Dr. Judith Curry and Dr. Jordan Peterson: The Predictions Are Wrong

The video by Jordan Peterson is about Dr. Judith Curry, an American climatologist, discussing her professional qualifications and her views on climate change. She advocates for a non-alarmist approach to climate change, acknowledging the rising temperature but refusing to shut the doors of science to those with contrary views and findings. She is a controversial figure on the climate front, being somewhat of a contrarian with regard to the hypothetical scientific consensus on the climate apocalypse.

This video by Jordan B Peterson was published on Feb 6, 2023.
Video length: 01:34:03.

The video is about Dr. Judith Curry, an American climatologist, discussing her professional qualifications and her views on climate change.

She received her PhD in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago and has worked at several universities throughout her career. She is a fellow of several professional societies and has published numerous journal articles. She is also the president of a private company that translates cutting-edge weather and climate research into tenable forecast products. Dr. Curry is a controversial figure on the climate front, being somewhat of a contrarian with regard to the hypothetical scientific consensus on the climate apocalypse.

She believes that the predictions about the dire consequences of climate change are wrong and that the focus should be on adapting to the changes rather than trying to prevent them.

• The video is from the YouTube channel of Jordan Peterson.
• The video is an interview with Dr. Judith Curry, an American climatologist.
• Dr. Curry advocates for a non-alarmist approach to climate change.
• She believes that the focus on climate change has been misplaced and that other issues, such as poverty and inequality, should be given more attention.
• Dr. Curry's views on climate change have been criticized for being misinformed and not based on scientific evidence.
• She has been accused of downplaying the severity of climate change and its potential impacts on the planet.
• Her approach to climate change has been described as dismissive of the concerns of scientists and activists.
• Her views have been criticized for being politically motivated and not based on sound scientific principles.
• Dr. Curry's early career was marked by her support for a more dire view of climate change.

The Predictions Are Wrong | Dr. Judith Curry | EP 329 - YouTube

Section 1: The Video's Description

• The video is from the YouTube channel of Jordan Peterson.
• The video is an interview with Dr. Judith Curry, an American climatologist.
• The video discusses Dr. Curry's views on climate change and her approach to the topic.
• The video is controversial and has received criticism for its content.

Section 2: Dr. Curry's Professional Qualifications

• Dr. Curry received her PhD in geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago.
• She has spent her entire career in academia, with jobs at several universities.
• She served as chair of the school of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 13 years.
• She has written several books and published over 190 journal articles.
• She is a fellow of several major professional societies.

Section 3: Dr. Curry's Views on Climate Change

• Dr. Curry advocates for a non-alarmist approach to climate change.
• She acknowledges the rising temperature but refuses to shut the doors of science to those with contrary views and findings.
• She is a controversial figure on the climate front, being somewhat of a contrarian with regard to the hypothetical scientific consensus on the climate apocalypse.
• She believes that the focus on climate change has been misplaced and that other issues, such as poverty and inequality, should be given more attention.

The Predictions Are Wrong | Dr. Judith Curry | EP 329 - YouTube

Section 4: Criticism of Dr. Curry's Views

• Dr. Curry's views on climate change have been criticized for being misinformed and not based on scientific evidence.
• She has been accused of downplaying the severity of climate change and its potential impacts on the planet.
• Her approach to climate change has been described as dismissive of the concerns of scientists and activists.
• Her views have been criticized for being politically motivated and not based on sound scientific principles.

Background

• Dr. Judith Curry is an American climatologist who started devoting full time to climate science after leaving academia.
• She gained media attention in 2005 when she and her co-authors published a paper in the Journal of Science that found the percentage of category four and five hurricanes had doubled in recent decades.
• This was followed by a controversial public debate on the global warming issue, with environmental advocacy groups and other scientists holding opposing views.

Media Attention

• Dr. Curry's first TV interviews were highly antagonistic, with people coming at her from all sides of the debate.
• She started giving public lectures and answering questions outside of her expertise or knowledge, such as about the hockey stick or the sun's role in global warming.

Settling Down

• The hurricane and global warming issues eventually settled down a little bit after the release of emails from the University of East Anglia in November 2009.
• This scandal, known as "ClimateGate," exposed IPCC authors hiding the decline and using "Mike's Nature Trick" to manipulate data.

Controversial Step

• Dr. Curry took a controversial step by saying that the scientific community needed to be more transparent and make their data publicly available.
• She also advocated for paying more attention to uncertainty and being more honest about the level of confidence in scientific claims.

Backlash

• The people within the climate community were very angry at Dr. Curry for her comments.
• She was accused of being insensitive to the feelings of scientists involved in the hurricane and global warming wars.

Dr. Judith Curry's Views on Climate Change

• Dr. Judith Curry is a controversial figure on the climate front, advocating for a non-alarmist approach to climate change.
• She acknowledges the rising temperature but refuses to shut the doors of science to those with contrary views and findings.
• She believes that scientists should listen to skeptics and keep politics out of science to the extent possible.
• She objects to the behavior of scientists who violate the norms of science, such as playing fast and loose with guidelines and evading Freedom of Information Act requests.
• She believes that the response to the climate apocalypse should not involve all is fair in love and war, but rather should adhere to the science-politics distinction.

