But the very important point you make about uncertainty having two directions (better than most likely AND worse than most likely) prompts me to plug Fred Pearce's book "With Speed and Violence" again--it's a survey of all the factors likely to cause the uncertainty to break against us, rather than for us.  It's a great book for helping people understand why the precautionary principle is so important, and why we can't afford to wait for an aggressive global heating response.

The 5% Project

Yet what apparently happens is that models that have been verified using past data seem to point into one, rather bad, direction...

a. The models incorrectly predicted the previous dataset.

b. Therefore, we should trust the models even more and believe that their predictions about the future are even more accurate.

This is so wrong at so many levels that I hesitate to comment, but here goes.

First, if they can't explain the past, they are incapably of predicting the future.

Second, there seems to be a confusion about the term "accuracy" here.   To the Global Warming Advocates, "accurate" means "supports their opinion", not "closer to the actual" as most of the English speaking world defines it.

Third, what could it possibly mean to say that the "climate systems" respond to "climate change"!   What kind of crazed tautologists are you?!

Why should you believe the IPCC report?  Read this.

This is not say that the models are perfect.  They are not.  But it is incorrect to conclude that, because a model is imperfect, that it has no predictive value.

Overall, if you read what the scientific community has to say, you'll find much of what the skeptics say is simply incorrect.

The models have demonstrated reasonable skill in hindcasting the last 150 years.

The point of the article was that they didn't predict the increased warming since 1990.

This is not say that the models are perfect.  They are not.  But it is incorrect to conclude that, because a model is imperfect, that it has no predictive value.

A real model would not merely predict the past 150 years...but the past 1500.  

Is there such a model?

As far as 1500-year hindcasts, that would be great.  Unfortunately, we don't know what the temperature was back that far, so we really don't have anything to compare a model run against.  (See last year's NRC "Surface temperature reconstruction ..." report.  Click here.)

As in a web page where I can "run the numbers" based on all the factors they consider?

I'd love to do some simulations using the best of the best models.

Even better -- are any of them Open Sourced?

Read all about in "The Death of Clouds" book, available now.

Good luck..  I will eat may Akubra Aussie Hat if this does not happen in the not too distant future.

omegafour.com

There is also a version of the GISS model that they've produced for education.  You can get it here, including builds for mac os and windows.  It relatively low resolution, since most people don't have supercomputer time, and it includes a slick user interface.

builds for mac os and windows.

It's not open source and there's no Linux build.

Now I know you guys are funded by the powers that be.

Exposed!

How exactly does this process work?  Can I just write a bunch of random programs that run on Windows and then wait for the checks to roll in from Microsoft?  Cause if so... wow, this is an amazing new funding source!  Student loan payoffs, here I come!

I don't know how you get in... I sold my soul years ago to the secret world government. I started of with the hiding of the cure for cancer and have since worked on several projects. Hiding the car that runs on water, masking the lethal oil microlayer that covers our oceans and now on the indoctrination of the world population regarding global warming so the secret communist world government can take full control... hahaha!

Dr Dessler is merely an instrument providing us with evil models. Obviously the linux users are the last remaining resistance we will need to wipe out...

To return to the subject of climate models, they seem to be pretty similar. You're distilling what is real, boxing it, putting parameters around it. It's inherently a simplification of nature. And nature is very complex. Models will never reflect reality, they are tools to assist with decision-making. Then the policy-makers come in. They say, "so you've got all these models, these are the limitations and assumptions, and these are our options." Looking at the climate models, using the data available, it appears that climate change/global warming/Al Gore's conspiracy Theory best explains the data. The fact that this particular model underestimated the magnitude of temperature change doesn't invalidate the theory. It means the model was imperfect. More correctly, it was inaccurate. We have more data now. Of course. Time has passed, we've been collecting data. Intimately related, you might say. The data we have accumulated since this model was created have supported the theory, not disputed it.

There you go. Models.

Not the End of the World as We Know It
By Olaf Stampf

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684 ...

The truth is probably somewhere between these two extremes. Climate change will undoubtedly have losers -- but it will also have winners. There will be a reshuffling of climate zones on earth. And there is something else that we can already say with certainty: The end of the world isn't coming any time soon.

