Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:53, 9 April 2020

Judith A. Curry
Nationality	American
Education	B.Sc. in geography, Ph.D. in geophysical sciences
Alma mater	Northern Illinois University, (B.Sc., 1974) University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1982)
Occupation	Climatologist
Employer(s)	School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
Scientific career
Thesis	The formation of continental polar air (1982)
Website	Curry's home page – Curry's blog

Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her 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. After publishing over a hundred scientific papers and co-editing several major works, Curry retired from academia in 2017.

Curry has become known as a contrarian scientist hosting a blog which is part of the climate change denial blogosphere. Her position has been described as neo-skepticism; while not denying anthropogenic global warming, she proposes that the rate of warming is slower than climate models have projected, raises issues of uncertainty, and has questioned whether climate change mitigation is affordable, a position which has been described as "denying the severity of possible consequences to society". Since 2009, she has emphasised uncertainty as casting doubt on the need for action on climate change. She describes her blog as "a forum for climate researchers, academics and technical experts from other fields, citizen scientists, and the interested public" to discuss climatology and its interface with policy, and in her 2019 paper titled "Climate Change: What’s the Worst Case?" she stated that, for that paper, she would not “bother with” peer-reviewed journals, in favor of publishing it on her website so that she could editorialize and write what she wanted “without worrying about the norms and agendas of the ‘establishment.’”

Education

Curry graduated cum laude from Northern Illinois University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Geography. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982.

Career

Curry is a Professor Emerita and former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; she held the latter position from 2002 to 2013. Curry retired from her university position in 2017, describing part of her reason for leaving academia was what she described as "anti-skeptic bias", which she described at the time as the "craziness" of the political nature of climate science. Curry serves on NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee whose mission is to provide advice and recommendations to NASA on issues of program priorities and policy. She was a member of the NOAA Climate Working Group from 2004-2009, a member of the National Academies Space Studies Board from 2004-2007, and a member of the National Academies Climate Research Group from 2003-2006.

Before moving to Georgia, Curry was professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and had previosuly held faculty positions at Penn State University, Purdue, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Curry has been active in researching possible connections between hurricane intensity and global warming. Her research group has also done research linking the size of hurricanes and resulting damage that showed that, among other things, the size of the hurricanes was an important factor in determining the number of tornadoes spawned by the system. Among her awards is the Henry G. Houghton Research Award from the American Meteorological Society in 1992, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1988.

After leaving academia, Curry shifted to running the Climate Forecast Applications Network, a climate-risk consulting company whose clients include federal agencies, insurance companies, and energy companies.

Climate change

Judith Curry has argued that climatologists should be more accommodating of those skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change. Curry stated in 2009 that she felt troubled by what she called the "tribal nature" of parts of the climate-science community and what she saw as stonewalling over the release of data and its analysis for independent review.

In his 2010 profile on Curry, Michael Lemonick notes that, though Curry does not dispute the science produced by the IPCC (e.g. that the planet is warming, that human greenhouse gas emissions are largely to blame, or that the worst-case scenario could be catastrophic), she has major critiques of the IPCC as an organization. She said that she "does not have confidence in the process" due to the use of non-peer-reviewed papers, the appointment of unsuitable representatives to high-status positions, and based on her personal experience on the panel. She also critiques the scientific community's use of uncertainties, describing how her engagement with the climate skeptic blogging community led her to revise how she viewed the uncertainties involved in climate modeling. Lemonick describes these views as unusual in the scientific community in terms of content as well as unusual in how Curry chose to publicize them on climate skeptics' blogs.

Between 2014 and February 2019, Curry testified before at least six Republican-led House committees, expressing the idea that the dangers of global warming are overstated and difficult to predict. These testimonies include statements criticizing President Obama’s climate plan, the UN climate action plan, and other policy proposals aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In her testimony before the Natural Resources Committee on February 6, 2019, Curry stated that, “Man-made climate change is not an existential threat in the 21st century.... The perception of a near-term apocalypse has narrowed the policy options.”

Publications

Curry is the co-author of Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans (1999), and co-editor of Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (2002). Curry has published over 130 scientific peer reviewed papers.

In February 2010 Curry published an essay called "On the Credibility of Climate Change, Towards Rebuilding Trust" on Watts Up With That? and other blogs. Writing in The New York Times, Andrew Revkin calls the essay a message to young scientists who may have been disheartened by the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit email controversy.

Journalist Julie Kelly of the National Review notes that Curry echoes and supports the perspective of Scott Pruitt, EPA administrator at the time, regarding skepticism about the sensitivity of climate change to carbon dioxide levels, as well as the extent to which climate change is human-caused, in her 2017 report "Climate Models for the Layman." This report critiques the role of climate models in policy-making. In an email exchange with Kelly, Dr. Curry endorses Pruitt's perspectives on the uncertainty in climate change.

In November 2018, Curry submitted for publication a report on sea level rise titled Sea Level and Climate Change in which she argues against the scientific community's consensus, presenting her case that sea level rise has been a "slow creep" over the last 150 years and has been unaffected by anthropogenic climate change. Though these arguments place her outside the academic consensus, Curry said that her findings were compatible with those presented by the International Panel on Climate Change. An Associated Press article suggested that Curry's arguments could dampen moves by cities and municipalities to start lawsuits against oil-and-gas companies seeking recompense for anticipated future damage due to sea level rise.

