Models or Measures of Climate Change: Why Does It Matter?

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Much of our understanding of anthropogenic climate change, and much of the debate over climate science and climate policy is based on information generated via mathematical modeling. Rarely, if ever, do we see much discussion of empirical measurements of climate change; global average temperature and sea level are rare exceptions. But empirical measurements of climate policy impacts, empirical measurements of changes that might, or might not, validate modeled projections of such climate changes, or empirical measurement of meteorological (weather) changes are scarce to non-existent in most media.

The list of modeled components of climate-change discourse is endless and model output information dominates nearly every element of discourse about the climate: modeling of how the climate works, modeling of what human activities influence the global climate, modeling of how human activities might influence the local climate, modeling of how climate changes manifest as weather or meteorological changes; modeling of how those activities might change over time, modeling of how public policies involving greenhouse gas controls might mitigate climate change; modeling of how people might respond to climate policies behaviourally (economically) and on and on.