New paper explains inherent flaws of computer models predicting future climate change
London, 21 February: Claims that the planet is threatened by man-made global warming are based on science that is based on inadequate computer modelling. That is the conclusion of a new briefing paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
The report’s author, eminent American climatologist Professor Judith Curry, explains that climate alarm depends on highly complex computer simulations of the Earth’s climate.
But although scientists have expended decades of effort developing them, these simulations still have to be “tuned” to get them to match the real climate. This makes them essentially useless for trying to find out what is causing changes in the climate and unreliable for making predictions about what will happen in the future.
Professor Curry said: “It’s not just the fact that climate simulations are tuned that is problematic. It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate – it’s a chaotic system after all. If that’s the case, then we are probably trying to redesign the global economy for nothing”.
Prof Curry recently announced that she was abandoning academic life due to the attacks on her research and the “craziness” of the climate debate.
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Well, to this old Ga Tech physicist (me, not Dr Curry), reading Dr Curry’s paper boils down to climate science is a BOGSAT (Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around Talking) – they have a hard time measuring reality, and can’t make models match reality because they don’t want to (it forces them to confront low CO2 climate sensitivity).
I’m also a retired CFO and I know it hardly ever end well for those who refuse to accept reality.
This Newly retired CEO would never question my former CFO (or earlier GM in career, finance director). Always ended badly. Regards. Audit trails, reality, hard stuff.
Simply run a regression on that data. CO2 doesn’t explain much if any variability in temperature, none, nada, zip, and that difference will only grow over time.
Auto mobile heritage:
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Isetta
LOL…and ‘m awaiting delivery of my 2017 540i
The system is incompletely characterized and unwieldy, and nonlinear, thus chaotic. So, the effort to predict its behavior results in creation of models (or hypotheses) that are at best lightly correlated, and at worst independent, of the actual system. Science is a philosophy that implicitly acknowledges that accuracy is inversely proportional to time and space offsets from an observer’s frame of reference (i.e. scientific domain).
“Climate models are good for amusement only. They prove nothing.”
Wrong: they have proven that they do not work. This finding is important in science 🙂
Regards
Michael
Excellent point
Reality bites you hard eventually. I learned that in life and business the hard way. Have worked with a couple of CEO’s who spun B.S. while our companies were clearly circling the bowl. Then one day the investors lose confidence. Usually after their money is lost. The fired CEO gets escorted out muttering the same old line. Let’s hope we are approaching that for AGW.
Excellent study by Dr. Curry.
The UN IPCC has been issuing climate alarmism proclamations for over two decades starting with the IPCC First Assessment Report issued in 1990.
The latest UN climate alarmism report was the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report issued in 2013 which was presented in 4 volumes comprising over 6,000 pages of material and more than 5 million words.
The primary driver of the UN IPCC AR5 reports assessments and findings is derived through the use of the latest developed version of global climate model simulations which have been significantly updated from climate model simulations used in prior UN IPCC reports through the decades.
The overwhelming challenges presented in trying to develop viable computer global climate model simulations was addressed in the UN IPCC Third Assessment issued in 2001.
Specifically in Section 14.2.2.2 (Balancing the need for finer scales and the need for ensembles) of the AR3 report the bottom line concerning the unresolvable shortcomings of global climate model simulations was articulated and clearly presented as:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by generation of ensembles of modal solutions.”
Despite the latest global climate model updates reflected in the UN IPCC AR5 report the limitations clearly articulated in the UN IPCC AR3 report that “the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible” applies to the AR5 report assessments and findings.
This significant limitation in global climate model outputs is highlighted in UN IPCC AR5 Technical Summary in Box TS.6 where the climate model scenarios are specifically qualified as follows:
“The scenarios should be considered plausible and illustrative, and do not have probabilities attached to them. (12.3.1; Box 1.1)”
These 16 words out of more than 5 million words in the entire report present an absolutely critical story about the huge and unresolvable uncertainties that underlie the AR5 report assessments and findings which are hidden from the public and unaddressed by climate alarmists, biased media and politicians.
The UN Paris 2015 agreement which attempts to create global regulatory mandates and commitments for nations to reduce future CO2 emissions is largely built upon the assessments and findings of the UN IPCC AR5 report. The commitments made thus far from that agreement will costs trillions of dollars to implement and produce little in actual global temperature reductions (http://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises).
