A new paper was published in Nature that finds that natural forces may offset human-caused global warming over the next few decades. This is very interesting because it means that our current global climate models tell us almost nothing of value. But don’t take my word for it, take from Roger Pielke, Jr, a  professor of  Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He writes:

I am sure that this is an excellent paper by world class scientists. But when I look at the broader significance of the paper what I see is that there is in fact nothing that can be observed in the climate system that would be inconsistent with climate model predictions. If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun.

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Don’t get me wrong, models are great tools for probing our understanding and exploring various assumptions about how nature works. But scientists think they know with certainty that carbon dioxide leads to bad outcomes for the planet, so future modeling will only refine that fact. I am focused on the predictive value of the models, which appears to be nil. So models have plenty of scientific value left in them, but tools to use in planning or policy? Forget about it.

Just a reminder–all the threats of climate doom are based on the global climate models. But the modelers don’t tell us what real-world happenings would falsify their predictions (as real science would require). Climate models have their place, but they shouldn’t be used for planning or policy.