A new paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation explains how statistical forecasting methods can provide an important contrast to climate model-based predictions of future global warming. The repeated failures of economic models to generate accurate predictions has taught many economists a healthy scepticism about the ability of their own models, regardless of how complex, to provide reliable forecasts. Statistical forecasting has proven in many cases to be a superior alternative. Like the economy, the climate is a deeply complex system that defies simple representation. Climate modelling thus faces similar problems. —Global Warming Policy Foundation, 23 February 2016
The global average temperature is likely to remain unchanged by the end of the century, contrary to predictions by climate scientists that it could rise by more than 4C, according to a leading statistician. British winters will be slightly warmer but there will be no change in summer, Terence Mills, Professor of Applied Statistics at Loughborough University, said in a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He found that the average temperature had fluctuated over the past 160 years, with long periods of cooling after decades of warming. Dr Mills said scientists who argued that global warming was an acute risk to the planet tended to focus on the period from 1975-98, when the temperature rose by about 0.5C. He said that his analysis, unlike computer models used by the IPCC to forecast climate change, did not include assumptions about the rate of warming caused by rising emissions. “It’s extremely difficult to isolate a relationship between temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions,” he said. –Ben Webster, The Times, 23 February 2016
