Is more computing power just getting us the wrong results from overheated models faster?
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Outside of their academic fascination, looked at in terms of their contribution to climate policy, it seems that we may have reached the useful limit of computer climate modelling, says Dr. David Whitehouse.
The first computers built in the 1950s allowed climate scientists to think about modelling the climate using this new technology.
The first usable computer climate models were developed in the mid-1970s.
Shortly afterwards the US National Academy of Sciences used their outcomes to estimate a crucial climate parameter we still calculate today – the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) – how much the world would warm (from ‘pre-industrial’ levels) with a doubling of CO2 — and concluded that it had a range of 1.5 – 4.5°C.
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