As my thoughts have turned increasingly to climate models in recent months, I thought I might take a look to see how Julia Slingo described these mathematical behemoths in the briefing she sent up to central government in the wake of Climategate - I have criticised this document on a number of occasions in the past (1, 2, 3).
Considering just how central climate models are to the case for DAGW* I was taken aback by how little Slingo had to say on the subject. And what she said was, to say the least, surprising. Here it is:
Models have been used that take into account all the factors that influence climate. These models have been able to simulate the historic changes in global and regional temperatures and have shown that most the warming over the past half century has been caused by the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations.
There are a couple of passim mentions elsewhere in the document, but in essence that is what the Met Office feels that people in government need to know about climate models.
It's hard to know where to begin. I wonder whether anyone will seek to defend Slingo's paper as a fair representation of the reliability and importance of climate models.
Readers should feel free to critique Slingo's words, but please avoid venting. I'm more interested in what policymakers should be told about climate models. I think we should allow ourselves slightly more space than Slingo - shall we say eight sentences?
*Dangerous anthropogenic global warming - "dangerous" being perhaps a less emotive term than "catastrophic".