It is absurd for global nations to commit trillions of dollars on government regulated climate actions based on uncertain climate model projections which represent nothing but conjecture and speculation.
The fact that those demanding such massive expenditures are so dishonest in hiding the extraordinary shortcomings of global climate model simulations demonstrates that a massive global con game is being perpetrated by climate alarmists upon the public.
These climate models may serve useful purposes in academic and scientific studies but they are completely unsuited for purposes of regulatory driven commitments that require the expenditures of trillions of dollars of global capital which can be utilized for much greater benefit in dealing with known massive global problems including poverty, education, and health care.
The use of incredibly bogus climate models to try and justify massive costly actions by nations around the world to reduce CO2 emissions in fact represents the biggest global government con job in history.
Larry
Agreed.
Second in line is the CFC debacle related to ozone depletion. There is a severe lack of science supporting this theory. Reporting on the annual outcome is as wooly and vague as anything I have seen. CO2 and AGW took the focus away from the topic.
The CFC / chlorine destruction theory of ozone above the Antarctic has a random non predictable outcome.
If you cant predict it, you dont understand it.
Anyone that takes the time to explore it in detail with an open mind and a fresh set of eyes will see that the ozone dilution (hole) is very “mechanical” and routine in nature. It is not random at all. Other events are tied into the cycle. The same events things occur in a similar sequence every year. The “weak” years of 1979 to early 1980’s are particularly revealling, as is 2002.
Mother nature has the most beautiful curves (on a chart).
Good call there as the Montreal Protocol was used as a model for carbon dioxide control.
No increase in surface UVa was ever mentioned under said ozone hole because chlorine monoxide does not inhibit ozone formation. It only catalyzes ozone dissociation, something ozone does on its own when exposed to UV.
Nailed it with the quote from UN IPCC AR 5 Technical Summary Box TS.6. “…do not have possibilities attached to them.”
This lack of possibilities is the canard these quacks (see how I squeezed in that pun?) use to formally avoid model results being “falsifiable” as per the scientific method. The IPCC may have crap scientists, but they do have funny lawyers.
Agreed. And given that the underlying physics of the elements included in the models make it virtually impossible to predict into the future, it can’t be emphasized enough that the neglect of the many poorly understood physical processes that drive the modeled processes is even more outrageous. The oft discussed CO2 Sensitivity factor is nothing more than a fudge factor. The Piltdown Man was a trifling affair that didn’t prepare our culture for the reality of the corruption that is inherent in the collaboration of politicians and government sponsored “science”.
All I can think of is Patsy Cline singing “Crazy”. She had it right…..
Dr. Curry wrote;
“It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate – it’s a chaotic system after all. If that’s the case, then we are probably trying to redesign the global economy for nothing”.
Quite true indeed.
One can “model” anything with a computer, making the model and reality match….now that’s a entirely different story….
Many of the experienced engineers here (from several different fields) have stated all along; “You Can’t Model the Climate (accurately)”. Was quite correct when stated and it is still correct.
And it is mostly unrelated to computer speed/grid size, etc. It has more to do with an “open ended projection” versus a “converging model”. Most successful modeling in the engineering fields adjust/compute values until the data at multiple points (grid locations) all behave according to a well established physical law (stress/strain, current/voltage, etc). Success is mostly having enough grid points (“nodes”) to accurately reflect a systems performance and then waiting until the computer model says “All points match the physical equations within 0.1% or 0.01%, or what ever accuracy your are willing to wait for.
Climate models starting from an initial condition and predicting the next step just keep adding errors until the data diverges from reality. “Tuning” the model just changes how fast it will diverge from reality.
Climate modelling is an “entirely different kind” of modelling that the successful computer modelling other technical fields have accomplished;
Cheers, KevinK
Let me try to make a few relavant points here. Essentially they start with a weather simulation and modify it to simulate weather over a long period of time and call it a climate simulation.
