Why I Wrote About Judith Curry

Published: October 24th, 2010

Michael D. Lemonick

In trying to fulfill our mission to explain climate science to the public, Climate Central creates nonpartisan, nonadvocacy multimedia content for our own website and for outside media partners. When we do the latter, we normally just flag the publication or broadcast so our followers know about it.

In the just-published November issue of Scientific American, however, we’ve published a story that calls for a bit more explanation. It’s a profile of Judith Curry, the Georgia Tech researcher who’s been stirring up powerful feelings in the climate-science community by questioning the integrity of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and of individual scientists, and by befriending outsiders who are even more critical than she is. Some people see Curry as a whistleblower; others (including many climate scientists) think she’s a bit of a crank.

I was drawn to this story because, as a science journalist, my job is to try and ask the sort of questions the non-scientific public might ask — and in the contentious area of climate science, one key question is: “when scientists disagree, how do I know whom to believe?” It’s a particularly important question when it comes to climate, because the stakes are so enormously high. If we fail to act, the consequences could be dire; if we act unnecessarily, the consequences could also be costly.

In climate science, the overwhelming consensus view, backed by a mountain of evidence, is that climate change is real, caused largely by human activities, and likely to inflict significant damage on people and ecosystems around the world. The fact that most climate scientists do agree is something that’s not always fully appreciated by the general public, who often see it as much more up in the air than that. But could the consensus – or parts of it – be wrong?

There are times in the history of science where the consensus has been drastically wrong — in the case of Alfred Wegener, who tried to persuade the world of the fact of continental drift, of Barry Marshall, who insisted that ulcers are caused by bacteria, and by a long list of other men and women who were dismissed as cranks and turned out in the end to be correct. This phenomenon intrigues me so much that for several years I gave a freshman seminar at Princeton titled “They Laughed at Einstein: How Science Deals with Cranks and Visionaries.”

The thing is, being dismissed as a crank doesn’t mean you’re necessarily wrong. But it surely doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily right, either.

So when Judith Curry challenges her colleagues, is she right? Does she raise valid points? That’s what I set out to discover for Scientific American.

Is it Irresponsible to Discuss Curry's Views?

What I found out is that when she does raise valid points, they’re often points the climate-science community already agrees with — and many climate scientists are scratching their heads at the implication that she’s uncovered some dark secret. I also became convinced that some of her other points are not very persuasive at all. As Stephen Schneider, the eminent Stanford climate scientist who died prematurely last summer, told me: “It is frankly shocking to see such a good scientist take that kind of a turn to sloppy thinking. I have no explanation for it.”

Others were a bit less forgiving — understandably — at Curry’s tone. She doesn’t just question some of the IPCC’s procedures. She calls the process “corrupt.” She gives credence to some outsiders (also known as “climate skeptics”) who aren’t climate scientists and who, the actual scientists argue persuasively, aren’t qualified to offer an expert opinion. She accuses the majority of “groupthink” — implying they’re sheep who have been deluded into following some sort of party line. A recent report by an independent commission that looked into the IPCC’s procedures concluded that despite some flaws, the IPCC process is fundamentally sound.

Simply by giving Judith Curry’s views a respectful airing, I’ve already drawn accusations of being irresponsible — and it’s valid to raise the question of whether giving her any sort of platform is a bad idea. I argue that her name is already in the news, and that non-scientists need useful information about her and her views.

The topics Curry raises are well within Climate Central’s purview, which is to work independently and with other media outlets to objectively communicate climate science news and information to the public. Our team of climate scientists and journalists seeks to inform the public and elevate the discussion about climate change, and this occasionally means reporting on topics that may make some of our own scientific colleagues uncomfortable.

I also argue, as you’ll see in Scientific American, that the vehement reaction of climate scientists, while perfectly understandable, might be akin to the violent reaction of the human immune system to some bacteria and viruses — a reaction that’s sometimes more damaging than the original microbe.

At our request, Scientific American has brought this story outside of the magazine’s paywall. Anyone can read it, and make their own judgment. We don’t have the ability on our own site to take reader comments (it’s in the works), but if you’d like to have your views posted here, send me an email and we’ll publish them (up to a reasonable length, and we reserve the right to edit out personal attacks, profanity and other objectionable material) as a running addendum to this blog.

I suspect people won’t be shy about doing that.

Posted in Climate, Policy, Society, United States

Comments

By Cedric Katesby (Seoul, S.Korea)
on January 2nd, 2011

About the worst I can say is that Greenfyre was spot on in his criticism of Scientific American.
How can you people drop the ball so badly?
There is disinformation campaign that is attacking science.
It’s well-funded, well organised and steeped in absurdities and conspiracy theories.

...and you lot are playing Pat-a-cake with it.
Shameful.

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/myth-making-by-scientific-american/

By BlueRock
on January 3rd, 2011

> ...the vehement reaction of climate scientists, while perfectly understandable, might be akin to the violent reaction of the human immune system to some bacteria and viruses — a reaction that’s sometimes more damaging than the original microbe.

Where are you going with that? Are you suggesting that all of climate science will collapse because every (?) reputable climate scientist that has expressed an opinion has excoriated Curry?

