We Need a Name for the Imaginary Planet Simulated by Climate Models for the IPCC

Guest Post by Bob Tisdale

I recently ran across an article by Chelsea Harvey for BusinessInsider. It was the title that grabbed my attention: This Map Shows How Climate Change Will Screw The Whole World. Not just parts of the world, the “Whole World”. Wow. Interest piqued, I discovered she was referring to Figure 2.4 from the IPCC’s Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report (longer report), shown below. It appears to be the same as Figure SPM.8 from the 2014 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers. The author described the map of future risks as a “handy chart”. I love handy charts.

The map resembles the planet Earth, where most of us reside. The continents are in the right places, and so are the oceans. But we know that’s not the Earth. The risks illustrated are based on climate models, and we know that climate models used by the IPCC for their reports are not based on Earth’s actual climate, as it has existed in the past, or as it exists now. The maps output by climate models may resemble our Earth, but they’re fantasy maps of a fantasy world. They create nothing more than an illusion…an illusion that is intended to make it look like bad things will happen in the future if we all do not agree to reduce our carbon footprints.

We need a name for the imaginary planet simulated by climate models—a planet that looks like Earth, but is not Earth. I’ll propose the climate-modeled planet be called TurnsToCrap. No matter how the modelers present the product of their endeavors, they show the planet TurnsToCrap.