Can the climate models be wrong and if so, doesn't that put into question

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Poke_the_Bear

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conclusions based on them ? If the models are wrong and the conclusions are wrong why should we spend much of our GDP solving a problem that may not exist?
Wouldn't we want to be more sure than just taking a guess and hoping everything will work out? Because after the fact is pretty late to say, ooops, I'm sorry you guys lost your jobs and previous lifestyles but at least we had good intentions, right?
 
Evidence of Global Warming is all around you.
Soon they will have to re-name Glassier National Park because they will not be anymore. Temperatures have risen each year since 1998. 2012 will be the year it reaches the highest. The Ice Sheets in Greenland have receded more in the last few years then ever in history. They sit on land and when they melt the raise the sea level everywhere. Water is heavy (8lbs. per gallon) and when it moves from north to south earths gravity cause's it to "squeeze" the Tectonic Plates that all land is situated on. That causes seismic activity deep in the Earth which promotes Geological changes. Warm water mixed with cold air makes Hurricanes for example. If Yellowstone National Park's volume of lava erupts we are all in big trouble! In Alaska the frozen ground is called "Permafrost" and it contains major amounts of Methane Gas which mess's up the ozone layer that protects us from Solar radiation.
How much evidence do you need?
Love the outfit by the way (wink)
 
the models are built so they would only be out by a small amount, they all show the trend.

anyway, the models no longer matter as we have observable data to work with.

go to Greenland and stand where there used to be 12 metres of ice.
 
can they be wrong? yes.
are they wrong? no.
by now, they've been tested against data from some decades ago, and have correctly predicted climate that has already occurred.
in addition, there are several of them, written by different groups of people, all tested with data that has been saved, and all -- all the good ones, that is -- have predicted climate that has been shown to have happened.

isn't it interesting, how many folks who haven't a clue what's involved in writing or testing such, claim that they're not to be trusted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." <== this seems to apply to most folks that like to criticize climate models, and AGW in general.


btw, thanks for the Ben Franklin quote. sure does remind one of what's been happening for many years now, voting to cut taxes, and pass the bills on to someone else. (our children - a form of "Taxation without Representation". interesting how different it is when the shoe is on the other foot, and it's someone else that's being taxed.)
 
The way the models are tested is called hind-casting. This is done by plugging in the figures from the past, running the models up to the present, and seeing if they accurately map what is known to have happened.
So far, none of the models have been anywhere near correct. They have missed the strong warming of the early decades of 20th century, missed the cooling of the middle decades of the 20th century and over-estimated the warming of the last decades. Also missed the cooling of the first decade of 21st century.
None of the models have been able to show el nino, a major climate event which happens once every several years.
There is much that is not understood in global climate, so guess work is used to fill in the gaps.
There is a principle among modellers, If a model has more that 4 adjustable parameters, you can make it say anything you want, and climate models have hundreds of them.
As these models have failed to map the present and recent past they cannot be relied upon to predict the future with any degree of accuracy, and it would be highly irresponsible to make substantial political policies based on them.

It is my guess that the problem is that the role of CO2 in our climate has been substantially over-estimated, for political reasons. It is a factor but only one in many.

I recently read a quote from a climate modeller, he said 'while climate models are useful tools for helping us to understand how the climate works, they are nowhere near good enough to make predictions from'

The problem comes when politicians take computer based theoretical speculations, and present them to the public as established science.
 
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