The take-home message? If early climate models missed any of these supposed climate novelties, climate modeling wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. What early climate modeling showed was that the basics of climate could be replicated with simple mathematical approximations. But that’s the basics. The details are that climate is still very complex, and while the general patterns can be simulated accurately, specific details as to how climate varies spatially and how it is likely to change under various scenarios are still a far-off challenge.