Where's the beef, Curry?

.....





What, after a title like that, you expect some content too? Oh, ok then. Here goes.

This post was supposed to be a response to Curry's much-awaited attempt to resuscitate her "Italian Flag". She first said she'd write something on Tuesday, then it became Friday, now it is promised for some time over the weekend. Maybe.

It seems she is far too busy to deal with this minor issue (which underpins, or rather undermines, every quantitative statement she has made regarding the purported failings of the IPCC analysis). Too busy throwing up increasingly hysterical blogorrhea about the "high priests of the IPCC". One of her recent gems is to use the fact that some headline-writer used the term "heretic" to describe her (which she is clearly thrilled by) as evidence that the IPCC is dogma-ridden. Because the definition of heresy is opposition to dogma. When faced with such incisive logic, what can we do but bow down before her genius? Well, "point and laugh" springs to mind too.

She is even recycling the Santer thing. She doesn't seem to realise that (as Jonathan Gilligan points out) this story is ancient discredited history and her attempts to bring it up again only show how completely vacuous her position is.

Back to the flag, or should I call it a shroud, as its only value seems to be in wrapping the corpse of her case. She seems to think that replying to our criticisms (me and me again echoing mt) is beneath her, as we are only insignificant people well off her radar and she really wants to attract the attention of those with "stature" such as Gavin Schmidt and Joe Romm. Well, the topic of of probability in climate change is very much my turf, and the fact that she doesn't seem to realise that reflects rather more on her (complete lack of) engagement and understanding with the field, than it does on me. Don't take my word for it, let Google Scholar be your guide, here and here. Yeah, I know I'm not really a major player in the great scheme of things, but compared to her I am (on this topic). My apologies if providing actual evidence frightens those who prefer the new style of content-free verbiage.

She's really building up quite a history of throwing up vague or demonstrably wrong claims, then running away when shown to be wrong. Here on the no-feedback climate sensitivity, for example. Gryposaurus took her to task here on aerosols and D&A (based partly on comments from Gavin) and found her response lacking. Here is Eric Steig refuting her absurd claim about the IPCC that "they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC." Her eventual response (which had to be dragged out of her through repeated challenges that she kept on ducking) was merely to dismiss it as an "anecdote", even though one single case serves to refutes her claim. Well, I don't think I got quite such a rapturous response as Eric did, with my attempts to improve the AR4 drafts, but I certainly didn't get trampled and discredited either - merely made to feel mildly unwelcome, which I find tends to happen when I criticise people outside the IPCC too. But they did change the report in various ways. While I'm not an unalloyed fan of the IPCC process, my experience is not what she describes it as. So make that two anecdotes. Maybe I'm an "insider" too, in her book :-) If she ever deigns to address the substantive point on probability, maybe she can let me know, but I'm not holding my breath. Her main tactic seems to be throwing up layers upon layers of an increasing shaky edifice as quickly as possible hoping that no-one will notice that the foundations are collapsing as quickly as people can read.

Silver lining: even Keith Kloor seems to be getting frustrated with her (eg here and his other comments on that post).

Update 7 Oct: Might as well add another classic Curry failure to come up with any content on this thread here culled from RC, where she starts off by puffing the Montford Delusion book and when "her" points are demolished, promptly disowns them as not really her opinions at all, just something she read somewhere. And here is the car-crash that is her promotion of Wegman that she rapidly backtracks from. I'm sure there are more. To be honest it's a bit of a pain tracking these various conversations across several blogs comment threads with low signal-to-noise, which is partly why I'm not joining in with them much.