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And what about global warming models?
This article is all about how after decades we still can't model the weather accurately with computer models. And nobody sees similar problems with the computer models we use for global warming?
While weather forecasting and climate modeling aren't really the same thing, they both are about modeling energy transfer in fluids. The equations involved are massive systems of partial differential equations solved numerically on a computer. You need huge amounts of accurate data on a very small granular basis to feed these models, and you need to know the initial conditions very precisely.
With climate much of the data from before the 1980s is only surface temperatures taken on land at random sites mostly near cities. We had no idea of the temperatures of the ocean at various depths all over the world. We had no idea of the temperatures of the air at various altitudes. We had very little idea of flows in the atmosphere and especially the oceans. Yet all of these are necessary for accurate climate modeling. Instead, we are forced to use primitive proxies such as tree rings, ice cores, and ocean sediment cores to get temperatures. No weather model would ever use as data, for example, a diary entry that says "It's hot today", but that's almost what we're reduced to out of necessity in climate modeling.
The result is that climate models can't be nearly as accurate as weather models are. Scientists make guesses about data and and simplify the equations to sets that are still very complex. What happens is that they come up with a model that accurately predicts the last 150 years or so where we do have some data, and they compare models. We are supposed to get all excited when they say their models do this, but if a model doesn't it just get tweaked or the data massaged until it does. And then we are supposed to believe we can use this "foot long ruler" of the last 150 years to accurately measure the hundreds of "miles" of the earth's climate history.
This is not to say that climate scientists aren't very smart or aren't making an honest attempt to understand and model the climate. But climate science is still very young. It's like asking the physicists of the 1920s and 1930s to use their new science of quantum mechanics to come up with the Standard Model of particles when they only knew about and could predict a few particles.
Normally watching climate science mature would an exciting thing for interested laypersons. As examples, think about what we've learned about anthropology, paleontology, geology, physics, and medicine in the last 50 years. But the problem with climate science is that we are asked to globally gamble tens of trillions of dollars on this new science. Special interests are more than ready to use climate science to promote their own agenda, such as we must go back to living as our ancestors did (the same thing they were saying back in the '60s before climate became an issue). And scientists are only human. Some use it simply to advance their own careers, and many more know that their careers are dead if they question it.
While weather forecasting and climate modeling aren't really the same thing, they both are about modeling energy transfer in fluids. The equations involved are massive systems of partial differential equations solved numerically on a computer. You need huge amounts of accurate data on a very small granular basis to feed these models, and you need to know the initial conditions very precisely.
With climate much of the data from before the 1980s is only surface temperatures taken on land at random sites mostly near cities. We had no idea of the temperatures of the ocean at various depths all over the world. We had no idea of the temperatures of the air at various altitudes. We had very little idea of flows in the atmosphere and especially the oceans. Yet all of these are necessary for accurate climate modeling. Instead, we are forced to use primitive proxies such as tree rings, ice cores, and ocean sediment cores to get temperatures. No weather model would ever use as data, for example, a diary entry that says "It's hot today", but that's almost what we're reduced to out of necessity in climate modeling.
The result is that climate models can't be nearly as accurate as weather models are. Scientists make guesses about data and and simplify the equations to sets that are still very complex. What happens is that they come up with a model that accurately predicts the last 150 years or so where we do have some data, and they compare models. We are supposed to get all excited when they say their models do this, but if a model doesn't it just get tweaked or the data massaged until it does. And then we are supposed to believe we can use this "foot long ruler" of the last 150 years to accurately measure the hundreds of "miles" of the earth's climate history.
This is not to say that climate scientists aren't very smart or aren't making an honest attempt to understand and model the climate. But climate science is still very young. It's like asking the physicists of the 1920s and 1930s to use their new science of quantum mechanics to come up with the Standard Model of particles when they only knew about and could predict a few particles.
Normally watching climate science mature would an exciting thing for interested laypersons. As examples, think about what we've learned about anthropology, paleontology, geology, physics, and medicine in the last 50 years. But the problem with climate science is that we are asked to globally gamble tens of trillions of dollars on this new science. Special interests are more than ready to use climate science to promote their own agenda, such as we must go back to living as our ancestors did (the same thing they were saying back in the '60s before climate became an issue). And scientists are only human. Some use it simply to advance their own careers, and many more know that their careers are dead if they question it.
Edited by zackers
Updated - 12th Sep