Scientists have been responding to claims that if they were unable to predict the bad weather how can they predict climate change over the next century?
Scientists have been responding to claims that if they were unable, a few weeks ago, to accurately predict the severe weather that has hit Britain over the past few days, how are they able to accurately predict climate change over the course of the next century?
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Speaking on last night’s Newsnight, Dr Patrick McSharry, research scientist at the Smith School at Oxford University, explained that there is a “big difference” between short-term weather forecasts and long range climate forecasting. He said:
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“If you look at the actual scientific details of what’s been attempted to be calculated there is a huge difference. Before someone generates a forecast they have to validate the model, they have to make sure it adds up to being able to predict the historical events that have gone beforehand and if it’s able to do that then you have some confidence that it will actually work into the future.”
Keith Groves, Director of Operations at the Met Office, added that global warming can only have come from carbon dioxide:
“We do validate our climate models. To actually reproduce the change in temperature that we’ve seen in the last 100 years, the only way you can do that is by adding carbon dioxide into the model, so we have real confidence in the skill of our climate model to replicate the global climate as we move forward.
“That’s completely different to trying to forecast the variability on one month or two month or a season ahead. It’s a completely different application of the science.“
30 Responses to “Long range forecasting is accurate and CO2 does cause global warming”
Guido Fawkes
Bet you £100 you can’t tell me if we are we going to have an above average or below average summer for both temperature and rainfall?
That should be easy.
hmmm
Not that I doubt you, but what evidence is there that long-term forecasting is accurate? What predictions did they made 20 years ago about the climate, and were they right?
I find it increasingly plausible that these scientists just aren’t very good at their jobs. The very best scientists seem to go into theoretical physics or nanotechnology, because that is where the forefront of human knowledge is. I’m sure the meteorologists are moderately competent but they aren’t going to be the finest minds of our generation, really.
Shamik Das
Gentlemen, many thanks for your comments. Guido, what do you think will happen?
“hmmm”, the models they’re using to predict the next 100 years accurately predicted the previous century, when applied to the data that would have been available to them in 1900. They are extremely talented individuals.
harry
“We do validate our climate models. To actually reproduce the change in temperature that we’ve seen in the last 100 years, the only way you can do that is by adding carbon dioxide into the model, so we have real confidence in the skill of our climate model to replicate the global climate as we move forward.”
or the last 100 years warming could be due to something else. like natural cycles, ocean currents etc.
the problem with these models is that they have 1000 variables and only 1 dataset to check against. i could make a climate model show the last 100 years temperatures as a silhouette of the taj mahal if i could be bothered.
“Give me four parameters and I can fit an elephant.
Give me five and I can wag its tail” — (The source? Variants have been attributed to C.F. Gauss, Niels Bohr, Lord Kelvin, Enrico Fermi.)
hmmm
Shamik Das, I think the credit crunch showed what good computer models are. Exotic derivatives were basically priced using computer models. They made a bad assumption and it all fell down.
Accurately modelling the past is useless – it misses any changes since. Having accurately modelled the current before it happened is much more credible, though it can still miss the black swan. And yes, I reckon there can be black swans in climate as well as weather.
I want to know what they DID, not what they are DOING.
For what it’s worth, I believe wholeheartedly in tackling climate change, especially when doing so will have ancillary benefits like energy security. Though I don’t think the Copenhagen summit was the right way to do it at all. That was just a circus, more for politicians than politics.