Posted on 22 June 2014 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

John Cook's An externally-valid approach to consensus messaging garnered the highest number of comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. The article is a summary of a guest article, An "externally-valid" approach to consensus messaging that was posted on the website, The Cultural Cognition Project at the Yale Law School. [For more information obout this project, see the SkS Spotlights section below.] 

Transformational Climate Science at Exeter University by Jim Hunt received the second highest number of comments. 

El Niño Watch

• Atmosphere May Be Getting in Gear for El Niño by Andrea Thompson, Climate Central, June 20, 2014
• El Nino may cause weak monsoon & high prices; poses serious challenge to Modi government, by Avinash Celestine, The Economic Times (India),  June 22, 2014
• El Nino's return could change everything by Kiyoshi Ando, Nikkei Asian Review, June 15, 2014 

Toon of the Week

h/t to An Inconvenient Truth

Quote of the Week

"Nineteenth century water law is meeting 20th century infrastructure and 21st century climate change," says Bradley Udall, a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Law School, "and it leads to a nonsensical outcome."

Water war bubbling up between California and Arizona by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2014

SkS in the News

Adam Corner's Guardian blog post, Who cares about climate change consensus? addresses the brouhaharaised by the climate denier crowd over the merits of Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, Cook et al, 2013, Environmental Research Letters.

SkS Spotlights

The Cultural Cognition Project (at Yale Law School) is a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact (e.g., whether global warming is a serious threat; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less) to values that define their cultural identities. Project members are using the methods of various disciplines — including social psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science — to chart the impact of this phenomenon and to identify the mechanisms through which it operates. The Project also has an explicit normative objective: to identify processes of democratic decisionmaking by which society can resolve culturally grounded differences in belief in a manner that is both congenial to persons of diverse cultural outlooks and consistent with sound public policymaking.

Poster of the Week

h/t to Forecast the Facts and I Heart Climate Scientists.

SkS Week in Review

• 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B by John Hartz
• An externally-valid approach to consensus messaging by John Cook
• How will El Niño impact weather patterns? Dr. Doug Gillham
• 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25A by John Hartz
• Kerry Emanuel and What We Know About Climate by greenman 3610
• Transformational Climate Science at Exeter University by Jim Hunt 

Coming Soon on SkS

• New study improves measurements of the warming oceans (John Abraham)
• This is why we care about the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming (Dana)
• Skeptical Science authors reveal flaws in global warming attribution study (MarkR)
• State Department conference on the importance of oceans and climate (Sarah)
• Summer reading for the climate crowd (Guest post)

Mother Nature Always Bats Last!

• California Drought: Snowmelt's path shows impact from Sierra to Pacific Lisa Krieger, San jose Mercury News, June 21, 2014
• El Nino may cause weak monsoon & high prices; poses serious challenge to Modi government, by Avinash Celestine, The Economic Times (India), June 22, 2014
• Rainstorms, floods plunge China into emergency response, China Daily, June 21, 2014
• 'Second punch' of ocean acidification threatens Lowcountry by Bo Peterson, The Post & Courier (Chaleston, SC), June 22, 2014