This article is being linked to in blogs and RSS feeds worldwide!

Al Gore is routed!

Other data are somewhat more tangible. Bark beetle irruptions, the die-off of Alaska yellow cedar - these phenomena are best explained by climate change. I know of these because I do forestry, but of course there are examples from every discipline.

Point is, and I do have one: models are very useful tools for displaying trends. Tangible evidence, like observable ecosystem process dysfunction (or change in function) is another way to support a theory.

Are we underestimating rates of temperature change? Maybe. I wouldn't use one model, or even a bunch of models, to support or refute that statement. Chaos and surprise are part of nature, and we can't model those. Not well, anyhow.

Okay. Models.

This was a true theoretical prediction, confirmed by data.

Climate models are the opposite, as the subject of this article shows.   If they were real, the would have predicted the incorrect temperature readings of the 1990s in advance...and then later, now, we would correct those and say "oh, those models were right".

But this is not the case.   The IPCC will simply increase the multiplier of some variable and say "all fixed".

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684 ...

Svante Arrhenius, the father of the greenhouse effect, would be called a heretic today. Far from issuing the sort of dire predictions about climate change which are common nowadays, the Swedish physicist dared to predict a paradise on earth for humans when he announced, in April 1896, that temperatures were rising -- and that it would be a blessing for all.

1. climate models contain all of the physics that we think is going on in the atmosphere
   
2. they are not perfect, but models never are.  just because a model is admittedly imperfect does not mean it has no predictive power
   
3. disagreements between the model and the atmosphere contain useful information.  if the models underestimate the past 16 years of data, then one might reasonably expect that model predictions of warming over the next 100 years might also be underestimated.  it also provides information about improving the models.
   
4. those opposed to action on climate change MUST attack models ... not doing so would concede the existence of severe climate change.  thus, attempts to discredit the models should be expected.  bottom line is not to take these attacks at face value, since they are usually without basis, but instead read what the scientists actually say, which is described by the IPCC reports.

You wrote:

Are we underestimating rates of temperature change? Maybe. I wouldn't use one model, or even a bunch of models, to support or refute that statement. Chaos and surprise are part of nature, and we can't model those. Not well, anyhow.

Does that mean they are irrelevant? Hardly! Just ask any out-of-work politician who consistently ignored his/her poll numbers. Similarly, we ignore the climate models at risk of our peril. Of COURSE they're imperfect. But continued refinement makes them increasingly less imperfect and increasingly more relevant.

I find it interesting that so many of the same people who need more evidence before taking mitigative action in the face of GCC, are also some of the same people who pushed for war in Iraq based on sham evidence and hyperbole.

rather than on just what we are going to do about it, how, when, and with whom.

The shills' owners (they are after all bought & paid for) presume that doing something about GW
will mean hacking the sales of their fossil fuel products,
and may well entail their inditement, trial and imprisonment for culpable mass homicide.

Is it any wonder the poor shills have to persist with such a tedious monotony of propagande?

What is a wonder to me is just why Grist feels the need to keep trailing its coat by posting invites for the shills' participation.

Regards,

Bill

Also, Andrew should be nominated for sainthood.  The patience of a mountain...

In short (since this was beaten to death on another thread or two recently):

a) There ARE plenty of posts and threads on Grist that DO discuss in great detail what we can do to mitigate GW. Answering critics doesn't take that away.

b) There remain plenty of minds out there that need changing and CAN BE changed. Not to mention those who are simply unsure. Minds only change one at a time. And I'm talking about people who are generally silent on this forum, but, rest assured, are out there (hence Andrew's frequent addressing of "The Lurkers"). Further, there are plenty of folks (like me) who often forward links to some of the more enlightened and enlightening discussions that transpire on Grist. We forward them to friends and relatives who may not otherwise be exposed to some of these ideas and arguments. Friends and relatives who can be persuaded, using ideas of which many are very presuasive if not wholly correct. And folks like jabailo provide just the "talent" needed to play the role of the villain. Every story needs an antagonist.