Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
So whilst these models can be very informative and helpful they really can't be seen as empirical evidence and used as "proof" of AGW. Any proof that is discussed should be confined to empirical data and not computer models in my humble opinion.
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I agree with most of this statement, although I would argue that the climate modeling/climate observation sides of the equation are perhaps equally useful in climate science. The failure of models has, with targeted or improved observations, often led to new insight into physical climate processes, thus leading to better models, etc.
Climate models, or at the very least, the atmospheric general circulation modeling components of climate models, are quite thoroughly verified on a day-to-day basis... as weather prediction models. There has been a clear and documented improvement in forecast skill from numerical weather prediction models over time -- all jokes about weather prediction aside -- and these improvements feed into the climate models. There is a long way to go, but progress is being made.
Another thought. While fully coupled earth systems models are beyond the capability of individual researchers to run -- the complexity and computer resources are immense -- models of intermediate (and lesser) complexity are available to pretty much anyone. A skeptical climate scientist could, for example, code up and insert their own set of cloud feedback processes into such a model, run a suite of simulations, generate results, and write them up.
The point here is that I don't see a raft of simulations hitting peer review that contradict results from the current "consensus" of climate modelers, despite the fact that such results would be quite publishable if they seemed reasonable. Having been involved in the review process (as a reviewer) for a fair number of papers (say 10-20 per year) I haven't personally come across any quashing of well reasoned scientific experiments and simulations in climatology. (The UEA email messages on this point are a bit disturbing to me.)