Communications of the ACM
What Do Computer Models Reveal About Likely Impacts of Climate Change?
Climate models have improved in the past couple of decades, yet impact models which show the effects on agriculture, flooding, drought and even human health still have a level of uncertainty.
Credit: U.K. Department for International Development / Flickr
The underlying science behind climate models has greatly improved in the past couple of decades, partly due to a concerted research effort known as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Through that work, scientists have improved the accuracy of climate models and their representation of Earth's physical processes.
Another type of model used to project climate impacts, however, still has significant uncertainty, researchers say. These models, called impact models, take the climate model outputs that show changes in the atmosphere and ocean systems and translate them into effects on things like agriculture, flooding, drought, and even human health.
But impact models are still in their early stages, with somewhat unreliable projections.
From Scientific American
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