Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
Jerry Garcia (via Michael Tobis)
This is a blog about climate change. It’s mostly going to be science here, but I will write about anything that takes my interest, including the economic, political and psychological aspects of climate change.
I am a recently retired geophysical consultant who has worked for many years in oil and gas exploration, mainly in reflection seismology, hence the title of this blog. After spending many years working to locate hydrocarbons in the subsurface, I was rather late to appreciate how much harder we will have to work to keep additional carbon out of the atmosphere and oceans. I have previously written about my two-stage change of mind on man-made global warming. I live on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada.
Most of my writing has been previously posted at Skeptical Science and I will continue to contribute to that excellent project. Critical Angle is a place to assemble my contributions at Skeptical Science and other publications, along with some additional posts that don’t fit anywhere else.
My whole career has been as an applied scientist and I have contributed to a handful of research articles, mostly on tectonics and structural geology. But I am not a climate scientist, so don’t take anything I say as fact without first checking my sources. Although I have worked at senior levels in oil companies in many different roles around the world, I am not an expert on energy economics, either.
My last full-time job, about ten years ago, was as Vice-President, New Ventures for EnCana Corporation, in Ecuador. My task was to find oil to fill a new heavy-oil pipeline that we had built from the Amazon rainforest to the Pacific Ocean. Now I find myself protesting the building of new heavy-oil pipelines from the Canadian Boreal forest to the Pacific Ocean. Reading science papers can change a person.
I welcome feedback, but on any articles recently published at Skeptical Science, I would urge anyone to comment there; your comment will be more widely read and there’s a much better chance of getting a reply there should you have questions. I encourage criticism, but I won’t approve any comments that are abusive or irrelevant.
Thank you for reading!
Andy Skuce
The header photo is cropped from this picture of Mount Prevost, near Duncan, British Columbia, taken by me at sunset in late summer.
My mugshot was taken by the excellent Jen Holmes.
Critical Angle 
Hi Andy, found your blog through your comment on SkS website. I agree that the Cowton and Way have hit the nail on the head with their paper – I’ve been arguing all year that HadCrut4 was underreporting the arctic temperature increases (tho’ it was a small step uo from HadCRUT3 in that regard) and this new paper nicely captures my arguments!
Good to hear from you Roland!
Greetings from AnOilMan or fellow oil man..
Drop me a line some time.
I welcome feedback, but I will be disabling comments here on any articles recently published at Skeptical Science and I would urge anyone to comment there; your comment will be more widely read and there’s a much better chance of getting a reply there should you have questions.
Then it would be nice if you could add a link to SkS at the end of these posts for people that want to make a comment.
I usually try to leave a link to the corresponding SkS article at the end of those reposts. But I may have missed some. I will check.
I guess the problem for your last post is that it is not posted yet at SkS. At least I could not find it.
The problem was that I had forgotten to turn comments on for the latest post. Now fixed. Apologies.
Hi, I am watching your contributions to Denial 101x. Thanks for those, which have me thinking. Also, respect for your change of heart.
Thanks!
Hi Andy,
I tried to link to your latest post from HotWhopper, but I can’t seem to get to the post.
https://critical-angle.net/2016/01/23/on-corrections-misties-and-anomalies/
Sorry, Ken.
I accidentally hit the “publish” button before I had finished the post. It’s up now.
Just discovered your blog. Thanks for you timely contributions.
Someone should advise this ‘do-gooder’ that Skeptical Science is JUNK Science!
Nonsense!
Skeptical Science relies on referenced, peer-reviewed science. Please provide examples of “junk science” published there that have gone uncorrected. Otherwise, that’s just an unsubstantiated slur.
I don’t claim to be a “do-gooder”. My historic and current carbon footprint is certainly much higher than most of humanity’s. Surely, you would agree that we can all strive to make the world a better place, even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on priorities and policies.
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