Climate Sensitivity and Feedbacks Make Accurate Climate Modeling Virtually Impossible

Is it possible that climate is so chaotic--with so many unexamined variables--that this baby science will never be able to provide clear answers to policymakers?

Uncertainties in projections of future climate change have not lessened substantially in past decades. Both models and observations yield broad probability distributions for long-term increases in global mean temperature expected from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with small but finite probabilities of very large increases.

Science

This means that the broad range of possible climate scenarios (uncertainty) resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will not likely be lessened in the near future.

...they found that better computer models or observational data will not do much to reduce that uncertainty.

...Ultimately, the papers also illustrate the limits to which models, even those produced by powerful supercomputers, can help politicians make decisions.

"This finding reinforces not only that climate policies will necessarily be made in the face of deep, irreducible uncertainties," says Roger Pielke, a climate policy expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US. "But also the uncomfortable reality – for climate modellers – that finite research dollars invested in ever more sophisticated climate models offer very little marginal benefit to decision makers."

Journal reference: Science (vol 318, p 582)

New Scientist

Given that the current crop of climate models have ignored many potentially relevant climate forcings and negative feedbacks that will almost certainly eclipse the effect of CO2 doubling on climate, expect some very serious modeling revisions in the near future.

Over the past 30 years, climate models have not appreciably narrowed down the precise relationship between greenhouse gases and the planet's temperature — despite huge advances in computing power, climate observations and the number of scientists studying the problem, say Gerard Roe and Marcia Baker. The researchers now argue that this is because the uncertainty simply cannot be reduced.

Nature

That is just about all they can say on the matter. While alarmists in the environmental and political camps will trumpet the extreme scenarios to high heaven--in an attempt to inflame public opinion and elect sympathetic legislators and government executives--the actual state of the climate continues to be obscured by the multiple agendas and concomitant propaganda output (An Inconvenient Truth etc).

In the meantime, Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, and other sharp-eyed and concerned world citizens will continue to inform the open minds of the many excesses of climate alarmists and enthusiasts.

Hat tip American Thinker