Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Article: pp. 303–311

How Well Do Coupled Models Simulate Today's Climate?

Thomas Reichler and Junsu Kim

Department of Meteorology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-89-3-303

ABSTRACT
Information about climate and how it responds to increased greenhouse
gas concentrations depends heavily on insight gained from numerical
simulations by coupled climate models. The confidence placed in
quantitative estimates of the rate and magnitude of future climate
change is therefore strongly related to the quality of these models.
In this study, we test the realism of several generations of coupled
climate models, including those used for the 1995, 2001, and 2007
reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By
validating against observations of present climate, we show that the
coupled models have been steadily improving over time and that the
best models are converging toward a level of accuracy that is similar
to observation-based analyses of the atmosphere.

Also see:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/scien...ervations.html

--- = --- = --- = ---

A significant source of future climate uncertainty is human behavior.

-.-. --.- Roger