own conclusions — That is the beauty of critical thinking.
Never mind the deception (propagated and disseminated by the climategate ‘team’) that was the turning point for Dr Curry. Further, keep ignoring the unscientific behavior of admitted fraudster and former AGU chief ethicist, Peter Gleick. The list of climate fraudsters runs wide and deep. Yet not one skeptical scientist has been associated with any type of scandal involving climate science.
No one is forcing you to choose your climate heroes, no matter how despicable their behavior may be. That is the beauty of independent thought.
Kudos to Judith Curry. She has spent her entire adult life studying climate science and allowing the data to drive her opinions. Not grant money. Not peer pressure. Simply the science. As a result, Judith can go to her rest each night with a clear conscious. And that is the beauty of following the scientific method.
hi nice to meet you all.
yes its all going on .the new confusion ,,divide and conquer ..but it wont work this time .
is it time to join our collective thinking and voice the truth of.. we do not what is happening and what will happen in time to come ..any bodys up for joining the like mindedness of avaaz, greenpeace, or mabe the Peoples Climate change people ,more people= more knowledge = better debate =clearer answers =more control over
our future with less worry.Lets not leave this world wondering if our families of the future will say.
how did they let this happen ? as they see out the last of humanity or freedom
only the good guys / girls like yourself and others like you can and must work out how to pull
all this to-gather .the masses are seeking what is true .Put it out there
who or what is planning our future ,i dont know myself for sure put there is something more important
going on and climate change is in there somewhere ,,
love and luck to you all ;
if its 50/50 for me its woolly jumpers.
Oh sure its easy to revise the story from warming to cooling especially when the word is all around that since 2012 polar ice increased by 60% So students, today I shall lecture on Global Cooling – we will return to Global Warming in 15 years as some of you will still be here attempting to get a passing grade and an education. Screw academia – administrators are basic people and dumber than you can imagine
I wonder how much CO2 the lava flow in Hawaii is adding to the atmosphere? Someplace I read recently that one volcanic eruption adds more CO2 than all of the measures we have taken in the past to reduce it. Sounds like God and mother nature has more control over climate change than all of mankind.
Looks like Curry was wrong. Again.