For example, if I take ice and apply heat, and stick a thermometer onto the block of ice, what I'll measure is no change in temperature for a while. Now, we could have all manner of discussions about why, when I apply heat, the temperature of ice doesn't rise and debate it until we're both blue in the face. But if we have a 'model' on which to frame the discussion, then that discussion turns to one of phase changes and latent heat and whether the experimental results are consistent with the 'model'.
The model and the experiment are two separate entities. The experimental results impact on our choice of model, tell us which are and are not correct, which worked better or worse, which had the better explanatory power. The model helps us frame the experimental results and discuss them in some scientific context rather than as isolated observations without a theoretical framework. The two constantly go hand-in-hand.
So, it isn't a question of models 'working' or 'not working'. At any given moment in time there will be lots of competing models and theories. At any given moment there will be lots of experimental data, some of it conflicting, some of it at odds with other sets of data. And science will develop new models which will frame new experiments which will give results that allow us to develop newer models.
The premise of your question seems to be that science is fixed, that models should never be altered or updated. That's a strange view of the perpetually evolving nature of science. How does one know which models of the future are correct until you have the data? So the only way of knowing is to wait and see if observations match predictions.
We can only know what we know at any given moment in time. Everything we've learnt about the climate, every pertinent law of physics, every simulation, every model, and a growing body of experimental evidence tells us our planet is warming and we're responsible. The question the models are trying to answer is 'by how much' and yes, there is an uncertainty in that. But, we've never been able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. Computer models are the best way we currently have of trying to figure out what will happen in the future. And it'd be foolish to dismiss them on the basis that they aren't perfect.
To give an example, you can do all the mathematical modelling and predicting and testing and even though the 'model' isn't perfect, it still helps you to build a Formula 1 racecar. Predictions of models frame how we, based on our current level of understand, should respond to global warming. Waiting until we have absolute 100% verification that model X was correct isn't how we, as a society, operate in any other area. We accept there are limitations, and factor those into our responses. How we respond is not the role of science. Giving us the current best information is.
If the computer models were good enough to predict the future even a few years beforehand they would be much more believable.
For instance, if they had predicted the pause we would not have had scientists spending a few years denying any pause and then scrambling to find a reason and coming up with several. That is, several things that they thought were not happening only a few years previously.
The stories we sceptics hear is that the models all predict temperatures that will be higher in the future but that they all predicted temperatures that are higher than those that actually occurred. The attached graph was put together by scientists just as capable as any here so I find their case convincing.
I also hear that different models assume different levels of particulates in the atmosphere. If that is so then how can the models be believed? Surely, they should all be using the same values for such things? I also hear that they do not hindcast very well. That is, they can't tell us what the climate was like some years ago when we actually know the answer.
It certainly would help. I tend to be very skeptical of models being used for anything but a best guess. The sad thing is that for ANY OTHER FIELD of science, if the prediction models over or under estimated 70% of the time, this would be a serious problem.
They have 95% of their models overestimating. FURTHER, their models are exponential (far greater than linear).
Realize that these are extremely complex models with many variables. If you give me 20 unrelated variable, I can model anything and make the future predictions anything I want as well. With this amount of freedom, how easy is it for bias to enter the models. Remember that these model are actually models of models of models. They are using past models using things like ice core data and tree ring data as inputs to their models. They then use this temperature model to model changes in various locations and other analysis like species population.
This is not to say that the scientists are lying, but that they are biased. And example of bias is seen right here. Both Pegminer and Gary F claim to be climate scientists. Their bias is obvious.
So we have clear cases of bias among the scientists, clear bias in most models being exponential (far greater than linear) and clear bias in 95% of their models overestimating the current temperature.
And its only going to get worse. The PDO is in the down cycle. It will remain so for the next 15-20 years. This means that we will see very little if any warming for the next 15-20 years, while their models continue to rise.
The question I would have for the modelers, is how far off they are going to get before they are willing to acknowledge their own bias. If 95% of the models overestimating is not enough, what is?
