Hotter and Faster....Maybe.

Global warming models are critical to understanding the impact of atmospheric CO2 build-up on almost every aspect of life on the planet.  Sea level rise, loss of arable land, species extinction, wildfire risks, deforestation…..the doomsday list goes on and on. 

For almost 50 years these models have had a strong track record in predicting global warming.  The results of those models figure strongly in the calculations and international commitments made in the Paris Agreement.  The global response to a predicted three decree Celsius temperature increase by 2100 is based on the scientific models.

“Particularly impressive” were models from the 1970s because there wasn’t much observable evidence for warming at that time. Back then, the paper noted, “the world was thought to have been cooling for the past few decades.”

In the last year, warming models have begun to generate results that indicate that both the magnitude of warming and the timeframe for meaningful human action are much more critical.   It's getting hotter faster are the basic results of multiple highly respected models.

The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century. Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year. If the same amount of climate pollution will bring faster warming than previously thought, humanity would have less time to avoid the worst impacts.

Warming models have become more sophisticated over the years and more complex.  The basic data doesn’t change, but assumptions regarding the impact of both current warming, human activity and even clouds can influence the results the models predict.  Scientists know that the models are critical to the complex web of political considerations and decision that must be made to ameliorate the worst impact of global warming.  They are working to refine the models and develop a consensus of the scenarios to help shape the necessary global response.

In the next year, climate-modeling groups will peruse each other’s results to figure out how seemingly good improvements in cloud and aerosol science may have pushed the models into hotter states. These conversations happen in the open, through peer-reviewed journals, conferences and blog posts. The authors of the main UN climate-science reports will follow along and try to stitch together a big picture, for release in 2021.