Re: "more than 3,000 forecasts and predictions each day"
Although it is derivatives of the same models that are used for climate research, the way the models are run for forecast and climate research is very different.
There is no way that anybody is going to claim that they can tell what the weather is going to be on Christmas day 2099 (well, not unless they have a time machine), but what climate work is trying to tell is, for example in the decade of 2090, whether the average temperature will be higher or lower than it is in this decade.
My own view is that we still don't understand all the inputs to the way that the global weather and climate systems work to be able to model it over longer periods very well at the moment, but trying to model it is a journey that may, eventually, give us something that is more representative. Unless we start this journey, we will never get to that point, which justifies the effort.
It's the people who think that we are at the end of that journey already, and that the current models are accurate that really get my goat!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