Edit:
A question you should ask yourself. Why is the UNCERTAINTY not being broadcasted? You know the models are failing. You also are well aware that ALL of the research talking about wah tis going to happen to this species or this plant or this location for flooding or this location for droughts is based upon these models that are overestimating. You know very well that while the scientists claim certainty, they have no such certainty. You know very well that as much as the models are exaggearting the problem, the media is exaggerating the problem 10-fold.
Are teh solutions really so bad that exaggeration is necessary to have those "solutions" accepted? What do you think happens when we lie to the public for the "greater good".
Let me take a stab as to what will happen. Currently, correct me if I am wrong, the pulic is expecting large climate changes within the next 15-20 years. At the same time the PDO is in the downswing and we will likely not see any warming during this period.
Because of the exaggeration and sometimes blatant misinformation, the public is not expecting 15-20 years more of plateau. So what will occur to the future plans of renewables? Will the people feel they were lied to? If so, what will the reaction be?
There is no need to phase this question in an "if/then" format. The computer models are not working. The graph which graphicconception is one of many which I have seen, all saying the same thing. There is a large divergence between actual and predicted temperautures.
I would change your question to, "Or since computer models overestimate warming, will "warmers" change their mind?"
To answer your question, of course I would be convinced if the computer models actually work. It's the scientific method- make an observation, form a hypothesis, test the hypothosis.
According to the scientific method, this hypothesis is not looking very good.
First, one must make allowances for rubbish to become meaningful. Then, and only then, will our garbage be beguilable into projective cognition.
It seems our trust in naturally generated construements of climactic futures, as was the guiser grandeur of linguistic petticoats of collapse-less communion with...uh...mid-maturity has waned in the loss of truth of what it is that a computer can't do that we can.
Entropy is not a topic your computer would want to talk about. In fact, it won't even come out of the closet about being paid off for all those bias-widening casino applications. Aha!
The Weather ones work only for 3 days ahead after that the cold and warm fronts get random and become a mess.
The Climate ones would be a mess too
If the models were shown to be reliable, our confidence level in them would increase. If models consistently overestimate warming as they have done, the logical course is to be skeptical of them being reliable predictors of the future climate.
"If computer models actually worked, would "skeptics" be convinced?"
Yes.
Since computer models actually DON'T work, why are you convinced that Global Warming is primarily man made?
Pegniner also had a good answer.
If they actually worked, the predicted trends would be much lower. Especially when you account for a lower level of CO2 and not the newly contrived RCP 8.5.
If computer models actually worked, would "skeptics" be convinced?
Or if computer models overestimate warming, will "warmers" change their mind? Or would they realize that an incomplete understanding of climate =/= global warming not being a problem?
The biggest problem with climate models is not knowing what people will do tomorrow. There is a terrible lack of working crystal balls, unfortunately.
And climate models are incredibly conservative. In the face of near complete ignorance on an issue, a constant based on the current situation is input as an approximation or else a simple linear function of time is used (solar insolation is a fixed constant or else only slightly allowed to change because there aren't any non-linear models to predict anything different for the sun.) In the face of partial knowledge, such as with clouds where our detailed measurements of winds aloft and geographical impacts on it and other measurements are sorely lacking or our available compute power simply isn't up to the task, approximations are used (and updated regularly) that are based upon actual observations and extrapolations from there. Where good physics is known and the compute power is available, such as with line by line radiation physics, then fairly accurate modeling is used. But scientists don't go around making stuff up and putting it into the models. So if there is no knowledge on the non-linear responses of the Greenland ice sheet, a simple linear model is used despite the fact that it's known that the linear model doesn't work right. Without a good baseline to justify some non-linear model, it's avoided.
