Re: [asa] Level of certainty in science

On Feb 8, 2007, at 12:39 AM, Don Winterstein wrote:

>
>
> On the face of it one of the more disturbing things about trust in
> climate scientists' predictions is their record or lack thereof on
> forecasts. We know how to do hindcasts, and after fiddling
> endlessly with them they can look impressive. But forecasts--if
> accurate--are where the payoff will be. How good are climate
> scientists at forecasting anything? To my knowledge they have no
> record.

When you apply previous IPCC predications since they were made they
were able to effectively forecast against currently measured effects
in the following areas:

1. Global Average Surface Temperature
2. Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Levels
3. Upper Atmosphere Average Temperatures
4. Global Average Sea Surface Temperature
5. Climate Sensitivity

The models aren't good enough yet to forecast local effects and they
underestimated sea level rise. This shouldn't be surprising since
what was effectively forecast wasn't chaotic but doesn't work yet is.

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Received on Thu Feb 8 09:02:19 2007