Climate Predictions: Better Hindcasts Will Lead To Better Forecasts
It is well known that there are a lot of knobs turning in climate. Current models are assumption-based, with a set of fixed parameters and a solution that involves converging on an answer, and the assumptions impact the value that model accuracy has versus actual accuracy. To get a good climate model for the future, we first have to have good climate models about the past. Researchers with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel recently managed to successfully 'hindcast' climate shifts in the Pacific. These shifts also have a profound effect on the average global surface air temperature of the Earth and the most recent shift in the 1990s is one of the reasons that the Earth's temperature has not risen further since 1998. read more