The sad thing about that is that non-linear equations have to be treated with rather different mathematical analysis than is used in models today. Such physical system states are governed by a potential, V(x;c), that can be described (at least in part) by a point x, which is an element of the field R?, that minimizes the potential. Changing external conditions change the values of the control parameters c; changing c, in turn, changes the shape of the potential V(x;c). As the shape of the potential changes, the original global minimum in which the system state sits may become a metastable local minimum (because some faraway minimum assumes a lower value), or it may even disappear. Such a system state may also quite literally jump from one local minimum to another. Deciding when and to which minimum the jump occurs is (at least in part, again) the subject of two commonly applied conventions, the Delay Convention and the Maxwell Convention. The essence here is that the dynamical considerations can be brought into elementary, static catastrophe theory by bringing back in the time derivatives of a system. In short, non-linear equations combine into moving cusps and sudden folds and must be analyzed as a dynamic catastrophe system of equations. But this just isn't handled in climate modeling. Yet it's still true that system collapses and sudden shifts CERTAINLY DO happen in reality. But no climate model I've heard of captures any of these sudden transitions.
There is a great deal that remains yet to be discovered. And the specific nature of the interface between the Greenland land mass underneath the ice sheet there and what exactly this interface is doing just isn't known well, for example, though we do know that it's responses are probably going to be non-linear in nature. But absent awareness of what we don't know, and absent details about aspects we only vaguely apprehend today, no one is going to just poke code into climate models for it. The unknowns still happen in reality. The only vaguely understood aspects also still happen in reality. But climate modelers cannot yet incorporate any of that until more is understood.
So they remain very, very conservative in the face of such RAPID change as is taking place now. They will always be behind the power curve. And this is especially bad in the case of systems with phase changes and other non-linear ways of combining under rapid change. Which is why LOTS more research is needed, and on a par with the speed with which we are changing things -- which means sooner than later.
Having _some_ experiences with this kind of theory (read Gilmore's 1981 edition of Catastrophe Theory for Scientists and Engineers), I have a much more profound respect for what _could_ take place that isn't captured in current models and probably never will be.
But an equally big issue, if not the most important issue, will be the lack of that working crystal ball about human behavior in the future.
The models help us discuss some reasoned minimum bounds and to ascribe the current very rapid warming to human impacts (because without those human impacts added to the models, you simply can't get "here" from "there.") I think it's the wrong question to ask "if the models actually worked" though. They don't predict the future and never will and aren't even supposed to. So the question can't be answered at all and is pointless to ask, my opinion.
The models have generally "worked" at what they are supposed to be doing: modelling the complex interactions of gadzillions of components of the long term global climate. They are crude guesswork at doing what many mistakenly think is their main purpose: predicting the long term future with precision.
If a fire insurance company uses actuarial models that "work" it means that they are able to roughly gauge the risks of serious fire, identify key contingencies, reinforce terms and conditions of policies, set reasonable levels of premiums, etc. not because they can predict that a fire doing so and so much monetary damage will hit property X on day Y, Z years in the future.
Otherwise, however, the rest of the answers here (by non-deniers) are basically spot on. With nearly 200 decades-ago discredited and disproven and large inconsistent anti-science crocs to play their mindless anti-science shell games with, http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument... it matters little what the actual science is or the methodologies used to establish it.
If God were to open up the sky and boom out across the whole planet: "Hypocritical deniers of science, repent. As you have reaped, so shall you sow, sinners. Fire, and floods, and pestilences, be upon you unto the scores of generations," it would be because we allowed gay marriage, or failed to abolish the Federal Reserve, or because Obama is an African Witch Doctor Isamlist, not because our energy is based on fuel which when burned increases the greenhouse effect.
Here is a question for those that state models do not work. there are multiple forms of models. What, in your opinion, are the problems with each one? How would you go about improving it and how would you include those variables into the model?
Computer models do work, Deniers are liars and idiots without a clue.
Saying that model forecasts had any part in the development of AGW is like saying the experimental development of a vaccine played a part in the Theory of Evolution.
Of course, the backcasts are a different story; but, Deniers are too blinded by faith and driven by hatred of the countless imaginary things they are afraid of to have ever figured that out.
If models actually worked they would show slight up and down oscillations of temperature with no rising trend, and we would not be skeptics.
Why use "if" models at all when we are dealing with "absolutes"?
If the models predicted less warming than observed, the deniers would tell us that the models prove the observations are wrong.
they never work
Not likely, deniets would claimd another conspiracy
