I have a real problem with the statement:
These are qualified experts who not only have a long history of scholarly study in the area, but have the scientific ability to analyze the models presented that predict future world weather.
Very, very wrong. Computer models do not predict future weather. When stated this way there is an implied element of certainty that is absolutely missing and misleading.
Computer models do not predict a future state.
Computer models can predict one possible future state. They can also be used to predict a range of possible future states. Our level of certainty in the results is very much open for debate.
There are several serious issues with the way results from computer models are used by certain political groups to advocate for policy decisions:
- Climate models as they exist today are seriously flawed. They cannot be validated against past climate data. That is, given a base period for calibration they be configured to predict some past climate behavior. However, give the same model with the same configuration parameters a different base period and/or a different output period to match and they fail. If the models truly represented tthe real world they would work for any arbitrary base period and output matching period. They do not.
- Climate models were only ever intended to help scientist learn what the factors are that influence climate. They are still learning. While they may be able to time-step their relatively simple models (as compared to the real world) a few days/weeks/months in advance with some success...iterating these models out tens or even hundreds of years into the future is pure fantasy.
- Speaking as someone involved in large-scale computer modeling of complex systems (not climate) I can say there simply may be too many variables. That is, in order to accurately model the system - the Earth - it may take too many variables interacting over too fine of a mesh. It may be a simply intractable computational problem. It won't "scale." We may forever be forced to work with somewhat simplified models (still very large and complex, just simple compared to the Earth). These models will therefore never be accurate over long time spans due to their omission of subtle effects.
In short, don't put too much faith in the models, and certainly don't misuse them and their results for trying to peer too far into the future. When people do, they just look silly and ignorant to people actually in the business of computer modeling. They just don't work that way.
The mere fact that there are model(s) instead of a single model is evidence nothing is “settled.” If the evidence was definitive, all models would agree completely and there would be no need for more than a single working model.