Climate Model Inadequacies

The Earth system - comprising atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere and biosphere - is an immensely complex system, involving processes and interactions on a wide range of space- and time-scales.

Thus begins the abstract of an enlightening essay on the many shortcomings of today's climate models (O'Neill and Steenman-Clark, 2002) in which the implications of this situation are discussed within the context of developing "reliable numerical models that can be used to predict how the Earth system will evolve and how it will respond to man-made perturbations." The challenge of this enterprise, as the authors describe it, is truly daunting.

They begin by noting that the system "must be modeled as an interactive whole," and that "because of the complexity of the process and interactions involved, high-performance computing is absolutely essential." As they go on to elaborate, however, today's climate models are sorely lacking in this "absolutely essential" characteristic, as they are also deficient in many other important properties, which clearly implies that even our best climate models are not yet up to the task required of them, i.e., accurately predicting the future evolution of earth's climate.

O'Neill and Steenman-Clark note, for example, that there are "considerable gaps in knowledge about the interactions among the sub-systems," and that "current models include only a limited set of the necessary components," which leads us to ask: Are we way off-base in concluding that if today's climate models have "gaps in knowledge" large enough to be described as "considerable," ought not those gaps be filled before one puts much credence in the predictions of the models? And what about the models possessing a limited set of the necessary components? Wouldn't one want them to have all of the necessary components before their predictions were deemed correct?

Two examples of the coupling of subsystems that are "poorly treated at present," say O'Neill and Steenman-Clark, are the coupling of changes in atmospheric chemistry with climate and the coupling of the biosphere with climate. Moreover, they note that "individual subsystems like the atmosphere exhibit enormous complexity in their own right," and that "an increase of high-performance computer power of several orders of magnitude is needed to make significant progress." This being the case, we again are forced to ask: Are we way off-base in concluding that if we need "several orders of magnitude more computer power" to merely make "progress," is there not a very real likelihood that current climate models are nowhere near being able to produce an accurate description of earth's future climate?

In addition to the maddening complexity of the planet's climate system and the great gaps that exist in our knowledge of its workings, the lack of sufficiently fine spatial resolution is another enormous hurdle that stands in the way of accurate climate change predictions via numerical model calculations. With respect to the fast and dramatic climate changes that are thought to be linked to similar changes in the thermohaline circulation of the world's oceans, for example, O'Neill and Steenman-Clark say that "predicting rapid change reliably will require coupled models of the atmosphere and ocean with much finer spatial resolution than is used at present." An "imperative," as they thus put it, is to bring "much greater high-performance computer resources to bear on the problem to allow the Gulf Stream and related circulations to be adequately simulated." And if that need is truly imperative, as they say, we ask ourselves yet again: Are we way off-base in our belief that this need should be satisfied before we start turning the world's economy upside down in an effort to forestall model-based predictions of catastrophic global warming?

Then there is O'Neill and Steenman-Clark's statement that "it is widely recognized that the representation of convection, clouds and their interactions with radiation is one of the greatest weaknesses of current climate-prediction models," which is also a consequence of insufficiently-fine spatial resolution. And what is their prescription for solving this problem? They say that "a major drive in climate modeling must be to reduce the impact of uncertain parameterizations, such as that of convection, by resolving important processes to a greater extent," which clearly requires you-know-what and which prompts us to ask yet one more time: Are we way off base in demanding that the models resolve these processes before we start letting them make our decisions for us?

Of course we're not off-base; our questions and their implied answers are right on the mark. The nature of the well-chosen words so aptly employed by O'Neill and Steenman-Clark leave no doubt about it - computer modeling of earth's climate, as far as it has come, still has a long, long way to go before it is up to the task of accurately defining future climate. And until it gets there, the three of us have no intention of letting an inadequately programmed computer usurp the responsibility we have to do our thinking on the vitally important issue of carbon dioxide and global change.

Reference O'Neill, A. and Steenman-Clark, L. 2002. The computational challenges of Earth-system science. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 360: 1267-1275.

Some more revelations on just how poor our puny little climate modeling attempts are, and no mention of the solar cycles that are ignored, nor the warming that is assumed in the models.

Garbage In = Garbage Out.

Until someone can explain the cycle that had grapes growing in Leif Eriksson's Vinland (Canadian Maratimes 1000 AD) and ice skating on the Thames in the 1800s, I view all models with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not sanguine that the alarmists are wrong and it seems to me that the efforts to ban cloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs) have worked without major disruptions. The Kyoto Treaty, on the other hand strikes me as a real headache for too little real evidence.

The problem with banning CFC's was the cost to consumers. CFC's were banned on what has turned out to be rather dubious evidence, similar to the "evidence" against Alar and DDT. The real problem, as I see it, is the "cry wolf" mentality, and when a real problem comes along, those who used to rally have become to jaded or sceptical to care.

I read an article not long ago which claimed that the gulf stream is caused by cooling of water near greenland and becomes more dense and sinks to the depths of the atlantic and flows south. Water on the surface flows from the gulf to fill the void. Hence the gulf stream. Oddly, since the ice in the arctic is melting it mixes with the gulf stream waters and makes it less salty and hence less dense. At some point the process is stopped because the water no longer sinks and the flow stops quite abruptly (like in 10 years). Then the weather becomes colder in Europe. The ice cap stops melting and the process is reversed. Scientific evidence was given to back up this claim.

