I

n 2007, a computer model predicted that the Arctic would be free of ice by 2013, but in 2013, Arctic ice was abundant.

Two years ago, a UK government computer model predicted that '€œdroughts were the new norm'€. A recent UK Met Office forecast said this winter would be drier than normal. Just two months later, the UK suffered huge floods.

Here in Australia, former climate commissioner Tim Flannery is famed for his frequently failed forecasts of droughts and sea levels.

The so-called '€œGore Effect'€ is equally infamous '€” it produces snow wherever Big Al delivers another sermon on the fire and brimstone that awaits us if the wicked world keeps using demon carbon fuels.

All western governments have done massive damage to their economies and their electricity generators and consumers by putting their faith in computer models based on one fragile assumption '€” that future global temperatures are determined mainly by the miniscule levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They compound this error by assuming that water vapor feedback will multiply any warming effect from carbon dioxide.

In fact, water probably plays a negative temperature-moderating role.

Fed with false input assumptions of ever-rising carbon dioxide and magnified with positive water feedback, the models naturally produce output forecasts with a chronic warm bias, all of which have been proved wrong.

Honest weather forecasters never claim reliability beyond a few days.

To believe that a mechanistic computer model can produce useful predictions for a decade ahead shows that zealotry has replaced scientific prudence in too many circles.

Climate variables never continue along straight-line trends '€” all are affected by cycles and oscillations in the Earth'€™s orbit, sunspots, cosmic rays, ocean currents, cloud cover, volcanic activity and the solar system.

Practical forecasters have long recognized these cyclic influences and some show skill in projecting them.

Viv Forbes
Queensland, Australia