What are the shortcomings of climate models?
Figure 10.The complexity of global climate models has increased enormously over the last 20 years. Beneath each time period is a list of the components included in state-of-the-art models such as the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model. (Source: NCAR) Global climate models –>climate models—the software packages that simulate the past, present, and future of our atmosphere—have grown in complexity and quality over the last 10 to 20 years. Yet even the earliest models of the 1960s, which were quite crude by today’s standards, showed that a doubling of carbon dioxide –>carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could increase global temperature by around 5°F (3°C). That projection remains close to the modern consensus, and temperatures over the last 30 years have risen at a rate consistent with this early estimate. The best climate models encapsulate the current understanding of the physical processes involved in the climate system –>climate system, the interactions, and the performance of