Climate Model Inadequacies

Some of the models have the earth as a smooth sphere. Others do not take clouds into account. Even if they were to come up with a model as complex as the existing system, they would still be in trouble. The conclusions reached by introducing perturbations in their system would be relevant only to the initial conditions of their system. Not being able to cause their model to assume the present conditions of the existing system, that is, actually modeling in synch what is already there, they would be able to predict what the real world is doing about to the extent that knowing what one white Anglo-Saxon Protestant is doing will allow them to predict what another WASP would do--rather, what a computer simulation of a WASP would allow them to predict about a real WASP.

Anyone who has ever tried to numerically model complex processes probably has an intuitive feel for just how inadequate present "global warming" models really are.
Yes. This is what I do professionally. Even with a much more complete knowledge of the system chemistry, geometry, energy sources and sinks, and the ability to perform reliable experiments to refine the model, simulations of such systems are still not accurate enought to make the kinds of predictions the climate modelers pretend to be making.
Another missing component that was not mentioned in the article was our lack of knowledge of our climate system's primary power source, the sun.

The problem with banning CFC's was the cost to consumers

Amen! We did not do a good job and there was a major cost impact. The western nations can afford it. Can the 3rd world?

I believe the new refrigerant is quite corrosive. The life expectancy of a new refrigeration unit used to last maybe 30 years. I believe the new cfc's has lowered this to about 1/3rd. Can anyone verify this?

Godspeed, The Dilg

True, but should we even be calling current climate models models when they are based more on guesses and discounting of major factors that are involved in producing the real world results?

They are more akin to the Walt Disney "It's a small world" ride than to the real world. And, yet it seems that half of the world is willing to commit economic suicide based on their results.

Not this cowboy, and thankfully not the President either, thank God.

You may remember that DuPont's patent on Freon was running out and, they contributed heavily to lobbying groups that sought its ban.

Looks to me like a corporate plan that worked. The old "scorched earth" method at work. If everyody can make it without paying us the royalties, then nobody can make it.

Then they simply come up with a new product (or roll out one that's already set to go into production) and feast on a royalties of a brand new patent

True, but should we even be calling current climate models models.......

Your point is valid. There's simply too much guesswork involved for any of the current climate models to qualify as predictive models which can be relied on for accuracy.

Aren't you glad Kyoto Algore isn't president?

Good point, if true. Sorry to put in that caveat, it is information I am not aware of. However, ethical considerations aside, DuPont did have a responsibility to shareholders, and it very well could have been that they saw the writing on the wall, and jumped on the bandwagon. Not only that, but there are also the philosophical implications of limiting how long one can retain intellectual property. Basically, the expiration of a patent allows others to steal what they have not created.

Most of that has been overcome, but the folks that rushed to conversion got shafted, big time.

In the automotive sector the synthetic lubricants that were first used with the new refrigerants were more corrosive, especially to the o-rings in the compressors, hose connections, as well as the hoses. This made it neccesary to change out components and drain all the oil from the system. Add to that the smaller size of the molecule, the higher operating pressures, and you have a system that is more leak prone than the previous one.

Thankfully, it wasn't too long before a lubricant was found that would mix with the old, and not eat the seals out in a few months, nor require that you change the compressor, seals, hoses, and drain old lubricant.

With the DIY kits, you can convert most car AC's yourself for about 30-40 bucks now, or you can hire it done for around $100. Some folks payed over $1000 to convert entire systems.

The higher pressures will make compressors and hoses fail sooner. My guess would be that the lifetime will be reduced by about a third in most, half in some.

Some more revelations on just how poor our puny little climate modeling attempts are, and no mention of the solar cycles that are ignored, nor the warming that is assumed in the models.

The real problem with the models are there is an agenda behind them so we are getting worst-case assumptions. And when you start assuming worst-case with dozens of variables, the errors just multiply and the results get ridiculous. No one in the global warming business cares about the truth, they care about proving global warming and offering doomsday predictions.

Some of the models have the earth as a smooth sphere

When I worked in a theoretical meteorology office, many years ago, they were beginning to devise ways to add continents to their billiard ball. They complained even then of not having enough real data, there were about 200 suitable weather stations on the planet. There are more weather stations now, but the data goes back only so far.

Point is, modeling is not easy, and there are built in limits to data used to check the models.

And when you start assuming worst-case with dozens of variables, the errors just multiply and the results get ridiculous. No one in the global warming business cares about the truth, they care about proving global warming and offering doomsday predictions.

Indeed, Astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, stated the complexity of the problem when she calculated that to accurately predict 50 years into the future we would need a climate program that could handle approximately 5 million variables, and would need to be many magnitudes faster than current supercomputers, or we would need all of the time since the beginning of time to compute the results using what we have today.

It's time we declared Enviromentalism either a Religion or a disease and either invoke seperation of Church and State, or find a cure/vaccine.

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