1, To be able to run the simulations in finite time they have to reduce the spatial and temporal resolution. This type of simulation implying the use of predictor corrector techniques are best only marginally stable for high resolution short time runs and less stable as the sampling intervals are increased and the time span of the simulation is increased. The results that they achieve may be more of a function of the numerical instability inharent in the simulation technique then of the physical manifistations that they are trying to simulate.
2. To simulate climate they have had to include equations describing the effects of changes in CO2. Including such equations really begs the question as to how CO2 affects climate rendering the simulations as totally useless. They hard code in that more CO2 causes warming so that is exactly what the simulation results show. It is all make believe and not science. The fact that the simulations have failed to predict what has really been happening with the Earth’s climate would lead one to the conclusion the perhaps there is something very wrong with the AGW conjecture.
3. They have created a plethora of different models indicating that a lot of guess work is involved. If they really knew what they were doing they sould have created only a single model. They do not know which model is the correct one so they may all be wrong. If they had learned anything over the years they would have decreased the number of models currently under consideration but such has not happened. Then I see plots of the average of all the models which makes no sense what so ever. Then they use the term that a result is likely which really means that they really do not know and the likely result is what they wish were correct. They never show their mathematical derivation of the likelyhood that they profess. Their likelyhood numbers are nothing but wishfull thinking on their part.
4. To date there is no real evidence that a radiant greenhouse effect caused by the LWIR absorption properties of some trace gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere on any planet in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of LWIR absrobing gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect. So to on Earth. As derived from first principals, the surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C. warmer because of the atmosphere because of the heat capacity of the atmoshere, the pressure gradient caused by gravity and the depth of the troposphere. 33 degrees C is also what has been obsrved. There is no additional warming caused by a radiant greenhouse effect. Because the AGW conjecture is based on a ficitious radiant greenhouse effect, the AGW conjecture is nothing but science fiction as are simulations of the effect. If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increse in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.
5. Kyoji Kimoto in an article entitled “Basic Global Warming Hypothesis Is Wrong” pointed out that the original calculations of the Planck Effect climate sensivity of CO2 were too great by more than a factor of 20 because what was ignored was the fact that doubling the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s armosphere will cause a slight but very siginificant decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. The IPCC ignores this for political reasons because that would mean that CO2 warming is virtually nonexistant. In their first report, the IPCC published a very wide range for their guesses as to the climate sensivity of CO2. In their last report they published the exact same values meaning that after more than two decades of effort running simulations and observing the Earth’s climate they have learned nothing that would allow them to narrow their range of guesses one iota, What has happened is what one would expect if the climate sensivity of CO2 were really some very small number close to zero.
I believe that the GCM approach to climate modeling is fundamentally flawed and considering all the wrong results that have been derived, the approach should be abandoned.
The carbon used to print the text on these online pages worries me. We should be doing our part. That’s why I’m sto
Dear Judith
I love you 🙂
The model tuning has been the “hidden in plain-view” climate corruption the whole time. No one spoke of it outside expert circles for years. Tuning allows the modellers to output any CO2 sensitivity numbers they “think reasonable.”
That should be the big red flag alarm to any non-climate scientist or engineer looking at the utter shameful mess of climate science.
Again, with model tuning the modellers can get any number on climate co2 sensivity they want. And their paper peer reviewers have accepted for decades these “reasonable” results based on nothing more than theory expectation.
Climate models and their creators claiming a CO2 sensivity value or range are the very definition of junk science. (Or as Dr Richard Feynman would have called it, it’s cargo cult science)
The Greatest Game … Scheme …
What a boat load of schemers.
Of course … Climate Science …. just a form of … Astrology … with the WONDERS … that Bill Gates (little shit … Harvard Drop Out … Fornicator) provided …. Brings a tear to the eye.
Harumph harumph. Hail the Queen! Hail the Queen!
http://giphy.com/gifs/batman-laugh-the-dark-knight-A363LZlQaX0ZO
[Oh. I will get … marooned (banned from ‘Whattsupwhtithat’ … for this one! Ha ha]
They impose that CO2 increase causes warming. Thermalization explains why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. They do not account for solar change. They do not account for the increased GH effect of increasing water vapor. These and other issues are discussed at http://consensusmistakes.blogspot.com
“It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate – it’s a chaotic system after all.”
This is an extremely important consideration, which has not been emphasized enough IMHO.
