Bascule, maybe I'm being dense, but I don't see how the Meehl paper backs your argument. To counter the idea of inaccuracy, you offer a paper that projects 200 years into the future. If you are referring to the passage
The warming in both the PCM and CCSM3 is close to the observed value of about 0.6°C for the 20th century (19), with PCM warming 0.6°C and CCSM3 warming 0.7° (averaged over the period 1980–1999 in relation to 1890–1919).
as providing some proof of skill, it falls far short. It is not enough for a model to meet these absolute minimum requirements of final temp change/century. For example, a model might show a drop of 10
0 over 50 years and a rise of 10.6
0 and still meet this requirement. No one is suggesting this has happened, or that such a model would be accepted, but it illustrates that just getting the temp rise over a century roughly right is no proof of skill. They should model the full century, using
real world values.
You're big on the proof thing. In
another thread I asked if you could produce
one climate model projection that had a plateau in it, you have so far failed to do so. In a
different thread I asked if you could supply papers that reference the actual levels of pollutants and compare these to the models, again you failed to provide backing scientific papers.
I also notice that neither you or your comrades in arms have been able to supply any sort of answer to the question posed in
this thread. To wit,
"Why is there evidence of warming for the nation of New Zealand during the 20th Century only after GISS adjusted the data?"
As to the accuracy of the models,
Douglass 2007 and
"Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on comparisons with historical time series" delivered at the
European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2008 should be a good start.
Lastly, what's with the "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" bit? In what way is SL attempting to spread "fear"? Who is he trying to scare, and to what purpose? Perhaps he is out to instill fear into people that they won't drown and their cities won't be inundated, but I really can't see how anyone would be scared of that. Or is he simply instilling fear into the AGW crowd by asking questions that don't have easy answers?
"Uncertainty"? Are you claiming the models and projections are "certain"? To what level of accuracy?
"Doubt"? What's wrong with doubt? The only people who don't "doubt" are those who are so sure they are right that no evidence will convince them otherwise. I always thought that was the realm of the psychotic and the religious rather than science.
Unless you share the view of
Gavin Schmidt over at RC that there is "tacit" knowledge.
My piece tries to make the point that most of what scientists know is "tacit" (i.e. not explicitly or often written down in the technical literature) and it is that knowledge that allows them to quickly distinguish (with reasonable accuracy) what new papers are worth looking at in detail and which are not.
If it's not in the literature, how do you get the knowledge? Is there some sort of ritual? Darkened rooms, hooded cloaks, candles and goats come to mind.
For the life of me, I can't imagine Swansont or any other person here making such a claim. But it must be true, RC says so.