Dr. Curry's Early Career and Views

• Dr. Curry's early career was marked by her support for a more dire view of climate change, making the claim that severe hurricanes had increased in frequency.
• She now believes that the literature on this topic is still not clear, and that there were substantial doubts about the claim that severe hurricanes had increased in frequency.
• She believes that the problem with the climate apocalypse is that it is difficult to define time frames for trends towards cooling or warming, or increased or decreased variability.
• She wrote a paper called "climate change and the uncertainty monster" in 2010, which launched her blog and focused on the uncertainty surrounding climate change.
• Within the climate science community, Dr. Curry was viewed as trying to destroy a consensus that had been built for 20 years.

Dr. Curry's Blog and Views

• Dr. Curry's blog, climateetc.com, is a platform for her views on climate change and related topics.
• She believes that the idea that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is a severe and catastrophic problem is not clear, and that the consensus is on very flimsy ground.
• She believes that the manufactured consensus on climate change is on very flimsy ground and that there is a need for a more serious look at uncertainty.
• She believes that the idea that climate change is a severe and catastrophic problem is not clear, and that the consensus is on very flimsy ground.
• She believes that the idea that climate change is a severe and catastrophic problem is not clear, and that the consensus is on very flimsy ground.

The IPCC and Consensus

• The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was established in 1991 to assess the science related to climate change.
• The IPCC's first assessment report in 1991 was considered a good assessment at the time.
• The IPCC's view of how the policy process deals with uncertainty was to strive for consensus in statements.
• The IPCC formalized this approach in its assessment reports.
• The IPCC's consensus is that most of the warming seen since 1950 is caused by humans.

Scientific Consensus

• The idea of consensus is scientifically meaningless in a complex, highly uncertain situation like climate change.
• The probability that a study's data will reveal the consensus of a lab's theory is basically zero.
• The idea that science is consensus-based is wrong.
• The probability that a study's data will reveal the consensus of a lab's theory is basically zero.
• The idea that science is consensus-based is wrong.

Social Factors

• The UN's drive to deal with human-caused climate change in 1992 was a significant social factor.
• Scientists became invested in the idea of climate change and its impact on their careers and funding.
• There was a social contract between scientists and policy makers that perpetuated the situation.
• The IPCC documents themselves or even that radical I mean my understanding of the IPCC doc C documents is that the projection is something like one to two degrees of further warming with some increase in variability especially in the polar regions and a small degree of sea level rise.
• There is no indication in the IPCC reports that this will produce a runaway out of control feedback loop that will have a devastating consequence.

Apocalypse Vision

• The IPCC's projection is not quite correct.
• There is no real vision of apocalypse in the IPCC reports.

The Predictions Are Wrong

• The projections of extreme weather events and sea level rise were tied to an extreme emission scenario.
• The extreme emission scenario was still the most widely used in the 2018 IPCC assessment report.
• The excessively alarming projections of what could happen in the 21st century were mostly driven by implausible to impossible emission scenarios and climate models that are running too hot.
• The models are based on cells, which means that the whole earth cannot be modeled, and they have to be clumped into chunks.
• The models have a lot of potential for error, and that error is magnified as you project out into the future.

Problems with Climate Models

• The models are based on cells, which means that the whole earth cannot be modeled, and they have to be clumped into chunks.
• The models have a lot of potential for error, and that error is magnified as you project out into the future.
• The models have difficulty modeling cloud activity, and there is a lot of error in relationship to projecting and forecasting the effect of water vapor.
• The models have to build a lot of assumptions in, which means that they have very large potential for error.
• The net result of these uncertainties in water vapor and cloud feedback is that we don't know how sensitive the climate is to increasing CO2.

Cloud Feedback and Water Vapor

• Clouds have a huge impact on the climate, but they are not modeled very well.
• The observational basis for understanding how clouds are trending only goes back a few decades.
• The cloud feedback might even be negative, which is something that is hotly debated.
• Water vapor does overall amplify the warming, but in the tropics, where Richard Lynson has done his research, there is a negative feedback.
• The oceans and the Sun are the biggest sources of uncertainty in terms of understanding what's going on and being able to project into the future.

Conclusion

• The projections of extreme weather events and sea level rise were tied to an extreme emission scenario.
• The excessively alarming projections of what could happen in the 21st century were mostly driven by implausible to impossible emission scenarios and climate models that are running too hot.
• The models are based on cells, which means that the whole earth cannot be modeled, and they have to be clumped into chunks.
• The models have a lot of potential for error, and that error is magnified as you project out into the future.
• The net result of these uncertainties in water vapor and cloud feedback is that we don't know how sensitive the climate is to increasing CO2.

