Curry, part 4

At last! I have a chance to be nice to Curry, which I’ve been waiting for. This opportunity is her comment reply to my comment question over at c-a-s, viz:

I find the main text of the WG1 Report to be an accurate assessment of the science. The problem that I have with the WG1 Report is the summary narratives (executive summary, summary for policy makers) where all this is integrated and summarized. My main issue with the WG1 report is that I think that many of confidence levels are too high: there is inadequate scientific uncertainty analysis, and lack of accounting for known unknowns and unknown unknowns. I have substantial issues with the WG2 report and the impacts.

So what does all this add up to? A moderate warmist that sees very large uncertainty with regards to hypothesized catastrophic impacts

Regarding your list of skeptics on the wikipedia (ed: I’d pointed her at [[List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming]]): I don’t align myself with any of them, but some of their statements cannot be refuted with a high level of certainty and there are other skeptical points that are not covered on your list.

So I think there are a lot of important things in there, and it helps to understand Curry’s position. Just to ram home a point I’ve made elsewhere in relation to another comment she made, I find the main text of the WG1 Report to be an accurate assessment of the science is not a comment you’ll find the septics making. As to her assertion that the confidence levels are too high: I don’t have a strong opinion on this. She might be right; likely she is wrong. There is room for debate. The problem comes with how you phrase that kind of comment; wrapped up in loaded words like “corruption” is becomes unhelpful. As for WG2, I sort-of used to agree with her, but people have slightly taken me to task for dissing WG2 so I’m not so sure any more (is that kind of woolly enough for you?). That she thinks that “catastrophic impacts” are uncertain is fine with me. I’m also very happy with her characterisation of the wiki list.