OKL, had my supper and had my bath, but I had to get this off before going to bed.
The link that shows how wrong the simulations are is a deceit. It compares the predictions against measurements in particular levels of the atmosphere, and then says global warming has stopped. Satellite measurements of the earth and ocean surface temperatures tell a very different story. These measurements agree extremely well with the models.
Here is my reference. I have read yours, so I hope you will have the good grace to read mine too. This was just about the first thing I got when I googled "climate change models". I found the discussion about clouds most interesting, one of the hardest parts of climate modelling.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
Well, that article was a response to a previous article, and judging from the comments section below it, it's not held in that high regard. For instance:
Greg F at 13:34 PM on 11 September, 2007
Look at plate 1 in Hansen's 88 paper, the model includes the oceans. Hansen's Scenario C is the one that most closely matches the "Land – Ocean" temperature.
John Cook wrote:
"A way to test the accuracy of models is through hindcasting - see whether they successfully predict what has been observed over the past century."
Not true for any model. All that shows is they can fit the model to the history. That is beside the point as the IPCC does not claim that the models can predict anything.
John Cook wrote:
"The key point is that all the models fail to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels into account."
Given enough "tunable parameters" that should come as no surprise. The modelers also assume that there is some positive feedback, there is no proof that this is the case. Here is one for you straight from the IPCC, Chapter 8, page 596:
"The number of degrees of freedom in the tuneable parameters is less than the number of degrees of freedom in the observational constraints used in model evaluation."
IOW, the models are nothing more then sophisticated curve fits.
Calling the models "predictions" does not instill confidence that you have done your homework.
Or:
Will Nitschke (
www.capitaloffice.com.au) at 21:50 PM on 20 December, 2007
Leaving aside the silly notion that you can 'prove' a model's accuracy by checking it's fitting to the historical record--I mean honestly, you are aware that these models are tweaked *until* they fit the historical record, aren't you? The past is not the problem.
The Hansen forecast sounded impressive, so I looked over the paper and did some googling. There is definitely a different spin on the accuracy of the forecast. Discussed here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=796
which demonstrates that scenario B is nowhere near the perfect fit implied by your article or Hansen. Hansen could be right, but he doesn't seem to explain where he is getting his data from. I can only find vague references to 'Station Data' and 'Land-Ocean'. What data is it he is using? How has it been adjusted? At least the sceptical article above is up front on where the data is coming from. This doesn't prove that Hansen is wrong. But it doesn't leave one with a high degree of confidence either.
Or this:
stevecarsonr at 15:54 PM on 5 April, 2008
I thought this comment was interesting and relevant.
It is taken from the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works -
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
Physicist Dr. Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London. Dyson called himself a "heretic" on global warming.
"Concerning the climate models, I know enough of the details to be sure that they are unreliable. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.," Dyson said in an April 10, 2007 interview. Dyson is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
or:
Carrick at 08:46 AM on 23 April, 2008
I'm repeating here what I've said in another place on your blog:
The IPCC summary of computer simulations you link above only go back to 1850 and blurs out problems with individual models by replacing the spaghetti curve with a grayed out region. (Errors in the simulations are highly correlated from year to year, the figure makes it seem they are not, which is false and misleading.)
Also did you notice the huge 0.3°C anomaly around 1940-1950 that the models, even with the fuzzing provided by IPCC, are unable to explain?
Where did that warming come from? I would conclude from that, that we aren't at the place yet, even for a 150-year period with a lot of fudge factors thrown in, where we can accurately describe past climate, let alone accurately predict future climate.
Secondly did you notice that there was very little anthropogenic forcing before 1970, according to the models? Have you ever considered how disingenuous it is, given this fact, to compare glaciers from e.g. 100 years ago to current, when the models say that almost all warming prior to 1970 was natural?