by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Politics of science
Controversy awaits as House Republicans roll out long-awaited bill to revamp U.S. research policy [link]
Non-scientist Climate Activists in Meltdown as ‘Sceptic’ Bjorn Lomborg Gets Australian Government Funding [link]
Now THIS is scary: How Bill Nye the Science Guy became Obama’s climate guy [link]
In the news
Plants and soils may have been soaking up our carbon emissions, but this is set to change by 2100 [link]
Scientists use drones to get a closer look at melting Arctic sea ice [link]
What do volcanic eruptions mean for the climate? [link]
Deep freeze and sea breeze: Changing land and weather in Florida [link] …
Thought-provoking piece on why “extinction” isn’t the best way to think about the problems facing various species: [link]
The science of fracking and earthquakes [link]
Piece by Google engineers on why current renewable energy tech won’t do the job of reversing climate change:[link]
Social science
University offering free online course to demolish climate denial [link]
From ‘consensus’ philosopher Lawrence Torcello: Removing the Rubbish: Consensus, Causation, and Denial [link]
Vox: Two political scientists have found the secret to party loyalty, and it’s deeply depressing [link]
A model for collaborative working to facilitate knowledge mobilisation [link]
Insightful reflections on the purpose of scientific journals [link]
New papers of note
New paper finds relationship between natural North Atlantic Oscillation & temperatures of Southwest U.S. [link]
Irreversible desertification in China caused by #climatechange 4.2kyr ago – N Atlantic Cold Event shifting monsoons. [link]
There are two new papers from Wenhong Li’s research group at Duke University, that are creating some buzz:
Comparing the model-simulated global warming signal to observations using empirical estimates of unforced noise
Patrick T. Brown, Wenhong Li, Eugene Cordero, Steven Mauget
Abstract. The comparison of observed global mean surface air temperature (GMT) change to the mean change simulated by climate models has received much public and scientific attention. For a given global warming signal produced by a climate model ensemble, there exists an envelope of GMT values representing the range of possible unforced states of the climate system (the Envelope of Unforced Noise; EUN). Typically, the EUN is derived from climate models themselves, but climate models might not accurately simulate the correct characteristics of unforced GMT variability. Here, we simulate a new, empirical, EUN that is based on instrumental and reconstructed surface temperature records. We compare the forced GMT signal produced by climate models to observations while noting the range of GMT values provided by the empirical EUN. We find that the empirical EUN is wide enough so that the interdecadal variability in the rate of global warming over the 20th century does not necessarily require corresponding variability in the rate-of-increase of the forced signal. The empirical EUN also indicates that the reduced GMT warming over the past decade or so is still consistent with a middle emission scenario’s forced signal, but is likely inconsistent with the steepest emission scenario’s forced signal. Published in Nature; [link] to full manuscript.
Top-of-atmosphere radiative contribution to unforced decadal global temperature variability in climate models
Patrick T. Brown, Wenhong Li, Laifang Li , and Yi Ming
Abstract. Much recent work has focused on unforced global mean surface air temperature (T) variability associated with the efficiency of heat transport into the deep ocean. Here the relationship between unforced variability in T and the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy balance is explored in preindustrial control runs of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 multimodel ensemble. It is found that large decadal scale variations in T tend to be significantly enhanced by the net energy flux at the TOA. This indicates that unforced decadal variability in T is not only caused by a redistribution of heat within the climate system but can also be associated with unforced changes in the total amount of heat in the climate system. It is found that the net TOA radiation imbalances result mostly from changes in albedo associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation that temporarily counteracts the climate system’s outgoing longwave (i.e., Stefan-Boltzmann) response to T change. Published in Geophysical Research Letters; [link] to full manuscript
Media reports (mostly on the first article):
JC note: Once again, I was traveling this past week, so I’m sure there is a lot that I have missed, I look forward to your finds. Fortunately I have no travel for next 3 weeks. Unfortunately, I have a big report to finish. But I have some interesting blog posts lined up for next week, stay tuned.
Filed under: Week in review