Influence

Some political figures have used Curry's statements and writings in their arguments. For instance, when Christopher Shank, a politician and President Trump's first appointment to the NASA transition team, questioned the role of humans in climate change, Shank referred to Curry's work and her site's URL repeatedly in his testimony.

See also

• All models are wrong
• Scientific consensus on climate change

References

1. National Research Council. Review of the U.S. CLIVAR Project Office. Committee to Review the U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Project Office, National Academies Press, 2004, p. 35.
2. Waldman, Scott (2017-01-04). "Judith Curry retires, citing 'craziness' of climate science". ClimateWire. Environment & Energy Publishing. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
3. Riley E. Dunlap; Robert J. Brulle (2015). Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 317–318. ISBN 978-0-19-935611-9. (pdf)
4. "Reconceptualizing Climate Change Denial: Ideological Denialism Misdiagnoses Climate Change and Limits Effective Action". Human Ecology Review. 25 (2). ANU Press: 123–124. 19 December 2019. doi:10.22459/her.25.02.2019. ISSN 1074-4827.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
5. Harris, Richard. "'Uncertain' Science: Judith Curry's Take On Climate Change". NPR. Retrieved 2020-04-04. She says there's so much uncertainty about the role of natural variation in the climate that she doesn't know what's going to happen. She says a catastrophe is possible, but warming could also turn out to be not such a big deal.
6. About Climate Etc.
7. Curry, Judith (August 22, 2019). "Climate Change: What's the Worst Case?". judithcurry.com. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
8. ^ "Judith A. Curry CV" (PDF). Congress. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
9. Judith Curry (25 August 2010). "About". Climate Etc. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
10. ^ Niiler, Eric (7 February 2019). "Finally! Climate Science Returns to Capitol Hill". Wired. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
11. ^ Richardson, Valerie (27 December 2018). "Judith Curry sea-level study disputes climate-disaster predictions". AP NEWS. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
12. See, for example:
    • Curry, J.A.; Webster, P.J.; Holland, G.J. (2006), "Mixing Politics and Science in Testing the Hypothesis That Greenhouse Warming Is Causing a Global Increase in Hurricane Intensity" (PDF), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87 (8): 1025–1037, Bibcode:2006BAMS...87.1025C, doi:10.1175/BAMS-87-8-1025
    • Webster PJ, Holland GJ, Curry JA, Chang HR (September 2005). "Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment". Science. 309 (5742): 1844–6. Bibcode:2005Sci...309.1844W. doi:10.1126/science.1116448. PMID 16166514.
13. "Refereed Papers". www.curry.eas.gatech.edu. Retrieved 24 April 2010.
14. "Hurricanes Spawning More U.S. Tornadoes". Live Science. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
15. ^ "Hurricanes and Global Warming: The Science, Technologies, and Politics". NASA Researcher News. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
16. ^ Revkin, Andrew (November 27, 2009). "A Climate Scientist Who Engages Skeptics". New York Times. Retrieved 24 April 2010.
17. Lemonick, Michael D. (2010-11-01). "Climate heretic: Judith Curry turns on her colleagues". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.577. ISSN 1476-4687.
18. Curry, Judith A.; Webster, Peter J. (1999). Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. San Diego, California: Academic Press, a division of Harcourt Brace & Company. ISBN 978-0-12-199570-6.
19. Holton, James R.; Curry, Judith A.; Pyle, John A., eds. (2002). Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences. Academic Press, a division of Harcourt Brace & Company. ISBN 978-0-12-227090-1.
20. Turner, Amy. "Richard Dawkins' pro-am clash in the boffins’ blogosphere", The Times, February 28, 2010.
21. ^ Kelly, Julie (13 March 2017). "Scott Pruitt's Opening Salvo". National Review. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
22. Curry, Judith (2017). "Climate Models for the Layman" (PDF). Global Warming Policy Foundation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
23. Brown, Alleen (1 December 2016). "Global Warming Research in Danger as Trump Appoints Climate Skeptic to NASA Team". The Intercept. Retrieved 28 February 2020.

External links

• Email interview of Judith Curry by Keith Kloor, April 23, 2010. Curry also responds to questions in the comments thread (scroll down).
• Interview of Judith Curry at Oilprice.com, Feb 27, 2012.
• Study: Less Arctic ice means more U.S. snow, Feb 27, 2012. (doi:10.1073/pnas.1003336107)

General-interest articles by Curry

• "State of the Climate Debate", Judith Curry presentation at the National Press Club, Sept. 2014, includes slideshow (pdf) and video
• Opinion: Can scientists rebuild the public trust in climate science? at Physics Today, February 24, 2010
• Curry's open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research at Joseph Romm's "Climate Progress", November 27, 2009.
• Curry: On the credibility of climate research at Climate Audit, Nov 22, 2009
• Earlier climate policy articles by Curry, 2003–2008

Books by Curry

• Curry, Judith A.; Webster, Peter J. (1999). Thermodynamics of atmospheres and oceans. ISBN 9780121995706., by Judith A. Curry & Peter J. Webster
• FIRE Arctic clouds experiment. 2001., by Judith A. Curry
• Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and Microphysics of Clouds. Cambridge University Press. 2014. p. 782. ISBN 9781107016033.
• Encyclopedia of atmospheric sciences, Volume 3. Academic Press. 2003. p. 2780. ISBN 9780122270901.

• Living people
• American climatologists
• Women climatologists
• Climate change denial
• Georgia Tech faculty
• Northern Illinois University alumni
• Women earth scientists
• American women scientists
• University of Chicago alumni
• Environmental skepticism