Rather than stretching for metaphors, focus on the facts and you should see what the vast majority of the reality-attached community can see: Curry has abandoned science in favour of… something, hard to say what.

Read http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=4431 and skim down for Curry’s comments and Schmidt’s replies to them. It’s evident which one of them is all about science and the other all about empty rhetoric, filled with slander and lazy falsehoods.

By citizenchallenge (Durango, Colorado, 81301)
on April 4th, 2011

MDL wrote: “There are times in the history of science where the consensus has been drastically wrong — in the case of Alfred Wegener, etc, etc, etc.”

I was disappointed in your handling of this paragraph. In the case of Alfred Wegener, yes he was a visionary hero and the establishment rejected his vision. Why didn’t you also explain that his theory was rejected because no mechanism for the transport of global plates could be conceived of - even Wegener conceded that point. The visionary theory demanded more real evidence. Same goes for Einstein and Marshall. Yes sometimes science is too stogy sometimes - but, it does react to and change with real evidence.

But in this debate we have one side presenting incoherent and contradictory attacks on truly minor points of climatology (such as endlessly flogging Mann98), then way over inflating their significance. That coupled with an increasingly ruthless strategy of attacking scientists.
You know killing the messenger rather than reading the message.

Why not examine the financing behind Heartland et al. and all those connections within the AGW denial echo chamber.

Why not examine the difference between a political campaign and the scientific process of learning.

By gerald einem(gainesville, florida)
on June 15th, 2011

I ask, what has Judith Curry puplished in a peer review journal, where it would be open to comment by other climate scienctists?

By Arno Arrak (Dix Hills, New York 11746)
on June 18th, 2011

I like the idea of your course on “They laughed at Einstein…” because I have the same problem now. I have several points to make but first let me tell you that you did the right thing by discussing Curry’s views. Unlike those “climate scientists” who had a ” vehement reaction” to your article she is a thinking person who wants to know climate science without the blinders of censorship. Censorship is very real and extends to scientific publications. Consider Naomi Oreskes who went through over 900 abstracts of climate papers and could not find even one opposed to anthropogenic global warming. For her this proved consensus when in fact it shows how effectively opposing views are kept out. The warming advocates are now in total control of scientific publication and nothing even slightly critical of it gets through. You must have found an editor who allowed an exception to occur. My views have been kept out from Nature, Science, Climatic Change, BAMS, and Nature Climate Change. None of them found any technical flaws. What made my paper radioactive was proof that laws of physics do not allow greenhouse warming in the Arctic. I had already said that in my book “What Warming?” that went to press in December. When an important confirmatory paper came out in January I decided to expand that section into a paper and offer it to journals but found no takers, I have been involved with climate science since 2009 when I saw Al Gore’s movie and got so mad that I decided to jump in and do some science myself. I found many things screwed up and was forced to do my own science to clarify points no one understood. I made heavy use of satellite temperature measurements and discovered that the temperature curves thrust upon us as proof of warming are all cooked. I am not talking of the hockey stick fraud but warming of the eighties and nineties. That is called the “late twentieth century warming” and appears on NASA, NOAA, and Met Office temperature curves. It is the same warming Hansen testifies about to the Senate in 1988. Satellite measurements prove that it did not exist. If you put the curves side by side you will see how they did it. Satellite data for the last 31 years are available and show that during all that time there was only one short spurt of global warming. It started with the super El Nino of 1998, raised global temperature by a third of a degree in four years, and then stopped. There was no warming before it and none after. It was oceanic and not anthropogenic in nature. It is this step warming and not the greenhouse effect that is responsible for the very warm first decade of our century. A third of a degree is half of what is allotted to the entire twentieth century. The earlier half of twentieth century warming took place between 1910 and 1940. It was most likely part of the solar influence that brought us out of the Little Ice Age. Between 1940 and 1998 there was no warming whatsoever despite the claimed “late twentieth century warming” of the eighties and nineties. At present we have an oscillating climate of warm El Nino and cool La Nina periods that started with cooling in 2008. These are part of the Pacific ENSO system that has been with us since the Panamanian seaway closed. Since the satellite record shows no anthropogenic warming for the last 31 years we must ask for a physical reason that could explain it. Fortunately Ferenc Miskolczi has an explanation for the absence of this greenhouse warming. Using NOAA weather balloon observations that go back to 1948 he was able to show that the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared where carbon dioxide absorbs has been constant for the last 61 years. During that same period of time carbon dioxide increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the added carbon dioxide contributed absolutely nothing to infrared absorption by the atmosphere. No absorption, no grrenhouse effect, case closed. Which explains neatly why satellites cannot detect that AGW. And what about that sensitivity of carbon dioxide to doubling its concentration? We now know that it is exactly zero. To learn more true climate science read my book.

By Cedric Katesby (Seoul, South Korea)
on August 28th, 2011

Consider Naomi Oreskes who went through over 900 abstracts of climate papers and could not find even one opposed to anthropogenic global warming. For her this proved consensus when in fact it shows how effectively opposing views are kept out.

Wow. Just…wow.

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