Read here. Scientists know that the variability of the northern Pacific has a huge impact on global climate. If IPCC climate models are ever to successfully predict future climate changes, they first need to be able to predict the variability of the northern Pacific ocean. A new study by Furtado et al. confirms what has long been suspected, the IPCC climate models are unable to deal with the Pacific ocean variability.
The North Pacific Decadal Variability (NPDV) is composed of two identified patterns of ocean variability. The first is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the second is the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), neither of which can be consistently predicted by the IPCC's models.
"The authors write that North Pacific Decadal Variability (NPDV) "is a key component in predictability studies of both regional and global climate change,"...they emphasize that given the links between both the PDO and the NPGO with global climate, the accurate characterization and the degree of predictability of these two modes in coupled climate models is an important "open question in climate dynamics" that needs to be addressed...report that model-derived "temporal and spatial statistics of the North Pacific Ocean modes exhibit significant discrepancies from observations in their twentieth-century climate...conclude that "for implications on future climate change, the coupled climate models show no consensus on projected future changes in frequency of either the first or second leading pattern of North Pacific SST anomalies," and they say that "the lack of a consensus in changes in either mode also affects confidence in projected changes in the overlying atmospheric circulation."" [Jason C. Furtado, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, Niklas Schneider, Nicholas A. Bond 2011: Journal of Climate]
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