| > I am asking for the methodology used to test climate models. I do not have specific sources about that myself, perhaps someone else > is flawed. You can observe large numbers of people. We can only observe one planet. Good point, I hadn't considered that. Still, one can observe a lot of states over time: Earth with an average global temperature of x°C where the CO2=x, sun_state=y, number_of_penguins=z, etc., then the same set of parameters for another temperature. Check which one turns out to always be followed by a rise in temperature the next month/year/decade. (If the number of penguins turns out to be highly correlated, remember you read it here first! :P yes I'm joking about correlation vs. causation which, based on what you wrote already, I'm sure you know about.) Whether the methods from the paper I found earlier can work 1:1 with this other approach, I'd have to check (or find what other methods are/were being used in climate science specifically), but that's how this must be done because we indeed have barely any data on other earthlike planets > its seems people read even asking questions about climate models as a claim that climate change is not happening, or human beings are not a major cause, or something similar. Yes, I've noticed that as well. There are some downvoted comments of mine (also on reddit) for the same reason. It's a very fine line to walk, making it clear that you're obviously understanding of reality but also wondering about some detail aspect of climate change When there's some doubt and it could be a legitimate question, I always try to find the time to comment without downvoting because, that way, we keep in conversation and other people might also get more insight, but alas I don't always have time and it's common that I see posts (even on a place like stackoverflow where posts are typically rather objective) downvoted without commenting the reason |