Month: April 2016

by Judith Curry

We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend. – Zhu et al.

by Nic Lewis

An update to the calculations in Lewis and Curry (2014).

In the past few weeks, I’ve been re-examining the long-standing dispute over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere.  My interest was prompted in part by Gavin Schmidt’s recent attack on a graphic used by John Christy in numerous presentations (see recent discussion here by Judy Curry).   Schmidt made the sort of offensive allegations that he makes far too often:

@curryja use of Christy’s misleading graph instead is the sign of partisan not a scientist. YMMV. tweet;

@curryja Hey, if you think it’s fine to hide uncertainties, error bars & exaggerate differences to make political points, go right ahead.  tweet.

As a result, Curry decided not to use Christy’s graphic in her recent presentation to a congressional committee.  In today’s post, I’ll examine the validity (or lack) of Schmidt’s critique.

Schmidt’s primary dispute, as best as I can understand it, was about…

by Judith Curry

In our view, the fact that so many scientists agree so closely about the [causes of the] earth’s warming is, itself, evidence of a lack of evidence for [human caused] global warming. – D. Ryan Brumberg and Matthew Brumberg

Yale University’s Katherine Bagley interviewed James Hansen, former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the post For James Hansen, the Science Demands Activism on Climate at YaleEnvironment360.  That interview was replayed in the article Climate scientist James Hansen ‘I don’t think I’m an alarmist’ at The Guardian.

In that interview, Hansen admitted a couple of basic things that many people do not realize.  So if you’re new to discussions of global warming and rising sea levels read on.