Gauntlet Tossing

Judith Curry to Michael Mann

“Since you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being ‘anti-science,’ I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide.”

Robert Way

One of your major points:

“Lack of warming since 1998″
“the warming over the past 15 years is only ~0.05″

Is inconsistent with surface air temperature datasets that have more complete coverage of the Arctic (e.g. Cowtan and Way; GISS). We have done many more further tests which strengthen this result. If you believe that the rate of warming is only 0.05 then I ask that you prove it and provide your code and rationale for how you deal with the missing coverage areas. Remember leaving a region out treats it the same as the global average.

A second major point:

“Further, Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies”

Your statement (and the IPCC one you referenced) regarding the early century Arctic warming being of comparable magnitude to the recent Arctic warming is incorrect. Once again I ask that you provide the analysis to prove this erroneous statement. Myself and Kevin have already verified based on all available land, and land+ocean datasets even including the NansenSAT dataset that the IPCC referenced for this statement.

Tamino

I’ve recently done three blog posts about your senate testimony. In addition to offering my opinions, I have also taken the time to “(publicly) document and rebut” statements in your testimony that are “factually inaccurate or … not supported by the evidence” that you provide.

If you think my efforts are “dubious,” then I invite you to publicly support that contention. Be sure to provide scientific evidence, and rest assured that those (including me) who will place whatever you provide under the microscope will be far better prepared to evaluate it than members of a senate committee.

As for the legal case between Steyn and Mann, I suggest that the judge who will decide the case has at least as much reverence for our constitution’s free-speech guarantee, and a far better understading of the issues, than you and others who talk of “rather frightening implications of this case for free speech.” Or have you spent enough time on google and wikipedia to launch a “21st century democratization of expertise” when it comes to the law?

Eli

Prof. Curry, perhaps you would be kind enough to reconcile the claim in your written testimony that increasing Antarctic sea ice extent as reported in the AR5 WGI report weakens the case for attributing most of the warming to human influences can be reconciled with your 2010 PNAS paper, Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice the abstract of which reads:

The observed sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean shows a substantial warming trend for the second half of the 20th century. Associated with the warming, there has been an enhanced atmospheric hydrological cycle in the Southern Ocean that results in an increase of the Antarctic sea ice for the past three decades through the reduced upward ocean heat transport and increased snowfall. The simulated sea surface temperature variability from two global coupled climate models for the second half of the 20th century is dominated by natural internal variability associated with the Antarctic Oscillation, suggesting that the models’ internal variability is too strong, leading to a response to anthropogenic forcing that is too weak. With increased loading of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through the 21st century, the models show an accelerated warming in the Southern Ocean, and indicate that anthropogenic forcing exceeds natural internal variability. The increased heating from below (ocean) and above (atmosphere) and increased liquid precipitation associated with the enhanced hydrological cycle results in a projected decline of the Antarctic sea ice.

Good times.