Climate Prediction Models Can Be Wrong?!!?

Well, the hurricane season came in with a whimper and is leaving the same way. Despite dire predictions of terrible hurricanes the season was a bust.

"That means the hurricane experts, who pride themselves on their sophisticated computer models and state-of-the-art forecasting tools, were less accurate than even the average TV weather forecaster on the 10 p.m. news.

"The biggest mistake forecasters made this year was failing to predict the onset of an El Niño weather pattern during the summer. El Niño, a periodic warm-water trend in the Pacific, almost always suppresses hurricane activity in the Atlantic by creating more crosswinds in the upper atmosphere that tear apart tropical storms before they can become hurricanes.

"Experts said other factors impeded the formation of hurricanes as well, including large dust storms off West Africa and a strong sinking of warm air over the Caribbean. And currents over the Atlantic pushed storms northward and back out to sea." (Here.)

What a shock. Scientific modeling failed to take account of all possible variables and as a result reality failed to conform to predictions. Yet we are supposed to believe computer models can predict the climate 50 years from now? O wait, that's right. Global warming predictions are made by "supercomputers." A computer that's super can't be wrong. Can it?

-tdr

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