Episode 158: Judith Curry talks about the uncertainties of climate change

Today we have climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, Professor Emerita of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Judy also is president of the Climate Forecast Application Network and the host of the blog, Climate Etc, which you can find at JudithCurry.com. Judy’s blog provides  a forum for climate researchers, academics and technical experts from other fields as well as citizen scientists to discuss topics related to climate science and policy.

Judy’s research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, climate models, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She was a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee, and has published more than 180 scientific papers.

Judy has become known in scientific circles as a contrarian for pointing out the uncertainties and deficiencies of climate modeling. In 2017, she resigned from her tenured position at Georgia Tech partly because of the poisonous nature of the scientific discussion around human-caused global warming.

Our interview with Judy follows the release of her book “Climate Change and Uncertainty: Rethinking our Response.” The book provides a framework for understanding and rethinking the climate-change debate. The book also offers a new way to think about climate change and the risks we are facing as well as the way we go about responding to it.

Show notes:

[00:03:44] To start the interview, Morley asks Judy what she was like as a kid.

[00:04:08] Morley says he understands that Judy’s interest in science had a lot to do with a geologist who came to speak to Judy and her fifth-grade classmates.

[00:05:06] Morley asks if it is true that directly after that talk, Judy went to the bookstore and bought a geology picture book.

[00:05:39] Judy talks about her undergraduate education at Northern Illinois University and why she decided to major in geography.

[00:06:08] Morley asks about Judy’s brief time at Colorado State University, which lasted just one quarter.

[00:06:45] Morley mentions that for Judy’s Ph.D. thesis at the University of Chicago, she decided to research the role of radiative transfer on arctic weather. Morley asks if her decision to study the arctic atmosphere and sea ice turned out to be fortuitous.

[00:07:35] Ken brings up the media consensus of the ‘70s and ‘80s about how the Earth was headed toward a new ice age because of air pollution blocking the sun. Ken mentions that climate is an incredibly complex system. He wonders if it were irresponsible for the media to proclaim certainty on such topics as a new approaching ice age, which we now know didn’t happen.  Ken asks Judy to weigh in.

[00:10:48] Morley asks about a 1997 arctic expedition that Judy and her colleagues went on called SHEBA, or Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean, which aimed to document feedback among the atmosphere, sea ice, and the ocean. Judy talks about how the expedition sought to address discrepancies between observations and climate models.

[00:12:14] Ken explains that the hurricane season of 2004 was a pivotal time, with 14 named storms in the North Atlantic, nine of which became hurricanes. Ken asks Judy about the influence that hurricane season had on her.

[00:14:21] Ken mentions that a hurricane paper Judy published in 2005 attracted a lot of attention, with numerous fellow climatologists as well as the media championing her analysis that showed a doubling of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes since 1970. Ken goes on to note, however, that there were also some scathing critiques of her paper, particularly with respect to the hurricane data that the analysis relied on. Ken asks Judy to talk about how she engaged with her critics and what transpired.

[00:16:42] Morley asks Judy about how she became a vocal supporter of the IPCC and the concerns it was raising following the 2004 hurricane season.