ai-yai-yaii, I can see the headlines at the Competitive Enterprise Institute already:  "Grist admits climate models no good."

But the very important point you make about uncertainty having two directions (better than most likely AND worse than most likely) prompts me to plug Fred Pearce's book "With Speed and Violence" again--it's a survey of all the factors likely to cause the uncertainty to break against us, rather than for us.  It's a great book for helping people understand why the precautionary principle is so important, and why we can't afford to wait for an aggressive global heating response.

"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."

I've been taking note of predictions (not necessarily from models) for the past several years ... my general, not documented, observation is that the rate of change in the weather do to the warming inputs appears to excelerating greater than predicted each hear. If this is true, then the conductor on the diseaster train will be here to collect the fare in 15 to 20 percent of the time frame currently layed out.
Donn Clark

Every time the story is the same. We are consistently underestimating the speed with which things are changing. I find it very worrying...

I should note that conservatism is a hallmark of both science and in particular of the IPCC process.  As a result, there are good reasons to expect that the IPCC represents a "lower limit" on reality.

Isn't it funny that our skeptics are always very certain that CO2 is no issue and yet also state that the models are uncertain. If these models are no good why don't these skeptical scientists construct their own models that show a different picture? Surely if all these models are junk you should statistically see a nice spread of models.

Yet what apparently happens is that models that have been verified using past data seem to point into one, rather bad, direction...

I predict that "what y'all call climate change" (ie drought and clear skies) will increase, but hey, the maximum air temperatures will never be much more than "normal for a clear sky day", but soon your minimum temperatures will plummet.  The temperature range will widen until all the clouds are dead.

Read all about in "The Death of Clouds" book, available now.

Good luck..  I will eat may Akubra Aussie Hat if this does not happen in the not too distant future.

omegafour.com

Because anything that runs on a given platform must necessarily be funded by the manufacturers of that platform!

How exactly does this process work?  Can I just write a bunch of random programs that run on Windows and then wait for the checks to roll in from Microsoft?  Cause if so... wow, this is an amazing new funding source!  Student loan payoffs, here I come!

eriga,

I don't know how you get in... I sold my soul years ago to the secret world government. I started of with the hiding of the cure for cancer and have since worked on several projects. Hiding the car that runs on water, masking the lethal oil microlayer that covers our oceans and now on the indoctrination of the world population regarding global warming so the secret communist world government can take full control... hahaha!

Dr Dessler is merely an instrument providing us with evil models. Obviously the linux users are the last remaining resistance we will need to wipe out...

I have to admit that models give me the heeby jeebies. Scientifically-speaking. I do sociology stuff, pretty fluffy compared to model-building. I just sat through an economics class discussing a particular model and it makes perfect sense - this is where the math comes from, these are the assumptions, these are externalities. I've always thought that economists sacrificed accuracy for precision, but alas, they don't listen to me ...

To return to the subject of climate models, they seem to be pretty similar. You're distilling what is real, boxing it, putting parameters around it. It's inherently a simplification of nature. And nature is very complex. Models will never reflect reality, they are tools to assist with decision-making. Then the policy-makers come in. They say, "so you've got all these models, these are the limitations and assumptions, and these are our options." Looking at the climate models, using the data available, it appears that climate change/global warming/Al Gore's conspiracy Theory best explains the data. The fact that this particular model underestimated the magnitude of temperature change doesn't invalidate the theory. It means the model was imperfect. More correctly, it was inaccurate. We have more data now. Of course. Time has passed, we've been collecting data. Intimately related, you might say. The data we have accumulated since this model was created have supported the theory, not disputed it.

There you go. Models.

Can someone provide a water hose here? All that straw dragged in here by jabailo is starting to build up...

Another addendum: one of my links was to a model paper. Sorry. I meant to provide a link that was to "tangible" evidence and I didn't. I'm gonna have to go do work, so I'll link one later.

Well, that settles it. If they thought higher temperatures were a good thing in April 1896 then why have all these poor scientists been working away for the last century and a bit?

A few things everyone should keep in mind:
climate models contain all of the physics that we think is going on in the atmosphere
they are not perfect, but models never are.  just because a model is admittedly imperfect does not mean it has no predictive power
disagreements between the model and the atmosphere contain useful information.  if the models underestimate the past 16 years of data, then one might reasonably expect that model predictions of warming over the next 100 years might also be underestimated.  it also provides information about improving the models.
those opposed to action on climate change MUST attack models ... not doing so would concede the existence of severe climate change.  thus, attempts to discredit the models should be expected.  bottom line is not to take these attacks at face value, since they are usually without basis, but instead read what the scientists actually say, which is described by the IPCC reports.

blueberrysushi-

You wrote:Are we underestimating rates of temperature change? Maybe. I wouldn't use one model, or even a bunch of models, to support or refute that statement. Chaos and surprise are part of nature, and we can't model those. Not well, anyhow.The ultimate goal, of course, is not to determine whether models are underestimating future climate change, but rather to provide policymakers with our best guess about what future climate change will be.  If you don't trust models, how would you estimate that?

Models are, by definition, imperfect representations of reality (past, present and future). Similarly, surveys or statistical samples are an imperfect representation of real populations.

Does that mean they are irrelevant? Hardly! Just ask any out-of-work politician who consistently ignored his/her poll numbers. Similarly, we ignore the climate models at risk of our peril. Of COURSE they're imperfect. But continued refinement makes them increasingly less imperfect and increasingly more relevant.

I find it interesting that so many of the same people who need more evidence before taking mitigative action in the face of GCC, are also some of the same people who pushed for war in Iraq based on sham evidence and hyperbole.

Andrew -
So here's another long thread focussed just where the shills want it to be focussed -
on the reliability of the science that predicted GW, and has now thoroughly confirmed the accuracy of the prediction by observation,

rather than on just what we are going to do about it, how, when, and with whom.

The shills' owners (they are after all bought & paid for) presume that doing something about GW
will mean hacking the sales of their fossil fuel products,
and may well entail their inditement, trial and imprisonment for culpable mass homicide.

Is it any wonder the poor shills have to persist with such a tedious monotony of propagande?

What is a wonder to me is just why Grist feels the need to keep trailing its coat by posting invites for the shills' participation.

Regards,

Bill

Didn't call for it earlier, but I stand corrected.  This is a huge waste of time for everyone involved; it's the same recycled crap over and over.

Also, Andrew should be nominated for sainthood.  The patience of a mountain...

Not everybody denying AGW is a shill. I personally know plenty of those people. Some just don't buy it.

Although I agree wholeheartedly that it becomes tiresome, I'm not convinced that answering the critics is bad medicine.

In short (since this was beaten to death on another thread or two recently):

a) There ARE plenty of posts and threads on Grist that DO discuss in great detail what we can do to mitigate GW. Answering critics doesn't take that away.

b) There remain plenty of minds out there that need changing and CAN BE changed. Not to mention those who are simply unsure. Minds only change one at a time. And I'm talking about people who are generally silent on this forum, but, rest assured, are out there (hence Andrew's frequent addressing of "The Lurkers"). Further, there are plenty of folks (like me) who often forward links to some of the more enlightened and enlightening discussions that transpire on Grist. We forward them to friends and relatives who may not otherwise be exposed to some of these ideas and arguments. Friends and relatives who can be persuaded, using ideas of which many are very presuasive if not wholly correct. And folks like jabailo provide just the "talent" needed to play the role of the villain. Every story needs an antagonist.