Flaws in climate models

A principle of simplicity - Because the GHG physics is clear and concise when approached from heating Earth's surface, to calculate the impact of a change in GHG levels on Earth's temperature, there is no need to start modeling any other complexities of the climate. 

Modeling those other complexities does serve some purposes such as short term and long term geographical weather analysis, but adds no value to solving the Earth's temperature change from rising GHGs, and in fact impedes it.  For those who enjoy the challenge of solving it with complex models trying to track the radiant power transfers coming into and going out of the upper atmosphere, it holds all the difficulty and promise of accuracy like setting up toll booths to try and monitor ants coming and going from a picnic area. 

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"

Albert Einstein

​If you'd like to have a refresher of the GHG science, the whole science, and nothing but the science, click to see this physics summary.

Flaws in climate models - Below are examples of some fundamental photon-physics flaws performed by others that attempt to predict the change in Earth's temperature when GHG levels change.  The models are flawed in solving the GHG impact because they are either too simple, unnecessarily complex, contain incorrect or problematic choices in methods, or incorrect physics understandings.   In other words, they fail to solve the GHG effect computations because they underspecify, extraneously specify, or incorrectly specify the GHG effect.     
​

1. Models that imply a runaway greenhouse effect and that we are nearing a point of no return are not based on GHG physics and are wrong.  Even Venus's high temperature is not mainly due to CO2.  The Venus calculation details will be released at a later date on this website to quantify the accounting for Venus' high temperature but the portion of the temperature attributable to its CO2 is roughly 17% and is easily computed with a similar GHG calculator.   The remainder of Venus' temperature gradient can be attributed to adiabatic expansion in the first 35 km from the surface and the thermal resistance of the 50 km thick cloud layer above that which is the dominant reason for Venus' having such a high surface temperature as it throttles the transfer of heat from its lower region to its upper region before it radiates into outer space.
2. Models that use heuristic rules​ instead of performing detailed photon energy computations are intrinsically useless.  An example of a useless heuristic is the claimed log (base 2) relationship between change in temperature and a change in CO2 concentration.
3. Models that include effects that are outside of the GHG effect are needlessly complex and off-target and may introduce sources of error by compounding uncertainties
4. Similar to 2, but specific to parameters, models that use fitting parameters derived from various extraneous things outside of the GHG effect and where there is significant sensitivity to accurate values of the parameters are unreliable models; they are also needlessly complex and off-target. An example would be correlating historical GHG rise to a believed historical temperature rise.
5. Models that infer GHG absorption can directly contribute to increasing the temperature of the air through molecular collisions are incorrect
6. Models that assign an average absorption coefficient for a given GHG band are incorrect because they are too simplistic and so are inaccurate for any computation of the temperature change caused by a change in a GHG level
7. Models that attempt to do an energy balance analysis between incoming solar radiation and outgoing infrared photons into outer space are problematic methods with compounding uncertainties and are needlessly complex.  The calculations should be done in the ground direction of the effect and not the outer space direction of the effect to eliminate all of the compounding uncertainties that occur in the latter method of calculating.   
8. Models that assign an emissivity for Earth's air molecules in the atmosphere are incorrect because gases are not emitters in the blackbody sense since only condensed matter (molecules in constant intimate contact with each other) exhibit blackbody radiation.  
9. Models that don't span the Earth's blackbody spectrum from 3um to 100um to include the power back to Earth "amplification" effect of H2O between the 20um and 100um region from a change in Earth's emissions between 3um to 20um from the combined GHGs; those models are lacking and inaccurate
10. Models that propose a significant H2O amplification effect due to evaporation, from CO2 caused heating, ​appear to be incorrect as explained at the end of Scenario 1 in the second point there​​
11. Models that don't integrate the simultaneous effects of CO2, CH4, N2O and H2O are insufficient and this can cause a significant error in overestimating the temperature rise when GHG levels increase
12. Models that don't compute the scatter effect by integrating the effect with detailed absorption coefficient tables across the entire blackbody spectrum and up through the thinning atmosphere to include the weaker areas of the absorption bands are lacking and inaccurate because that is the only way to compute the total Earth heating effect accurately

Noteworthy comments:

• Flaw 7, the "toll booth" computations of the incoming solar energy and outgoing infrared energy, is a logical flaw in picking between either end of the GHG effect - computing what escapes versus what gets captured and causes heating. The outer space end involves modeling something hard with compounding uncertainties while the ground end is much easier with calculatable known physics and virtually no uncertainties as the significance of possible uncertainties can be tested in sensitivity analyses and with calculatable known physics. 
• Flaw 8, that upper atmospheric gases are blackbody emitters, is a failure in photon physics understanding in the climate change modeling community. The only blackbody emission sources radiating into outer space are the Earth's surface, clouds, and haze because blackbody radiation requires condensed matter. If anyone wants more proof that gases and not blackbody sources, Climate Bell can provide it. This means the Schwartzschild's equation for radiative transfer is not valid because it treats the emission from GHGs as a temperature-dependent "pseudo-blackbody" emission effect instead of a scattering effect from this definition of scattering.

Summary of flaws - These are only some of the model problems resulting in poor accuracy with wide uncertainties that are in use by others attempting to address GHG caused climate change.  The list should not be considered the complete list of modeling flaws found in the climate change industry, but it should help those seeking some understanding as to why the predictions are so poor and the expected temperature rise is expressed with a wide range and hence a lack of precision.