Garbage In, Garbage Out

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Some believe that the pause in warming may last as long as 30 years, as recently reported by The Discover Channel. But just what’s causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths. Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the sun’s energy than usual back out into space. What has become obvious is that there are strong physical processes (natural variations) which are not yet understood, and are not yet adequately accounted for in the GCMs.  The models did not predict the current cooling.  There has been lots of speculation about what is causing the present pattern - changes in solar activity, changes in ocean circulation, etc.  But whatever it is, it is not adequately factored into any GCMs. One of the most fundamental rules of computer modeling is that if you don’t understand something and you can’t explain it, you can’t model it.