A Video Preview of “Climate Models Fail”

BDTP,– you’r right and it is time the climate ”scientists” got to grips with explaining why they have been wrong all this time. It can’t be the money.

So has Cook classified this as part of the 97% yet?

@- climate models are like maps, they include all the features we know about at the level of detail that can be represented on the scale at which they work. But like maps they are always ‘wrong’ in the sense that they are incomplete and may miss significant features of the landscape.
As everyone knows that does not make a map useless. The map can still describe the large scale features, and the experience of encountering a feature in reality that is not on the map enables the map to be corrected and improved.
Climate models did not feature the real world experience of a significant slowdown in land surface temperatures while the TOA energy imbalance persists. But that does not automatically invalidate all the features that the models HAVE got right. The continuing accumulation of thermal energy that the models feature is not invalidated by their errors in how rapidly that is represented as a rise in land surface temperatures. The continued rise in SST and sea level and melting ice was projected by models, but they underestimated the ice loss and ocean warming in the opposite direction to their overestimate of land surface temperature rises.
The models have certainly been better maps than the ‘null hypothesis’ that the climate landscape would be flat in all its features with only ‘natural’ variation over the last few decades. Each decade has been significantly warmer than the preceding decade for around a century now. That includes warmer oceans, poles and summers with cooling of the stratosphere. That is not compatible with a null assumption of climate, but does fit the basic and complex model predictions. What the models have failed to do is correctly project the partition of the increased energy from rising CO2 between the various thermal sinks that it can enter. The models are also bad at local detail. Regional variation is not well represented although the extended and increasing drought in the American SW was a projected result from models that has been validated.
In modern science all complex systems are now investigated using computer models of the underlying physical, chemical and biological processes in whatever detail the technology allows. The problems and inadequacies of such ‘maps’ of reality are well recognised, models of heart cells or tectonic processes also suffer from the same map problems that climate models suffer, but they are not then abandoned, as with maps, the very flaws they exhibit enable advances in our understanding of the real world.
To quote an old assessment of models made a Bayesian:-
“”essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful”
G E P Box

Couple of thoughts… First, maybe add some intro/outro music … If the funding is available it might make the information more accessible if it was presented in a format similar to the videos on this site: http://overpopulationisamyth.com/ .

Compared to the most interesting man in the world, my two cents are probably worth only about 2 cents but here goes for your introduction which has to grab the non-science minded viewer’s attention – and keep it:
00:24 “We live on the land surfaces of our planet called Earth but we’ve heard …”
Some people may take this the wrong way thinking you are insulting their intelligence that they might be too stupid to know the name of our planet – completely missing your inference equating Earth with dry land. My suggestion is to avoid such inferences so my re-write would be:”Although we live on the land surfaces of our planet, 70% of it is covered with water.”
But then I’d also throw in a jibe referencing an eco-terrorist ‘anthem’ movie – Waterworld. So, continuing: “Truly, we are living on a water world.” ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/5715354/Earth-faces-Waterworld-as-global-warming-lasts-centuries.html )
00:50 “And this takes place on annual, decadal …”
If my wife doesn’t stop reading/watching at “decadal”, bet you $10 she will at “multi-decadal”! My suggestion is:”It is recognized that our climate changes over a variety of time periods. These time periods range from one year, dozens of years, hundreds of years and even thousands of years.
00:54 “Therefore, the surface temperatures of the ocean are very important in discussions of global warming or ..the lack thereof.”
Suggestion, spike your point and leave the hint of a dig against CAGW for later: “Therefore, the surface temperatures of the ocean are absolutely essential in any discussion about global warming.”

The divergence between predictions and reality has been a compelling feature of the analysis of the climate models.
Noting the “Ice Free Arctic 2013” feature at the top of the page, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to graph the divergence between prediction and reality for that, too?
Just a thought …

If the models had been set up honestly or correctly, the errors would be spread above and below the data. If all the models show predictions that are to high, it is a reflection of bias, model outputs tell us more about the model makers than they do about the future. When they look at this the “climate scientists” will simply try to adjust the data to fit the models. I wonder if a group of runway fashion models might be as accurate in their predictions.