Natural Internal Variability

• Natural internal variability refers to decadal and multi-decadal oscillations that change the patterns of clouds, sea surface temperature, snowfall on Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
• These ocean circulations are on a spectrum from ten thousand years and influence the climate.
• The models don't treat these very well, and there is a whole spectrum of these ocean circulations that are not well understood.
• The uncertainty in these large-scale circulations affects the accuracy of climate models.
• The vertical transport of heat and carbon in the ocean is also a source of uncertainty in climate models.

Solar Forcing

• The IPCC has dismissed the role of the sun in the last 150 years, but the uncertainty in the amount of solar forcing in the late 20th century was acknowledged in the six assessment report.
• The uncertainty in solar forcing arises from a gap in satellites measuring the sun output that occurred at the time of the Challenger shuttle disaster.
• The solar variability can be tuned to high or low variability depending on what was actually happening in the gap.
• The climate models are being run with low solar variability forcing, but this doesn't factor in the solar indirect effects.
• There are many uncertainties out there that affect the projections of what might happen in the 21st century and our interpretation of what's been going on with the climate for the last 100 years.

Climate Models

• Climate models don't treat the natural internal variability very well, and there is a whole spectrum of ocean circulations that are not well understood.
• The models have far too little power to make incredible predictions into the future.
• The uncertainty in these large-scale circulations affects the accuracy of climate models.
• The vertical transport of heat and carbon in the ocean is also a source of uncertainty in climate models.
• The climate models are being run with low solar variability forcing, but this doesn't factor in the solar indirect effects.

Solar Indirect Effects

• There are many uncertainties out there that affect the projections of what might happen in the 21st century and our interpretation of what's been going on with the climate for the last 100 years.
• The solar indirect effects, such as ultraviolet and Stratosphere, cosmic rays, and magnetic fields, are not factored into the climate models.
• These effects can have a significant impact on the climate and should be considered in climate models.
• The solar indirect effects are at the forefront of research, but they are not yet fully understood.
• The uncertainty in these effects affects the projections of what might happen in the 21st century and our interpretation of what's been going on with the climate for the last 100 years.

Conclusion

• The natural internal variability and solar forcing are important factors that affect the climate.
• The climate models don't treat these factors very well, and there is a whole spectrum of ocean circulations that are not well understood.
• The uncertainty in these factors affects the accuracy of climate models.
• The solar indirect effects are not factored into the climate models, and they can have a significant impact on the climate.
• The uncertainty in these effects affects the projections of what might happen in the 21st century and our interpretation of what's been going on with the climate for the last 100 years.

Section 1: The Predictions Are Wrong

• Dr. Judith Curry is a controversial figure on the climate front, advocating for a non-alarmist approach to climate change.
• She acknowledges the rising temperature but refuses to shut the doors of science to those with contrary views and findings.
• She believes that the potential consequence of anthropogenic activity, particularly the production of carbon dioxide, could be apocalyptic in 50 years or even 100 years down the road.
• She argues that it is incumbent upon us to take emergency action now to ameliorate the risk of apocalyptic transformation.
• She believes that the objections to her line of reasoning are just obstructionist hand-waving and that if one were moral and on board, they would see the seriousness of the issue.

Section 2: The Weakest Part of Their Argument

• The weakest part of their argument is whether all this is dangerous.
• The sea level rise, melting of ice caps, and extreme weather events are not associated with human cause global warming.
• Looking back, it is clear that the weather was much worse in the first half of the 20th century.
• The U.S. West is currently being assaulted by atmospheric River events, causing flooding.
• Paleoclimate evidence shows that worse weather events have happened in the past, so the time frame problem is a factor.

Section 3: Tipping Point Hypotheses

• The probability of a Tipping Point positive feedback loop in complex systems with many degrees of freedom is unlikely.
• A simple system with the probability of radical State change is more likely to encounter a Tipping Point.
• The melting of the Greenland ice ice caps because we hit a Tipping Point is an interesting idea.
• The West Antarctic ice sheet is an unstable ice sheet, and if it were taken away, the continent would be under water.
• Human cause global warming would play only a small part in this scenario.

Section 4: Conclusion

• Dr. Judith Curry advocates for a non-alarmist approach to climate change, acknowledging the rising temperature but refusing to shut the doors of science to those with contrary views and findings.
• She believes that the potential consequence of anthropogenic activity, particularly the production of carbon dioxide, could be apocalyptic in 50 years or even 100 years down the road.
• She argues that it is incumbent upon us to take emergency action now to ameliorate the risk of apocalyptic transformation.
• The weakest part of their argument is whether all this is dangerous, and looking back, it is clear that the weather was much worse in the first half of the 20th century.
• The U.S. West is currently being assaulted by atmospheric River events, causing flooding, and paleoclimate evidence shows that worse weather events have happened in the past, so the time frame problem is a factor.

Watch the video on YouTube:
The Predictions Are Wrong | Dr. Judith Curry | EP 329 - YouTube