Take a look at “Believing in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast …” from about 00:58 min.
Essex rightly makes the point that we may not have any idea of what we should be looking at/for in order to predict long-term climate change from our available short-term observations. His examples are most thought-provoking.
Love that presentation!
“essentially useless”
….except for justifying more funding of “research”.
A year or two ago on WUWT there was a model that only used the sun spots at solar maximum and volcano activity. It was scary accurate. It was being peer reviewed. What happened to it?
“Consensus is utterly irrelevant to science. The philosophy of science is devoid of consensus. What concerns science is not weight of numbers on the side of an argument, but what the facts are. What the evidence is.”
Albert Einstein
Your quote from the Great Man, and the below quote from Feynman sums up precisely what is wrong with this pseudo science/this cargo science called Climate Science.
Let’s get back to the scientific method. Models are useless,let’s accept that fact, and let’s start conducting quality controlled observation and experimentation. Stop playing playstation and start conducting real science. Climate Science will not advance until that time.
Can you cite your source for that quote? From what I’ve been able to dig up online, Einstein did NOT make it: it’s from a website called “The Capacity of Liberty”, at http://capacityofliberty.blogspot.com/2011/01/100-authors-against-einstein-scientific.html
You’ll be more successful in your search for a source if you look for “Richard Feynman” of Caltech. There’s even a youtube. 🙂
Oh my … Sorry about that. I see that your remark was directed to DonK31. Sigh …
The purpose of the climate models is not to accurately predict the temperature in the future. The true purpose of the climate models is to influence human behavior in the present. When the performance of these models is evaluated with their true purpose in mind they have been spectacularly successful.
“Spectacularly” is an understatement.
+1
Once upon a time, BC, Before Computers, when natural systems – like stream flow, coastal procecess, air flow, had to be modeled physically, there were three golden rules for the modeler
(i) First fully understand the prototype before you start building your model
(ii) “Prove” (validate) your model – demonstrate that it accurately reproduces the behavior of the prototype
(ii) Only use it to investigate changes within the range of the physical parameters for which it was it has been validated. Models are not a tool for extrapolation.
Hence there are no climate models. There are only really complicated and subjective compound interest (temperature) calculators, which like all advice derived therefrom should carry similar product disclosure statements and diclaimers
I’m old but I remember a time before digital computers when we used analog computers to solve real problems. They required you to develop accurate equations describing a system. I have often wondered if “climate programmers” wouldn’t be better off trying to an old timers method for solving a system.
RSS
the observations are likely to be below the simulated values, indicating that the simulation as a whole are predicting too much warming.
http://images.remss.com/figures/climate/RSS_Model_TS_compare_globe.png
http://www.remss.com/research/climate
AR4 and AR5 various Ensemble projections
The solid coloured lines with no noise, are added from a simple model doing a linear extrapolation GHG forcing of GHG values of each model.
https://postimg.org/image/jji75a0gr/
https://postimg.org/image/d731vfxej/
All the complexity of the model just adds the noise but the simple extrapolation is pretty good at predicting model output, so are models really doing a noisy linear extrapolation of GHG forcing values when modeling a highly NON linear system?
http://s1.postimg.org/4as9ri6sf/extrap11.jpg
http://s1.postimg.org/ow71jeodb/extrap22jpg.jpg
What happens if you run these models to 9100? Earth turns into Venus?
I would like to see one of these models run for 5-10 thousand years to see what the output is, I bet it is absolutely hilarious.
Climate models have been shown to be useless by Pat Frank.
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/a-climate-of-belief/
Is that the guy that done the linear extrapolation of the GHG forcings I posted above?, the name sounds familiar
Yes I believe it is, passive warming model is doing the same or actually a better job than GCMs
The passive warming model will also produce hilarious results if run for 5000 years.
The models are not bad they are junk
Indeed. His paper is a dazzling and damning revelation of the scam we have been fed. Small wonder he’s had so much resistance to getting it published in terrified “peer reviewed” journals. Look at 36:45 to 39:00 to see the garbage-grade “peers” he’s up against:
https://youtu.be/THg6vGGRpvA
The model in that video is a simple linear model between CO2 and temperature. It is a complete joke, and explains why the models will always be wrong, and always overestimate temperature. There is no way for the IPCC models to do anything but forecast higher temperatures…at least until 800 years into the next ice age.
This post covers that model and video.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/climate-science-on-trial-the-criminal-case-against-the-alarmists/
@CO2isLife February 22, 2017 at 3:45 pm
“The model in that video is a simple linear model between CO2 and temperature. It is a complete joke”
No, Pat Frank shows that the OUTPUTS of the climate models, for all their expense and complexity, can themselves be modelled by a simple linear model – a model of the models, as he puts it. That is the complete joke – that you could have used a handheld calculator to do what billions of $$ of supercomputing does.
“It may well be that it is impossible to make long-term predictions about the climate”
The IPCC admitted as much. The only climate we can predict with any degree of certainty is spring, summer, fall, winter. Or whatever usually happens in a given zone. Until something happens to change it.
We need to know every variable and how everything interacts to a very fine resolution, particle size resolution to predict chaotic long term changes.
If we had such ability to model, we could model exactly how a human will grow.
We don’t even come close to thinking about dreaming about that kind of accuracy,
The GWPF is a mysteriously funded organisation with a political agenda.
Leaving science/academia to get your work published by the GWPF effectively means your work is of no scientific value.
A skeptic would suggest that the work would not stand up to scientific scrutiny, is based on the author’s political viewpoint and that it is not the academic atmosphere which lead the author to change her place of publication.
Are you saying Judith Curry is a mysteriously funded person with an agenda? Source?
@Griff
February 22, 2017 at 12:11 am
CAPS ARE MINE.
The GWPF is a mysteriously funded organisation with a political agenda.
WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE MERIT OF ANY SCIENTIFIC PAPERS THEY PRODUCE?
Leaving science/academia to get your work published by the GWPF effectively means your work is of no scientific value.
ARE YOU SAYING JUDITH COULD NOT GET THIS PUBLISHED UNTIL SHE LEFT AND JOINED GWPF? SOURCE? ANY SUPPORT FOR THIS CLAIM AT ALL?
A skeptic would suggest that the work would not stand up to scientific scrutiny, is based on the author’s political viewpoint and that it is not the academic atmosphere which lead the author to change her place of publication.
YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T KNOW WHAT SKEPTICAL MEANS BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T EVEN ASSESS JUDITH’S WORK YOU JUST MADE BASELESS CLAIMS. YOU ARE DISPLAYING THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF SKEPTICISM
I know thinking can be hard, and remaining objective requires constantly reminding one’s self to be so, but we must.
Judith has ample evidence that the models are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. There is plenty of evidence of that.
You don’t like the results, and attack character.
I think it is you Lewandowski talks about in his denial papers. 🙂
Griff IS Lewandowski, I suppose.
Oops! Repeated your post. mea Culpa.
I think Griff is Lewandowski.
What do you mean with “mysteriously funded”?
If facts are printed in “The Sun” for example, they automatically become worthless because it matters where they are published and not what the message is?
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Go and get a life.
My wife watched merchants of doubt one evening, and then tried to justify character over evidence argument. She lost badly. 😀
Like Greenpeace you mean?
Like the IPCC you mean?
Griffy
I’ve been waiting for you to try to kneecap Dr Curry. Your ad hominem didn’t have a single example of poor scholarship on her part.
Why should we take your ad hominem opinions as anything other than, well, pure crap?
Got any evidence?
On a chart with non-deceptive scales, spanning a genuinely significant time scale, it seems like Griff would not even raise to the heights of Dr Curry’s ankles; let alone be within reach of kneecaps. Very much like looking at the current “warm” period against the big picture.
“Griff February 22, 2017 at 12:11 am
The GWPF is a mysteriously funded organisation with a political agenda.”
The IPCC isn’t? Too funny Griff.
Griff makes two completely unfounded assertions, then uses these two “facts” he made up, to support an assertion that Dr. Curry left her academic position in order to cash in on money from “mysterious” sources.
The only intelligent thought in evidence here is Griff’s decision to publish this under an alias.
Consensus would say that. But then consensus has nothing to do with science.
You might want to stop tarring the Bell Labs Scientists that way. But that is probably above your level of communication.